Masollam a Problem of the Period Author:Laurence Oliphant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 19 CHAPTER XVI. EVOLUTION IN AN EAKLY STAGE. It required the exercise of all the philosophy of which Reginald and Florence were capable, to enable them ... more »to bear the trials of the days which followed what the latter had termed " the change of partners." " It does not seem to me so very like whist, Miss Hartwright, this game that we are playing," said Reginald one day. " At whist you usually quarrel with your partner; now you and I are very good friends, but we are more disposed to quarrel with our adversaries." " Oh, you do that at whist too, when they don't play fairly. And I must say I did not expect, when Sebastian and Amina were told to give up talking to us, that they were going to be so awfully attentive to each other." " Perhaps they were told to be that as well." " Then they take to their orders very kindly. They seem to enjoy each other's society. Don't you think so ?" " Perhaps they say the same of us." " It is not the same thing at all." Florence did not say why it was not the same thing; but Reginald understood the full significance of her remark. He knew that she loved Sebastian, and was doubtful as to the extent to which that love was returned; also that he loved Amina, and laboured under the same kind of uncertainty. " It seems to me," pursued the young lady, " that though I have never promised to accept any tests, they have managed to apply one to me which is just as severe as yours, and a good deal harder than Sebastian's. I cannot get rid of the suspicion, which has haunted me from the first, that we are all the victims of a deep-laid plot on the part of the old Masol- lams. I am sure that if Amina were told by her parents to marry Sebastian, she would do so as an act of obedience." " But that implies that your cousin is a consenting part...« less