That empty seat was reserved for Mr. Rickman, who was generally late.
On his arrival the blinds would be pulled down in deference to his
wish for a more perfect privacy. Meanwhile they remained up, so that
wandering persons in hansoms, lonely persons having furnished
apartments, persons living expensively in hotels or miserably in other
boarding-houses, might look in, and long to be received into Mrs.
Downey's, to enjoy the luxury, the comfort, the society.

The society--Yes; as Mrs. Downey surveyed her table and its guests,
her imagination ignored the base commercial tie; she felt herself to
be a social power, having called into existence an assembly so
various, so brilliant, and so gay. One thing only interfered with Mrs.
Downey's happiness, Mr. Rickman's habit of being late. Such a habit
would not have mattered so much in any of the other boarders, because,
remarkable as they were collectively, individually, Mrs. Downey seldom
thought of them unless they happened to be there, whereas with Mr.
Rickman, now, whether he was there or not, she could think of nothing
else.

And to-night Mr. Rickman was later than ever.

"I'm really beginning to be afraid," said Mrs. Downey, "that he can't
be coming."

The middle-aged gentleman, Mr. Soper, was heard muttering something to
the effect that he thought they could bear up if he didn't come.
Whereupon Mrs. Downey begged Mr. Soper's pardon in a manner which was
a challenge to him to repeat his last remark. Therefore he repeated
it.

"I say, I 'ope we can manage to bear up."

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Soper." (This from Mr. Spinks who adored
Rickman.)

"Well, really, I can't think how it is you and he don't seem to hit it
off together. A young fellow that can make himself so pleasant when he
likes."

"Ah-h! When he likes. And when he doesn't like? When he comes into the
room like a young lord with his head in the air, and plumps himself
down straight in front of you, and looks at you as if you were a
sorter ea'wig or a centerpede? Call that pleasant?"

Mr. Spinks chuckled behind his table napkin. "He means a centre piece.
Wouldn't he make a handsome one!"

Mr. Soper combined a certain stateliness of carriage with a restless
insignificance of feature.

"We all know," said Mrs. Downey, "that Mr. Rickman is a very reserved
gentleman. He has his own thoughts."

"Thoughts? I've got my thoughts. But they don't make me disagreeable
to everybody."

Mr. Spinks craned forward as far as the height of his collar permitted
him. "I wouldn't be too cock-sure if I were you, Mr. Soper."

The young end of the table heaved and quivered with primeval mirth.
Even Flossie Walker was moved to a faint smile. For Mr. Soper, though
outwardly taciturn and morose, was possessed inwardly by a perfect
fury of sociability, an immortal and insatiable craving to converse.
It was an instinct which, if gratified, would have undermined the
whole fabric of the Dinner, being essentially egoistic, destructive
and malign. Mr. Soper resented the rapidity with which Rickman had
been accepted by the boarding-house; he himself, after two years'
residence, only maintaining a precarious popularity by little
offerings of bon-bons to the ladies. Hence the bitterness of his
present mood.

"There are thoughts _and_ thoughts," said Mrs. Downey severely, for
the commercial gentleman had touched her in a very sensitive place.
"And when Mr. Rickman is in wot I call 'is vein, there's nobody like
him for making a dinner go off."

Here Mr. Soper achieved a sardonic, a really sardonic smile. "Oh, of
course, if you're eludin' to the young gentleman's appetite--"

But this was insufferable, it was wounding Mrs. Downey in the
tenderest spot of all. The rose of her face became a peony.

"I'm doing no such thing. If any gentleman wishes to pay me a
compliment--" her gay smile took for granted that no gentleman could
be so barbarous as not to feel that wish--"let him show an appetite.
As for the ladies, I wish they had an appetite to show. Mr. Partridge,
let me give you a little more canary pudding. It's as light as light.
No? Oh--come, Mr. Partridge."

Mr. Partridge's gesture of refusal was so vast, so expressive, that it
amounted to a solemn personal revelation which implied, not so much
that Mr. Partridge rejected canary pudding as that he renounced
pleasure, of which canary pudding was but the symbol and the sign.

"Mr. Spinks then? He'll let me give him another slice, _I_ know."

"You bet. Tell you wot it is, Mrs. Downey, the canary that pudding was
made of, must have been an uncommonly fine bird."

There was a swift step on the pavement, the determined click of a
latch-key, and the clang of a closing door.

"Why, here _is_ Mr. Rickman," said Mrs. Downey, betraying the
preoccupation of her soul.

Rickman's entrance produced a certain vibration down both sides of the
table, a movement unanimous, yet discordant, as if the nerves of this
social body that was "Mrs. Downey's" were being played upon every way
at once. Each boarder seemed to be preparing for an experience that,
whether agreeable or otherwise, would be disturbing to the last
degree. The birds of passage raised their heads with a faint flutter.
Miss Walker contemplated a chromo-lithograph with a dreamy air. Mr.
Soper strove vainly to fix himself in an attitude of dignified
detachment.

The boarding-house was about to suffer the tremendous invasion of a
foreign element. For a moment it was united.

Mrs. Downey's face revealed a grave anxiety. She was evidently asking
herself: "Was he, or was he not, in his vein?"

A glance at the object of his adoration decided the question for Mr.
Spinks. Rickman was, thank goodness, _not_ in his vein, in which state
he was incomprehensible to anybody but Miss Roots. He was in that
comparatively commonplace condition which rendered him accessible to
Mr. Spinks.

"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce my friend, the lyte Mr.
Ryzors. Jemima, show the deceased gentleman to his chair. Miss
Walker, Mr. Ryzors. He is really 'appy to myke your acquaintance, Miss
Walker, though at first sight he may not appear so. Wot you might be
apt to mistyke for coldness is merely 'is intense reserve."

"Oh, dry up, Spinks."

No, Mr. Rickman was certainly not in his vein this evening. He made no
apology whatever for his lateness. He ignored the commercial
gentleman's "Good-evening, Rickman." As he slipped into his place
between Miss Walker and Miss Roots he forgot his usual "Busy to-day at
the Museum, Miss Roots?"--a question that recognized her as a fellow
worker in the fields of literature, thus lightening the obscurity that
hid her labours there.

And for Miss Flossie's timid greeting (the lifting of her upper lip
that just showed two dear little white teeth) he gave back a reluctant
and embarrassed smile. He used to like sitting by Flossie because she
was so pretty and so plump. He used to be sorry for her, because she
worked so hard, and, though plump, was so pathetically anaemic and so
shy. Critically considered, her body, in spite of its plumpness, was a
little too small for her head, and her features were a little too
small for her face, but then they were so very correct, as correct as
her demeanour and the way she did her hair. She had clusters and curls
and loops and coils of hair, black as her eyes, which were so black
that he couldn't tell the iris from the pupil. Not that Flossie had
ever let him try. And now he had forgotten whether they were black or
blue, forgotten everything about them and her. Flossie might be as
correct as Flossie pleased, she simply didn't matter.

