"Or, one of the trio being absent, did you feel yourself excused ?" Mr.Carlyon glanced at her sharply, and then broke into a smile.
"Young woman, I do not think I have ever allowed you to read the Judgment of Paris," he said.

"Wherefore your question is ill-timed and irrelevant." Then they laughed together.

How well they knew one another!--not only over things Greek.

And presently they began their reading.

They were in the middle of Symonds' "Renaissance," and so forgot the outer world.
But after Halcyone had gone in the dusk through the park, the Professor sat in the firelight for a while, and did not ring for lights.