She affected him beyond the scope of his wildest dreams.
He seemed to see that beneath the quiet surface of her manner, which was almost pathetically at hand and within reach for all the trivial demands of daily life, there was a spirit which she reserved or repressed for some reason either of loneliness or--could it be possible--of love.

Was it given to Rodney to see her unmasked, unrestrained, unconscious of her duties?
a creature of uncalculating passion and instinctive freedom?
No; he refused to believe it.

It was in her loneliness that Katharine was unreserved.

"I went back to my room by myself and I did--what I liked." She had said that to him, and in saying it had given him a glimpse of possibilities, even of confidences, as if he might be the one to share her loneliness, the mere hint of which made his heart beat faster and his brain spin.

He checked himself as brutally as he could.