When she saw him smile she turned up her eyes to the chromo-lithograph
again. The little clerk brought with her from the City an air of
incorruptible propriety, assumed for purposes of self-protection, and
at variance with her style of hair-dressing and the blueness and
gaiety of her blouse. With all that it implied and took for granted,
it used to strike him as pathetic. But now, he didn't find Flossie in
the least pathetic.

He was waiting for the question which was bound to come.

It came from Spinks, and in a form more horrible than any that he had
imagined.

"I say, Rickets, wot did you want all those shirts for down in
Devonshire?"

Instead of replying Rickets blew his nose, making his
pocket-handkerchief conceal as much of his face as possible. At that
moment he caught Miss Bishop staring at him, and if there was one
thing that Mr. Rickman disliked more than another it was being stared
at. Particularly by Miss Bishop. Miss Bishop had red hair, a loose
vivacious mouth, and her stare was grossly interrogative.

Flossie sent out a little winged look at him like a soft dark
butterfly. It skimmed and hovered about him, and flitted, too ethereal
to alight.

Miss Bishop however had no scruples, and put it to him point blank.

"Devonshire?" said Miss Bishop, "what were you doing down there?" She
planted her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her
finger-tips; her stare thus tilted was partly covered by her eyelids.

"If you really want," said Mr. Spinks, "to see that gentleman
opposite, you'll have to take a telescope." The adoring youth
conceived that it had been given to him alone of the boarders to
penetrate the mind of Rickman, that he was the guardian of his mood,
whose mission it was to protect him from the impertinent approaches of
the rest.

"A telescope? Wot d'you mean?"

"Don't you think he's got a sort of a far-away look? Especially about
the mouth and nose?"

Whether it was from being stared at or for some other reason, but by
this time Mr. Rickman had certainly become a little distant. He was
not getting on well with anybody or anything, not even with Mrs.
Downey's excellent dinner, nor yet with the claret, an extra ordered
for his private drinking, always to Mrs. Downey's secret trepidation.
She gave a half-timid, half-tender look at him and signalled to her
ladies to withdraw. She herself remained behind, superintending the
removal of the feast; keeping a motherly eye, too, on the poor boy and
his claret. Ever since that one dreadful Sunday morning when she had
found him asleep in full evening dress upon his bedroom floor, Mrs.
Downey was always expecting to see him drop under the table. He had
never done it yet, but there was no knowing when he mightn't.

Whatever the extent of Mr. Rickman's alleged intemperance, his was not
the vice of the solitary drinker, and to-night the claret was nearly
all drunk by Spinks and Soper. It had the effect of waking in the
commercial gentleman the demon of sociability that slept.

What Mr. Soper wanted to know was whether Rickman could recommend
'Armouth as a holiday resort? Could he tell him of any first-class
commercial hotel or boarding-house down there? To which Rickman
replied that he really couldn't tell him anything at all.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Downey, peering over the edge of the table-cloth
she was helping to fold. "Perhaps he has his reasons."

The claret had made Mr. Soper not only sociable but jocose. "Reasons?
That's a new name for 'em. If he don't want more than one at a time, I
wish he'd introduce the rest of 'em to me."

"I daresay he would be very happy, if he thought you would understand
them, Mr. Soper."

"Understand 'em? Why, I don't suppose they talk Greek."

"Ryzors," said Spinks indignantly, "could give 'em points if they did.
He speaks the language."

Mr. Soper replied that in that case perhaps Mr. Rickman would oblige
him with the Greek for "crumby bits."

At the moment Mr. Rickman did not look like obliging Mr. Soper with
anything. The provocation was certainly immense. Mr. Soper's voice
inspired him with a fury of disgust. The muscles of his mouth
twitched; the blood rushed visibly to his forehead; he stood looming
over the table like a young pink thunder-god.

Mrs. Downey and Mr. Partridge retreated in some alarm. Mr. Soper,
however, was one of those people who are not roused but merely
disconcerted by the spectacle of passion. Mr. Soper said he supposed
he could "make a 'armless remark." And still thirsting for
companionship he pursued Mrs. Downey to the drawing-room. As he went,
he fingered his little box of bon-bons as if it had been a talisman or
charm.

Rickman poured himself out some claret which he drank slowly, with
closed eyelids, leaning back in his chair. "For God's sake, Spinks,"
he muttered; "don't speak to me."

"All right, old chappy, I won't." But he whispered, "I wouldn't go off
just yet, Ryzors, if I were you" (by "going off," Mr. Spinks meant
departure in a train of thought). "He'll be back in another minute."

He was back already, sociable, elated, smoking a cigar. Upstairs with
the ladies he and his bon-bons had met with unprecedented success.
Rickman opened his eyes.

"Ever try," said Mr. Soper, "a Flor di Dindigul? 'Ave one. You'll find
the flavour very delicate and mild." He held it out, that Flor di
Dindigul, as an olive branch to the tempestuous young man.

It was not accepted. It was not even seen.

Rickman rose to his feet. To his irritated vision the opposite wall
seemed to heave and bulge forward, its chocolate design to become
distended and to burst, spreading itself in blotches on the yellow
ochre. On the face of the hideous welter swam the face of Mr. Soper,
as it were bodiless and alone.

He drew in his breath with a slight shudder, pushed his chair back
from the table, and strode out of the room.

Spinks looked after him sorrowfully.

"Wy couldn't you leave him alone, Soper? You might see he didn't want
to talk."

"How could I see wot he wanted? One minute 'e's as chatty and
sociable--and the next he's up like three dozen of bottled stout.
_It's wot I sy._ You can't dee-pend on 'im with any certainty."

That opinion was secretly shared by Miss Flossie Walker.




CHAPTER XXXVIII


Rickman, it seemed, was doomed to inspire that sense of agonizing
uncertainty.

It was the second evening after his return. The Dinner was not going
off well. Miss Walker was depressed, Mr. Spinks was not in his
accustomed spirits, and Mrs. Downey had been going about with red eyes
all day. Mr. Rickman had confided to her the deplorable state of his
finances. And Mrs. Downey had said to herself she had known from the
first that he would not be permanent.

He didn't want to be permanent. He desired to vanish, to disappear
from the boarding-house and the boarders, and from Poppy Grace on the
balcony next door; to get away from every face and every voice that he
had known before he knew Lucia Harden's. Being convinced that he would
never see her again, he wanted to be alone with his vivid and piercing
memory of her. At first it was the pain that pierced. She had taken
out her little two-edged sword and stabbed him. It wouldn't have
mattered, he said, if the sword had been a true little sword, but it
wasn't; it had snapt and left a nasty bit of steel inside him. Her
last phrase was the touch that finished him. But the very sting of it
created a healthy reaction. By his revolt against that solitary
instance of her cruelty he had recovered his right to dwell upon her
kindness. He dwelt upon it until at times he entered again into
possession of the tender, beautiful, dominating dream. So intense was
his hallucination, that as he walked alone in any southerly direction
he still felt Muttersmoor on his right hand and Harcombe on his left,
and he had waked in the morning to the sound of the sea beating upon
Harmouth beach.

