The Divine Fire
May Sinclair
CHAPTER XV Page 2
It was not only finished, it was final. The thing was so perfect in itself that obviously it could lead no further. She would say in her exquisite voice, "Would you mind taking these five volumes back to your shelf?" or, "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but can you tell me whether this is the original binding?" Under no circumstances could he imagine himself replying, "I wouldn't mind taking fifty volumes," or "I like being interrupted." All this was a complete inversion of the rules that Keith Rickman was acquainted with as governing polite intercourse between the sexes, and he found it extremely disconcerting. It was as if some fine but untransparent veil had been hung between him and her, dividing them more effectually than a barricade.
The wonder, which grew with the morning, was not so much in the things she said as in the things she didn't say. Her powers of reservation seemed to Rickman little short of miraculous. Until yesterday he had never met a woman who did not, by some look or tone or movement of her body, reveal what she was thinking about him. Whatever Miss Harden thought about him she kept it to herself. Unfortunately the same high degree of reticence was expected from him, and to Keith Rickman, when not restrained by excess of shyness, reticence came hard. It was apt to break down a severe strain was put on it, as had been the case that morning. And it was appointed that the same thing should happen to him this afternoon.
As far as he could remember it happened in this way. He was busy getting the Greek dramatists into their places, an enterprise which frequently took him to her end of the room where Sir Joseph had established his classical library. He was sitting on the top of the steps, when she approached him carrying six vellum bound volumes in arms, Sir Joseph's edition of Euripides of which the notes exceeded the text. He dismounted and took the books from her, turning very red as he did so.
"You should let me do all the carrying. These books are too heavy for you."
"Thank you, I think they ought to go with the others, on this shelf."
He did not answer all at once. He was absorbed in the Euripides. It was an _édition de luxe_, the Greek text exquisitely printed from a fount of semi-uncial type, the special glory of the Harden Classics.
He exclaimed, "What magnificent type!"
She smiled.
"It's rare too. I've never seen any other specimen--in modern printing."
"There is no other specimen," said she.
"Yes, there is. One book at least, printed, I think, in Germany."
"Is there? It was set up from a new fount specially made for this edition. I always supposed my grandfather invented it."
"Oh no, he couldn't have done that. He may have adapted it. In fact, he must have adapted it."
This young man had set aside a cherished tradition, as lightly as if he were blowing the dust off the leaves. She was interested.
"How can you tell that?"
"Oh, I know. It's very like a manuscript in the British Museum."
"The Greek text of the Complutensian Polyglot." (He could not help saying to himself, 'That ought to fetch her!') "But it doesn't follow that it's the same type. Whatever it is, it's very beautiful."
"It's easier to read, too, than the ordinary kind."
He was still turning over the pages, handling the book as a lover handles the thing he loves. The very touch of the vellum thrilled him with an almost sensual rapture. Here and there a line flashed from a chorus and lured him deeper into the text. His impulse was still to exclaim, but a finer instinct taught him to suppress his scholarly emotion. Looking up as she spoke he saw her eyes fixed on him with a curious sympathy. And as he thought of the possible destiny of the Euripides he felt guilty as of a treachery towards her in loving the same book.
"Do you read Euripides?" he asked with naïve wonder.
"Yes."
"And Æschylus and Sophocles and Aristoph--?" Mr. Rickman became embarrassed as he recalled certain curious passages, and in his embarrassment he rushed upon his doom--"and--and 'Omer?"
It was a breakdown unparalleled in his history. Never since his childhood had he neglected the aspirate in Homer. A flush made manifest his agony. He frowned, and gazed at her steadily, as if he defied her to judge him by that lapse.
"Yes," said the lady; but she was not thinking of Homer.
"By Jove," he murmured pensively. His eyes turned from her and devoured the text. He was torn between abject admiration of the lady and of the book.
"Which do you like best?" he asked suddenly. Æschylus or Sophocles? But it's an absurd question."
"Why absurd?"
"Because they're so different."
"Are they?" To tell the truth she was not thinking of them any more than she had been thinking of Homer.