But these feelings visited him more rarely in the boarding-house than
elsewhere. That was why he wanted to get away from it. The illusion
was destroyed by these irrelevant persons of the dinner-table. Not
that he noticed them much; but when he did it was to discover in them
some quality that he had not observed before. He found imbecility in
the manners of Spinks, coarseness and violence in the figures of Mrs.
Downey and Miss Bishop, insipidity in the whole person of Miss Flossie
Walker. And now, as he looked round the table, he wondered how it was
he ever came there. After living for four weeks with Lucia Harden or
the thought of her, he had a positive difficulty in recognizing even
Spinks and Flossie as people he had once intimately known. Miss Roots
alone, for some inscrutable reason, seemed familiar, in keeping with
that divine experience to which the actual hour did violence. It was
almost as if she understood.

A shrewdly sympathetic glance went out from a pair of hazel eyes set
in a plain, clever, strenuous face. Miss Roots was glad, she said, to
see him back again. He turned to her with the question that had never
failed to flatter and delight. Was Miss Roots doing anything specially
interesting now? But there was no interest in his tone.

Miss Roots looked up with a smile that would have been gay if it had
not been so weary. Yes, she was collecting material for a book on
Antimachus of Colophon. No, not her own book.

(At the mention of Antimachus of Colophon, Mr. Soper folded his arms
and frowned with implacable resentment. Mr. Soper was convinced that
these subjects were introduced on purpose to exclude him from the
conversation.)

Miss Roots, like Mr. Rickman, lived apart from the murmur of the
boarding-house. She had raised a barrier of books in a bedroom six
feet by nine, behind which she worked obscurely. She had never been
known to converse until Mr. Rickman came. A sort of fluctuating
friendship had sprung up between Mr. Rickman and Miss Roots. He had an
odd feeling, half pity, half liking, for this humble servant of
literature, doomed to its labour, ignorant of its delight. And yet
Miss Roots had a heart which went out to the mad-cap journalist, wild
with youth and the joy of letters. And now these things were coming
back to her. The sources of intellectual desire had been drying up
with the blood in her cheeks; but when Rickman came they began to flow
again. When Rickman talked as only he could talk, Miss Roots felt a
faint fervour, a reminiscent thrill. She preened her poor little
thoughts as if for pairing time, when soul fluttered to soul across
the dinner-table. She knew that, intellectually speaking, she had been
assigned to Rickman; for Mrs. Downey held that just as Mr. Rickman was
the first to rouse Miss Roots to conversation, so Miss Roots alone had
the power of drawing him out to the best advantage.

"Indeed?" said Rickman in a voice devoid of all intelligence.

Now if anything could have drawn Mr. Rickman out it was Antimachus of
Colophon. Four weeks ago he would have been more interested in
Antimachus than Miss Roots herself, he would have talked about him by
the hour together. So that when he said nothing but "Indeed?" she
perceived that something was the matter with him. But she also
perceived that he was anxious to be talked to, therefore she talked
on.

Miss Roots was right; though his mind was unable to take in a word she
said to him, he listened, soothed by the singular refinement of her
voice. It was a quality he had not noticed in it four weeks ago.
Suddenly a word flashed out, dividing the evening with a line of
light.

"So you've been staying in Harmouth?"

He started noticeably, and looked at her as if he had not heard. Miss
Roots seemed unaware of having said anything specially luminous; she
repeated her question with a smile.

"Why?" he asked. "Have you been there?"

"I've not only been there, I was born there."

He looked at her. Miss Roots had always been, to say the least of it,
prosaic, and now it was as if poetry had dropped from her lips, as if
she had said, "I too was born in Arcadia."

"I suppose," she said, "you saw that beautiful old house by the
river?"

"Which beautiful old house by the river?"

"Court House. You see it from the bridge. You must have noticed it."

"Oh, yes, I know the one you mean."

"Did you happen to see or hear anything of the lady who lives in it?
Miss Lucia Harden?"

"I--I must have seen her, but I can't exactly say. Do you know her?"

His words seemed to be torn from him in pieces, shaken by the violent
beating of his heart.

"Know her?" said Miss Roots. "I lived five years with her. I taught
her."

He looked at her again in wonder, in wonder and a sort of tenderness.
For a second his heart had come to life again and leapt like a lunatic
to his lips. Happily his wits were there before it. He stroked his
upper lip, as if brushing away some wild phrase that sat there.

"Then I'm sure," he said, contriving a smile, "that Miss Harden is an
exceedingly well educated lady."

Miss Roots' hazel eyes looked up at him intelligently; but as they met
that unnatural smile of gallantry there was a queer compression of her
shrewd and strenuous face. She changed the subject. He wondered if by
any chance she knew; if she corresponded with Miss Harden; if Miss
Harden had mentioned him in the days before her troubles came; if Miss
Roots were trying to test him, to draw him out as she had never drawn
him out before. No, it was not in the least likely that Miss Harden
should have mentioned him; if she had, Miss Roots would have said so.
She would never have set a trap for him; she was a kind and
straightforward little lady. Her queer look meant nothing, it was only
her way of dealing with a compliment.

The sweat on his forehead witnessed to the hot labour of his thought.
He wondered whether anybody had observed it.

Mr. Soper had, and drew his own conclusions.

"'E's been at it again," said Mr. Soper, with significance. But nobody
took any notice of him; and upstairs in the drawing-room that night
his bon-bons failed to charm.

"I suppose you're pleased," said he, approaching his hostess, "now
you've got Mr. Rickman back again?"

A deeper flush than the Dinner could account for was Mrs. Downey's
sole reply.

"'is manners 'aven't improved since 'is residence in the country. I
met 'im in the City to-day--wy, we were on the same slab of
pavement--and 'e went past and took no more notice of me than if I'd
been the Peabody statue."

"Depend upon it, he was full of something."

"Full of unsociability and conceit. And wot is 'e? Wot is 'e? 'Is
father keeps a bookshop."

"A very fine bookshop, too," said Miss Roots. It was the first time
that she had ever spoken of her own accord to Mr. Soper.

"He may have come out lately, but you should have seen the way 'e
began, in a dirty little second 'and shop in the City. A place," said
Mr. Soper, "I wouldn't 'ave put my nose into if I was paid. Crammed
full of narsty, mangy, 'Olloway Street rubbish."

"Look here now," said Mr. Spinks, now scarlet with fury, "you needn't
throw his business in his face, for he's chucked it."

"I don't think any the better of him for that."

"Don't you? Well, he won't worry himself into fits about your
opinion."

"'Ad he got a new berth then, when he flung up the old one?"

Now one thing Mrs. Downey, with all her indulgence, did not permit,
and that was any public allusion to her boarders' affairs. She might
not refuse to discuss them privately with Miss Bramble or Miss Roots,
but that was a very different thing. Therefore she maintained a
dignified silence.

"Well, then, I should like to know 'ow he's going to pay 'is way."

Before the grossness of this insinuation Mrs. Downey abandoned her
policy of silence.

"Some day," said Mrs. Downey, "Mr. Rickman will be in a very different
position to wot he is now. You mark my words." (And nobody marked them
but little Flossie Walker.)

Two tears rolled down Mrs. Downey's face and mingled with the tartan
of her blouse. A murmur of sympathy went round the room, and Mr. Soper
perceived that the rest of the company were sitting in an atmosphere
of emotion from which he was shut out.

"I beg of you, Mr. Soper, that you will let Mr. Rickman be, for once
this evening. Living together as we do, we all ought," said Mrs.
Downey, "to respect each other's feelings."

"Ah--feelings. Wot sort of respect does your young gentleman ever show
to mine? Takes me up one day and cuts me dead the next."

"He wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing if he hadn't been worried in
his mind. Mr. Rickman, Mr. Soper, is in trouble."

Mr. Soper was softened. "Is he? Well, really, I'm very sorry to hear
it, very sorry, I'm sure."

"My fear is," said Mrs. Downey, controlling her voice with difficulty,
"that he may be leaving us."

"If he does, Mrs. Downey, nobody will regret it more than I do."

"Well, I hope it won't come to that."

Mrs. Downey did not consider it politic to add that she was prepared
to make any sacrifice to prevent it. It was as well that Mr. Soper
should realize the consequences of an inability to pay your way. She
was not prepared to make any sacrifice for the sake of keeping _him_.

"But what," said Mrs. Downey to herself, "will the Dinner be without
Mr. Rickman?"

The Dinner was, in her imagination, a function, a literary symposium.
At the present moment, if you were to believe Mrs. Downey, no
dinner-table in London could show such a gathering of remarkable
people. But to none of these remarkable people did Mrs. Downey feel as
she felt to Mr. Rickman, who was the most remarkable of them all. By
her own statement she had enjoyed exceptional opportunities for
studying the ways of genius. There was a room at Mrs. Downey's which
she exhibited with pride as "Mr. Blenkinsop's room." Mr. Blenkinsop
was a poet, and Mr. Rickman had succeeded him. If Mrs. Downey did not
immediately recognize Mr. Rickman as a genius it was because he was so
utterly unlike Mr. Blenkinsop. But she had felt from the first that,
as she expressed it, "there was something about him," though what it
was she couldn't really say. Only from the first she had had that
feeling in her heart--"He will not be permanent." The joy she had in
his youth and mystery was drenched with the pathos of mutability. Mrs.
Downey rebelled against mutability's decree. "Perhaps," she said, "we
might come to some arrangement."

All night long in her bedroom on the ground-floor, Mrs. Downey lay
awake considering what arrangement could be come to. This was but a
discreet way of stating her previous determination to make any
sacrifice if only she could keep him. The sacrifice which Mrs. Downey
(towards the small hours of the morning) found herself contemplating
amounted to no less than four shillings a week. Occupying his present
bed-sitting room he should remain for twenty-one shillings a week
instead of twenty-five.

Unfortunately, at breakfast the next morning their evil genius
prompted Mr. Spinks and Mr. Soper to display enormous appetites, and
Mrs. Downey, to her everlasting shame, was herself tempted of the
devil. A fall of four shillings a week, serious enough in itself, was
not to be contemplated with gentlemen eating their heads off in that
fashion. It would have to be made up in some way, to be taken out of
somebody or something. She would--yes, she would take it out of them
all round by taking it out of the Dinner. And yet when it came to the
point, Mrs. Downey's soul recoiled from the immorality of this
suggestion. There rose before her, as in a vision, the Dinner of the
future, solid in essentials but docked of its splendour, its character
and its pride. No; that must not be. What the Dinner was now it must
remain as long as there were eight boarders to eat it. If Mrs. Downey
made any sacrifice she must make it pure.

"On the condition," said Mrs. Downey by way of putting a business-like
face on it, "on the condition of his permanence."

But it seemed that twenty-one shillings were more than Mr. Rickman
could afford to pay.

Mrs. Downey spent another restless night, and again towards the small
hours of the morning she decided on a plan. After breakfast she
watched Mr. Soper out of the dining-room, closed the door behind him
with offensive and elaborate precaution, and approached Mr. Rickman
secretly. If he would promise not to tell the other gentlemen, she
would let him have the third floor back for eighteen shillings.

Mr. Rickman stood by the door like one in great haste to be gone. He
could not afford eighteen shillings either. He would stay where he was
on the old terms for a fortnight, at the end of which time, he said
firmly, he would be obliged to go. Mr. Rickman's blue eyes were dark
and profound with the pathos of recent illness and suffering, so that
he appeared to be touched by Mrs. Downey's kindness. But he wasn't
touched by it; no, not the least bit in the world. His heart inside
him was like a great lump of dried leather. Mrs. Downey looked at him,
sighed, and said no more. Things were more serious with him than she
had supposed.

Things were very serious indeed.

His absence at Harmouth had entailed consequences that he had not
foreseen. During those four weeks, owing to the perturbation of his
mind and the incessant demands on his time, he had written nothing.
True, while he was away his poems had found a publisher; but he had
nothing to expect from them; it would be lucky if they paid their
expenses. On his return to town he found that his place on _The
Planet_ had been filled up. At the most he could only reckon on
placing now and then, at infrequent intervals, an article or a poem.
The places would be few, for from the crowd of popular magazines he
was excluded by the very nature of his genius. To make matters worse,
he owed about thirty pounds to Dicky Pilkington. The sum of two
guineas, which _The Museion_ owed him for his sonnet, would, if he
accepted Mrs. Downey's last offer, keep him for exactly two weeks. And
afterwards? Afterwards, of course, he would have to borrow another ten
pounds from Dicky, hire some den at a few shillings a week, and try
his luck for as many months as his money held out. Then there would be
another "afterwards," but that need not concern him now.

The only thing that concerned him was the occult tie between him and
Miss Roots. Up to the day fixed for his departure he was drawn by an
irresistible fascination to Miss Roots. His manner to her became
marked by an extreme gentleness and sympathy. Of course it was
impossible to believe that it was Miss Roots who lit the intellectual
flame that burnt in Lucia. Enough to know that she had sat with her in
the library and in the room where she made music; that she had walked
with her in the old green garden, and on Harcombe Hill and
Muttersmoor. Enough to sit beside Miss Roots and know that all the
time her heart was where his was, and that if he were to speak of
these things she would kindle and understand. But he did not speak of
them; for from the way Miss Roots had referred to Lucia Harden and to
Court House, it was evident that she knew nothing of what had happened
to them, and he did not feel equal to telling her. Lucia's pain was so
great a part of his pain that as yet he could not touch it. But though
he never openly approached the subject of Harmouth, he was for ever
skirting it, keeping it in sight.