He became perfectly hectic with excitement. "Rather! Can't you see the difference? Sophocles carved his tragedies. He carved them in ivory, polished them up, back and front, till you can't see the marks of the chisel. And Æschylus jabbed his out of the naked granite where it stood, and left them there with the sea at their feet, and the mist round their heads, and the fire at their hearts."
"He did. God leaves them so sometimes when he's making a big thing."
Something like a faint ripple of light passed over her face under the obscuring veil it wore for him.
"But Sophocles is perfect," said she. She was not thinking of Sophocles one bit; she was thinking that when God made Mr. Rickman he had left the edges rough, and wondering whether it was possible that he had made "a big thing."
"Oh yes, he's perfect." He began to quote softly and fluently, to her uttermost surprise. His English was at times a thing to shudder at, but his Greek was irreproachable, perfect in its modulation and its flow. Freed from all flaws of accent, the musical quality of his voice declared itself indubitably, marvellously pure.
The veil lifted. Her smile was a flash of intelligence, the sexless, impersonal intelligence of the scholar. This maker of catalogues, with the tripping tongue that Greek made golden, he had touched the electric chain that linked them under the deep, under the social gulf.
"Did you ever hear such a chorus? Pure liquid gold, every line of it. Still, you can read Sophocles with your hair on. I should have thought most worn--most ladies would like Euripides best?"
"Did he understand them? Euripides," said the young lady with decision, "was a decadent."
"Was he? How about the _Bacchæ_? Of course, it's worth all the rest of his plays put together; they're not in the same street with it. It's a thing to dream about, to go mad about."
"My grandfather says it's not Euripidean." "Good Lord! How do we know it isn't the most Euripidean of the lot?"
"Well, it stands alone, doesn't it?"
"Yes. And he stands with it."
"Does he? My grandfather was judging him by his average."
"His average? Oh, I say, you know, you could reduce some very great poets to mediocrity by striking their average. Wouldn't you allow a man to be at least as great as his greatest achievement?"
"I wonder--"
"Anyhow, those are ripping good notes in that edition."
"They ought to be. They were by a good scholar--his greatest achievement."
He put down the Harden Euripides; and it struck Lucia that if Sir Joseph had been there this truthful young man would not have hesitated to put him down too. She laid her hand on the book with an air of possession and protection, which was a lesson in tact for the truthful young man. He leaned up against the bookcase with his hands in his pockets.
"I say," said he, "I hope you don't mind my talking like this to you?"
"No. Why shouldn't you?"
"Well, it isn't exactly I'm here for."
That exciting conversation had lasted barely fifteen minutes; but it had set him for the time being at his ease. He had at any rate proved himself a scholar, and he was so far happier. He felt that he was beginning to get on with Miss Harden, to see a little way across the gulf, discerning the outlines of the further shore where that high lady walked unveiled.
Then suddenly, owing to a most humiliating incident, the gulf yawned again.
It was five o'clock, and he was left alone in the company of a fascinating little tea-table, laid, as if for a guest, with fine white linen, silk embroidered, with early Georgian silver and old china. It was laid for him, little tea-table. He had delayed a little before beginning his repast, and it happened that when Miss Harden appeared again she found him holding a tea-cup to his lips with one hand, while the other groped in a dish of cream cakes, abstractedly, and without the guidance of a selective eye. Both eyes indeed were gazing dreamily over the rim of the tea-cup at her empty chair. He was all right; so why, oh why did he turn brick-red and dash his cup down and draw back his innocent hand? That was what he had seen the errand boy at Rickman's do, when he caught him eating lunch in a dark passage. He always had compassion on that poor pariah and left him to finish his meal in privacy; and with the same delicacy Miss Harden, perceiving his agony, withdrew. He was aware that the incident had marked him.
He stood exactly where he stood before. Expert knowledge was nothing. Mere conversational dexterity was nothing. He could talk to her about Euripides and Sophocles till all was blue; he could not blow his nose before her, or eat and drink before her, like a gentleman, without shame and fear.
They talked no more that evening.