He came very near to it one evening, when, finding himself alone with
Miss Roots in the back drawing-room, he asked her how long it was
since she had been in Devonshire. It seemed that it was no longer ago
than last year. Only last year? It was still warm then, the link
between her and the woman whom he loved. He found himself looking at
Miss Roots, scanning the lines of her plain face as if it held for him
some new and wonderful significance. For him that faced flamed
transfigured as in the moment when she had first spoken of Lucia. The
thin lips which had seemed to him so utterly unattractive had touched
Lucia's, and were baptized into her freshness and her charm; her eyes
had looked into Lucia's and carried something of their light. In her
presence he drifted into a sort of mysticism peculiar to lovers,
seeing the hand of a holy destiny in the chance that had seated him
beside her. Though her shrewdness might divine his secret he felt that
with her it would be safe.

As for his other companions of the dinner-table he was obliged to
admit that they displayed an admirable delicacy. After Mrs. Downey's
revelation not one of them had asked him what he had been doing those
four weeks. Spinks had a theory, which he kept to himself. Old Rickets
had been having a high old time. He had eloped with a barmaid or an
opera girl. For those four weeks, he had no doubt, Rickets had been
gloriously, ruinously, on the loose. Mrs. Downey's speculations had
taken the same turn. Mr. Rickman's extraordinary request that all his
clean linen should be forwarded to him at once had set her mind
working; it suggested a young man living in luxury beyond his means.
Mrs. Downey's fancy kindled and blushed by turns as it followed him
into a glorious or disreputable unknown. Whatever the adventures of
those four weeks she felt that they were responsible for his awful
state of impecuniosity. And yet she desired to keep him. "There is
something about him," said Mrs. Downey to Miss Roots, and paused
searching for the illuminating word; "something that goes to your
heart without 'is knowing it."

She had found it, the nameless, ineluctable charm.

And so for those last days the Dinner became a high funereal ceremony,
increasing in valedictory splendour that proclaimed unmistakably, "Mr.
Rickman is going."

In a neighbouring street he had found a room, cheap and passably
clean, and (failing a financial miracle worked on his behalf) he would
move into it to-morrow. He was going, now that he would have given
anything to stay.

In the dining-room after dinner, Spinks with a dejected countenance,
sat guarding for the last time the sacred silence of Rickman. They had
finished their coffee, when the door that let out the maid with empty
cups let in Miss Bishop, Miss Bramble and Miss Walker.

First came Miss Bishop; she advanced in a side-long and embarrassed
manner, giggling, and her face for once was as red as her hair. She
carried a little wooden box which with an unaccustomed shyness she
asked him to accept. The sliding lid disclosed a dozen cedar pencils
side by side, their points all ready sharpened, also a card with the
inscription: "Mr. Rickman, with best wishes from Ada Bishop." At one
corner was a date suggesting that the gift marked an epoch; at the
other the letters P.T.O. The reverse displayed this legend, "If you
ever want any typing done, I'll always do it for _you_ at 6d. a thou.
_Only don't let on._ Yours, A.B." Now Miss Bishop's usual charge was,
as he knew, a shilling per thousand.

"Gentlemen," said she, explaining away her modest offering, "always
like anything that saves them trouble." At this point, Miss Bishop,
torn by a supreme giggle, vanished violently from the scene.

Mr. Rickman smiled sadly, but his heart remained as before. He had not
loved Miss Bishop.

Next came Miss Bramble with her gift mysteriously concealed in silver
paper. "All brain-workers," said Miss Bramble, "suffered from cold
feet." So she had just knitted him a pair of socks--"_bed_-socks" (in
a whisper), "that would help to keep him warm." Her poor old eyes were
scarlet, not so much from knitting the bed-socks, as from
contemplating the terrible possibility of his needing them.

Under Mr. Rickman's waistcoat there was the least little ghost of a
quiver. He had not loved Miss Bramble; but Miss Bramble had loved him.
She had loved him because he was young, and because he had sometimes
repeated to her the little dinner-table jests that she was too deaf to
hear.

Last of the three, very grave and demure, came Flossie, and she, like
her friend, carried her gift uncovered. She proffered it with her most
becoming air of correctness and propriety. It was a cabinet photograph
of herself in her best attitude, her best mood and her best blue
blouse. It was framed beautifully and appropriately in white silk,
embroidered with blue forget-me-nots by Flossie's clever hands. She
had sat up half the night to finish it. He took it gently from her and
looked at it for what seemed to Flossie an excessively long time. He
was trying to think of something particularly pretty and suitable to
say. In his absorption he did not notice that he was alone with her,
that as Flossie advanced Spinks and Soper had withdrawn.

"I don't know whether you'll care for it," said she. She was standing
very close beside him, and her face under the gas-light looked pale
and tender.

"Of course I'll care for it." He laid her gift on the table beside the
others and stood contemplating them. She saw him smile. He was smiling
at the bed-socks.

"You are all much too good to me, you know."

"Oh, Mr. Rickman, you've been so awfully good to me."

He looked round a little anxiously and perceived that they were
alone.

"No, Flossie," he said, "I've not been good to anyone, I'm not very
good to myself. All the same, I'm not an utter brute; I shan't forget
you."

Flossie's eyes had followed, almost jealously, the movement of his
hand in putting down her gift; and they had rested there, fixed on her
own portrait, and veiled by their large white lids. She now raised
them suddenly, and over their black profundity there moved a curious
golden glitter that flashed full on his face.

"You didn't remember me, much, last time you went away."

"I didn't remember anybody, Flossie; I had too much to think of."

It struck him that this was the first time she had looked him full in
the face; but it did not strike him that it was also the first time
that he had found himself alone in a room with her, though they had
been together many times out of doors and in crowded theatres and
concert halls. Her look conveyed some accusation that he at first
failed to understand. And then there came into his mind the promise he
had made to her at Easter, to take her to the play, the promise broken
without apology or explanation. So she still resented it, did she?
Poor little Flossie, she was so plump and pretty, and she had been so
dependent on him for the small pleasures of her life.

"You're always thinking," said Flossie, and laughed.

"I'm sorry, Flossie; it's a disgusting habit, I own. I'll make up for
it some day. We'll do a lot of theatres and--and things together, when
my ship comes in."

"Thank you, Mr. Rickman," said she with a return to her old demeanour.
"And now I suppose I'd better say good-night?"

She turned. They said good-night. He sprang to open, the door for her.
As she went through it, his heart, if it did not go with her, was
touched, most palpably, unmistakably touched at seeing her go. He had
not loved Flossie; but he might have loved her.

Mr. Soper, who had been waiting all the while on the stairs, walked in
through the open door. He closed it secretly.

He laid his hand affectionately on Rickman's shoulder. "Rickman," he
said solemnly, "while I 'ave the opportunity, I want to speak to you.
If it should 'appen that a fiver would be useful to you, don't you
hesitate to come to me."

"Oh, Soper, thanks most awfully. Really, no, I couldn't think of it."

"But I mean it. I really do. So don't you 'esitate; and there needn't
be any hurry about repayment. That," said Mr. Soper, "is quite
immaterial." Failing to extract from Rickman any distinct promise, he
withdrew; but not before he had pressed upon his immediate acceptance
a box of his favourites, the Flor di Dindigul.

By this time Rickman's heart was exceedingly uncomfortable inside him.
He had hated Soper.

He thought it was all over, and he was glad to escape from these
really very trying interviews to the quiet of his own room. There he
found Spinks sitting on his bed waiting for him. Spinks had come to
lay before him an offering and a scheme. The offering was no less than
two dozen of gents' best all-wool knitted hose, double-toed and
heeled. The scheme was for enabling Rickman thenceforward to purchase
all manner of retail haberdashery at wholesale prices by the simple
method of impersonating Spinks. At least in the long-run it amounted
to that, and Rickman had some difficulty in persuading Spinks that his
scheme, though in the last degree glorious and romantic, was, from an
ethical point of view, not strictly feasible.

"What a rum joker you are, Rickman. I never thought of that. I
wonder--" (He mused in an unconscious endeavour to restore the moral
balance between him and Rickman). "I wonder who'll put you to bed, old
chappy, when you're tight."

"Don't fret, Spinky. I'm almost afraid that I shall never be tight
again in this world."

"Oh, Gosh," said Spinks, and sighed profoundly. Then, with a slight
recovery, "do you mean you won't be able to afford it?"

"You can put it that way, if you like."

In time Spinks left him and Rickman was alone. Just as he was
wondering whether or no he would pack his books up before turning in,
there was a soft rap at his door. He said, "Come in" to the rap; and
to himself he said, "Who next?"

It was Mrs. Downey; she glanced round the room, looked at Flossie's
photograph with disapproval, and removed, not without severity, Miss
Bramble's bed-socks from a chair. She had brought no gift; but she sat
down heavily like a woman who has carried a burden about with her all
day, and can carry it no farther. Her features were almost obliterated
with emotion and glazed with tears that she made no effort to remove.

"Mr. Rickman," she said, "do you reelly wish to go, or do you not?"

He looked up surprised. "My dear Mrs. Downey, I don't; believe me. Did
I ever say I did?"

Her face grew brighter and rounder till the very glaze on it made it
shine like a great red sun. "Well, we'd all been wondering, and some
of us said one thing, and some another, and I didn't know what to
think. But if you want to stay perhaps--we can come to some
arrangement." It was the consecrated phrase.

He shook his head.

"Come, I've been thinking it over. You won't be paying less than five
shillings a week for your empty room, perhaps more?"

He would, he said, be paying six shillings.

"There now! And that, with your food, makes sixteen shillings at the
very least."

"Well--it depends upon the food."

"I should think it did depend upon it." Mrs. Downey's face literally
blazed with triumph. She said to herself, "I was right. Mr. Spinks
said he'd take it out of his clothes. Miss Bramble said he'd take it
out of his fire. _I_ said he'd take it out of his dinner."

"Now," she continued, "if you didn't mind moving into the front
attic--it's a good attic--for a time, I could let you 'ave that, _and_
board you, for fifteen shillings a week, or for fourteen, I could, and
welcome. As I seldom let that attic, it would be money in the pocket
to me."

"Come," she went on, well pleased. "I know all about it. Why, Mr.
Blenkinsop, when he first started to write, he lived up there six
months at a time. He had his ups, you may say, and his downs. One year
in the attic and the next on the second floor, having his meals
separate and his own apartments. Then up he'd go again quite cheerful,
as regularly as the bills came round." Here Mrs. Downey entered at
some length upon the history of the splendour and misery of Mr.
Blenkinsop. "And that, I suppose," said Mrs. Downey, "is what it is to
be a poet."

"In fact," said Rickman relating the incident afterwards to Miss
Roots, "talk to Mrs. Downey of the Attic Bee and she will thoroughly
understand the allusion."

After about half an hour's conversation she left him without having
received any clear and definite acceptance of her proposal. That did
not prevent her from announcing to the drawing-room that Mr. Rickman
was not going after all.

At the hour of the last post a letter was pushed under his door. It
was from Horace Jewdwine, asking him to dine with him at Hampstead the
next evening. Nothing more, nothing less; but the sight of the
signature made his brain reel for a second. He stood staring at it.
From the adjoining room came sounds made by Spinks, dancing a jig of
joy which brought up Mr. Soper raging from the floor below.

Jewdwine? Why, he had made up his mind that after the affair of the
Harden library, Jewdwine most certainly would have nothing more to do
with him.

Jewdwine was another link. And at that thought his heart heaved and
became alive again.




CHAPTER XXXIX


In the act of death, as in everything else that he had ever done, Sir
Frederick Harden had hit on the most inappropriate, the most
inconvenient moment--the moment, that is to say, when Horace Jewdwine
had been appointed editor of _The Museion_, when every minute of his
day was taken up with forming his staff and thoroughly reorganizing
the business of his paper. It was, besides, the long-desired moment,
for which all his years at Oxford had been a training and a
consecration; it was that supreme, that nuptial moment in which an
ambitious man embraces for the first time his Opportunity.

The news of Lucia's trouble found him, as it were, in the ardours and
preoccupations of the honeymoon.

It was characteristic of Jewdwine that in this courting of Opportunity
there had been no violent pursuit, no dishevelment, no seizing by the
hair. He had hung back, rather; he had waited, till he had given
himself value, till Opportunity had come to him, with delicate and
ceremonious approach. Still, his head had swum a little at her coming,
so that in the contemplation of his golden bride he had for the time
being lost sight of Lucia.

As for marrying his cousin, that was a question with which for the
present he felt he really could not deal. No doubt it would crop up
again later on to worry him.

Meanwhile he gave to Lucia every minute that he could spare from the
allurements of his golden bride. For more than a fortnight her affairs
had been weighing on him like a nightmare. But only like a nightmare,
a thing that troubled him chiefly in the watches of the night, leaving
his waking thoughts free to go about the business of the day, a thing
against which he felt that it was impossible to contend. For Lucia's
affairs had the vagueness, the confusion of a nightmare. Details no
doubt there were; but they had disappeared in the immensity of the
general effect. Being powerless to deal with them himself, he had sent
down his own solicitor to assist in disentangling them. But as the
full meaning of the disaster sank into him he realized with the cold
pang of disappointment that their marriage must now be indefinitely
postponed.

To be sure, what had as yet passed between them hardly amounted to an
understanding. All Jewdwine's understandings had been with himself.
But the very fact that he was not prepared to act on such an
understanding made him feel as responsible as if it actually existed.
Being conscious of something rather more than cousinly tenderness in
the past, he really could not be sure that he was not already
irretrievably committed. Not that Lucia's manner had ever taken
anything of the sort for granted. He had nothing to fear from her. But
he had much (he told himself) to fear from his own conscience and his
honour.

All this was the result of deliberate reflection. In the beginning of
the trouble, at the first news of his uncle's death, his sympathy with
Lucia had been free from any sordid anxiety for the future which he
then conceived to be inseparably bound up with his own. Rickman's
letter was the first intimation that anything had gone wrong. It was a
shock none the less severe because it was not altogether a surprise.
It was just like his uncle Frederick to raise money on the Harden
Library. The shock lay in Rickman's assumption that he, Jewdwine, was
prepared, instantly, at ten days' notice, to redeem it. It was what he
would have liked to have done; what, if he had been a rich man, he
infallibly would have done; what even now, with his limited resources,
he might do if it were not for the risk. Rickman had assured him that
there was no risk, had implied almost that it was an opportunity, a
splendid investment for his money. He could see for himself that it
was his chance of doing _the_ beautiful thing for Lucia. Looking back
upon it all afterwards, long afterwards, he found consolation in the
thought that his first, or nearly his first, impulse had been
generous.

At first, too, he had not given a thought to Rickman except as the
medium, the unauthorized and somewhat curious medium, of a very
startling communication. Enough that he was expected to produce at ten
days' notice a sum which might be anything you pleased over one
thousand two hundred pounds. It was not until he realized that he was
seriously invited to contend with Rickman's in a private bid for the
Harden library that he began to criticize Rickman's movement in the
matter. Everything depended on Rickman's estimate of the risk, and
Rickman was not infallible. In denying Rickman's infallibility he had
not as yet committed himself to any harsh judgement of his friend. His
first really unpleasant reflection was that Rickman's information was
unsatisfactory, because vague; his next that Rickman was giving him
precious little time for deliberation. He was excessively annoyed with
Rickman upon both these heads, but chiefly upon the latter. He was
being hurried; he might almost say that pressure was being put on him.
And why?

It was at this point he found himself drawn into that dangerous line,
the attributing of motives.

He perceived in Rickman's suggestion a readiness, an eagerness to
stand back and, as it were, pass on the Harden library. Rickman was a
sharp fellow; he knew pretty well what he was about. Jewdwine's mind
went back to the dawn of their acquaintance, and to a certain Florio
Montaigne. Rickman had got the better of him over that Florio
Montaigne. Hitherto, whenever Jewdwine had thought of that little
transaction he had smiled in spite of himself; he really could not
help admiring the smartness of a young man who had worsted him in a
bargain. Jewdwine was a terror to all the second-hand booksellers in
London and Oxford; he would waste so much of their good time in
cheapening a book that it was hardly worth their while to sell it to
him at double the price originally asked. The idea that he had paid
five shillings for a book that he should have got for four and six
would keep Jewdwine awake at night. And now his thought advanced by
rapid steps in the direction unfavourable to Rickman. Rickman had
driven a clever bargain over that Florio Montaigne; Rickman had
cheated him, yes, cheated him infamously, over that Florio Montaigne.
You could see a great deal through a very small hole, and a man who
would cheat you over a Florio Montaigne would cheat you over a whole
library if he got the chance. Not that there was any cheating in the
second-hand book-trade; it was each man for himself and the Lord for
us all.

The question was, what was young Rickman driving at? And what was he,
Jewdwine, being let in for now? He found himself unable to accept
Rickman's alleged motive in all its grand simplicity. It was too
simple and too grand to be entirely probable. If young Rickman was not
infallible, he was an expert in his trade. He was not likely to be
grossly mistaken in his valuation. If the Harden library would be
worth four or five thousand pounds to Jewdwine it would be worth as
much or more to Rickman's. Young Rickman being merely old Rickman's
assistant, he could hardly be acting without his father's knowledge.
If young Rickman honestly thought that the library was worth that sum,
it was not likely that they would let the prize slip out of their
hands. The thing was not in human nature.

The more he thought of it the more he was convinced that it was a
put-up job. He strongly suspected that young Rickman, in the rashness
of his youth, had proceeded farther than he cared to own, that
Rickman's found themselves let in for a bad bargain, and were anxious
to get out of it. Young Rickman had no doubt discovered that the great
Harden library was not the prize they had always imagined it to be.
Jewdwine remembered that there was no record, no proper catalogue, or
if there ever had been, it had been mislaid or lost. He had a vision
(unconsciously exaggerated) of the inconceivable disorder of the place
when he had last visited it; and as he recalled those great gaps on
the shelves it struck him that the library had been gutted. His uncle
Frederick had not been altogether the fool he seemed to be; nothing
was more likely than that he knew perfectly well the value of the
volumes that were the unique glory of the collection, and had long ago
turned them into ready money. The rest would be comparatively
worthless.

He read Rickman's letter over again and had a moment of compunction.
It seemed a very simple and straightforward letter. But then, Rickman
was a very clever fellow, he had the gift of expression; and there was
that Florio Montaigne. He wouldn't have suspected him if only his
record had been pure.

So instead of committing himself by writing to Rickman, he had sent
his solicitor down to look into these matters. A day or two later, in
reply to his further inquiries his solicitor assured him that there
could be no doubt that the library was intact.

To Jewdwine in his present state of mind this information was
upsetting. It not only compelled him to modify his opinion of Rickman
after having formed it, but it threw him back on the agony and
responsibility of decision. On the last morning of the term allowed
him for reflection he received that hurried note from Rickman, who had
flung all his emotions into one agonized line, "For God's sake wire me
what you mean to do." The young poet, so careful of his prose style,
had not perceived that what he had written was blank verse of the
purest; which to Jewdwine in itself sufficiently revealed the disorder
of his mind.

That _cri de coeur_ rang in Jewdwine's brain for the next twenty-four
hours. Then at the last moment he came forward with an offer of one
thousand three hundred. The next day he heard from Lucia (what indeed
he feared) that he had stepped in too late. The library was sold, to
Isaac Rickman.

His dominant emotion was now anger; he was furious with Rickman for
not having given him more time. He forgot his own delay, his fears and
vacillations; he felt that he would have done this thing if he had
only had more time. He had no doubt that Rickman had meant honestly by
him; but he had blundered; he could and he should have given him more
time. But gradually, as the certainty of his own generosity grew on
him, his indignation cooled. Reinstated in his self-esteem he could
afford to do justice to Rickman. What was more, now that the danger
was over he saw his risk more clearly than ever. He had a vision of
his brilliant future clouded by a debt of one thousand three hundred
pounds impetuously raised on the unknown, of the Harden library hung
like a mill-stone round his neck. He had no doubt that Rickman, in the
very ardour of his honesty, had greatly exaggerated its value. And as
he surveyed the probable consequences of his own superb impulse, he
was almost grateful to Rickman for not having given him time to make a
fool of himself. Thanks to Rickman, he had now all the credit of that
reckless offer without the risk.

A week later he had a long letter from Lucia. She thanked him with
much warmth and affection for his generosity; it was evident that it
had touched her deeply. She assured him (as she had assured him
before) that she needed no help. The library had sold for twelve
hundred pounds, and two hundred had been handed over to her. Mr.
Pilkington was afraid that no further sum would be forthcoming from
the sale of the pictures and furniture, which had been valued over
rather than under their present market price, and represented the bulk
of the security. Still, she hoped to sell Court House; it could not
bring in less than five thousand. That and a small part of her capital
would pay off all remaining debts. It was a wearisome business; but
Horace would be glad to hear that she would come out of it not owing a
farthing to anybody, and would still have enough to live on.

Yes. Jewdwine had his pride. He was glad that his disreputable uncle's
affairs had not landed him in the Bankruptcy Court after all; but he
had a movement of indignation on Lucia's account and of admiration for
Lucia.

No more of herself or her affairs; the rest was concerned with Rickman
and his. "My dear Horace," she wrote, "we must do something for this
poor little friend of yours. You were quite right about him. He is a
genius; but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, for himself, he is
so much else besides. To think that _he_ of all people should be
entangled in our miserable business! He has got badly hurt, too. First
of all, it preyed on his mind till he worried himself into a nervous
fever. Kitty Palliser, who saw him, said he was nearly off his head.
It seems he considered his honour implicated. As it happens he has
behaved splendidly. He did everything in his power to prevent our
losing the library, or at any rate to keep it out of his father's
hands; and the mere fact that he failed doesn't lessen our obligation.
He has simply ruined his own prospects in the attempt. Do you know, he
tried to force his father to withdraw by threatening to leave their
business if he didn't; and he had to keep his word. The horrible
thing is that I actually owe him money--money which he won't take. He
had been working hard for three weeks on a catalogue for me, and is
insulted at the bare suggestion of payment. And here he is--absolutely
stranded; in debt, I believe, and without a farthing. What in the
world am I to do?"

"Poor Lucy!" thought Jewdwine, "as if she hadn't enough to bear
without having Rickman on her shoulders."

"It seems to me that as he has done all this for us, we ought to stand
by him. If you _could_ do anything for him--couldn't you help him with
some introductions? Or, better still, give him work, at any rate till
he has found his feet? I'm sure you can count on his devotion--"

"Dear Lucy, she might be recommending me a valet."

"_Do_ do something for him, and you will oblige me more than I can
say."

That letter of Lucia's gave Jewdwine much matter for reflection and
some pain. He had winced at the sale of Court House; it struck him as
a personal blow. He had had a kind of tacit understanding with himself
that, in that future which he had meant to share with Lucia, Court
House would be the home of his retirement. Still, it must go. He had
to live in town, and if at the moment he could have afforded to marry
a penniless Lucia he could not have afforded two establishments.

As for the redemption of the Harden library he realized with a sharp
pang that risk there had been none. He saw that what young Rickman had
offered him was a unique and splendid opportunity, the opportunity of
doing a beautiful thing for Lucia, and that without the smallest
inconvenience to himself. And this opportunity had been missed. Just
because he could not make up his mind about Rickman, could not see
what Lucia had always seen, what he too saw now, that positively
luminous sincerity of his. He saw it even now reluctantly--though he
could never veer round again to his absurd theory of Rickman's
dishonesty. He would have liked, if he could, to regard him as a
culpable bungler; but even this consoling view was closed to him by
Lucia. It was plain from her account that Rickman's task had been
beyond human power. Jewdwine, therefore, was forced to the painful
conclusion that for this loss to himself and Lucia he had nothing to
blame but his own vacillation.

As for Rickman--

Lucia had taken a great deal of pains with that part of her subject,
for she was determined to do justice to it. She was aware that it was
open to her to take the ordinary practical view of Rickman as a
culpable blunderer, who, by holding his tongue when he should have
spoken, had involved her in the loss of much valuable property. To an
ordinary practical woman the fact that this blunder had entailed such
serious consequences to herself would have made any other theory
impossible. But Lucia was not a woman who could be depended on for any
ordinary practical view. Mere material issues could never confuse her
estimate of spiritual values. To her, Rickman's conduct in that
instance was a flaw in honour, and as such she had already
sufficiently judged it. The significant thing was that he too should
have so judged it; that he should have been capable of such profound
suffering in the thought of it.

And now, somehow, it didn't seem to her to count.

It simply disappeared in her final pure and luminous view of Rickman's
character. What really counted was the alertness of his whole attitude
to honour, his readiness to follow the voice of his own ultimate
vision, to repudiate the unclean thing revealed in its uncleanness;
above all, what counted was his passionate sincerity. With her
unerring instinct of selection Lucia had again seized on the
essential. The triumph of Rickman's greater qualities appealed to her
as a spectacle; it was not spoiled for her by the reflection that she
personally had been more affected by his failure. If she showed her
insight into Rickman's character by admitting the relative
insignificance of that failure, she showed an equal insight into
Jewdwine's by suppressing all mention of it now. For Horace would have
regarded it as essential. It would have loomed large in his view by
reason of its material consequences. Allowing for Horace's view she
kept her portrait truer by omitting it.

And Jewdwine accepted her portrait as the true one. It appealed
irresistibly to his artistic sense. He was by profession a connoisseur
of things beautifully done. Rickman's behaviour, as described by
Lucia, revived his earlier amused admiration for his young disciple.
It was so like him. In its spontaneity, its unexpectedness, its--its
colossal impertinence, it was pure Rickman.

Lucia had achieved a masterpiece of appreciation.

But what helped him in his almost joyous re-discovery of his Rickman
was his perception that here (in doing justice to Rickman) lay his
chance of rehabilitating himself. If he could not buy back the Harden
library, he could at any rate redeem his own character. He did not
hold himself responsible for Lucia's father's debts, but he was
willing, not to say glad, to take up Lucia's. It was certainly most
improper that she should be under any obligation to Rickman. In any
case, Rickman's action concerned Lucia's family as much as Lucia; that
is to say, it was his (Jewdwine's) affair. And personally he disliked
indebtedness.

Another man might have handed Rickman a cheque for fifty pounds (the
price of the catalogue _raisonné_) and washed his hands of him. But
Jewdwine was incapable of that grossness.

He gave the matter a fortnight's delicate consideration. At the end of
that time he had made up his mind not only to invite Rickman to
contribute regularly to _The Museion_ (a thing he would have done in
any case) but to offer him, temporarily, the sub-editorship. Rash as
this resolution seemed, Jewdwine had fenced himself carefully from any
risk. The arrangement was not to be considered permanent until Rickman
had proved himself both capable and steady--if then. In giving him any
work at all on _The Museion_ Jewdwine felt that he was stretching a
point. It was a somewhat liberal rendering of his editorial programme.

_The Museion_ was the one solitary literary journal that had the
courage to profess openly a philosophy of criticism. Its philosophy
might be obsolete, it might be fantastic, it might be altogether
wrong; the point was that it was there. Its presence was a protest
against the spirit of anarchy in the world of letters. The paper had
lost influence lately owing to a certain rigidity in the methods of
its late editor, also to an increasing dulness in its style. It was
suffering, like all old things, from the unequal competition with
insurgent youth. The proprietors were almost relieved when the death
of its editor provided them with a suitable opportunity for giving it
over into the hands of younger men. "We want new blood," said the
proprietors. The difficulty was how to combine new blood with the old
spirit, and Horace Jewdwine solved their problem, presenting the
remarkable combination of an old head upon comparatively young
shoulders. He was responsible, authoritative, inspired by a high and
noble seriousness. He had taken his Aristotle with a high and noble
seriousness; and in the same spirit he had approached his Kant, his
Hegel and his Schopenhauer in succession. He was equipped with the
most beautiful metaphysical theory of Art, and had himself written
certain _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_.