How
delightful
it is to see
you again!
you again!
Yeats
She makes me her confidant, you know, in
many matters, because of my wide religious experience. You must really
improve yourself. You must paint or something. '
'Well, I will paint or something. '
'I am quite serious, Sherman. Try and be worthy of her, a soul as
gentle as Saint Cecilia's. '
'She is very wealthy,' said Sherman. 'If she were engaged to you and
not to me you might hope to die a bishop. '
Howard looked at him in a mystified way and the conversation dropped.
Presently Howard got up and went to his room, and Sherman, resetting
the chess-board, began to play again, and, letting longer and longer
pauses of reverie come between his moves, played far into the morning,
cheating now in favour of the red men, now in favour of the white.
V
The next afternoon Howard found Miss Leland sitting, reading in an
alcove in her drawing-room, between a stuffed parroquet and a blue De
Morgan jar. As he was shown in he noticed, with a momentary shock, that
her features were quite commonplace. Then she saw him, and at once
seemed to vanish wrapped in an exulting flame of life. She stood up,
flinging the book on to the seat with some violence.
'I have been reading the "Imitation of Christ," and was just feeling
that I should have to become a theosophist or a socialist, or go and
join the Catholic Church, or do something.
How delightful it is to see
you again! How is my savage getting on? It is so good of you to try
and help me to reform him. '
They talked on about Sherman, and Howard did his best to console her
for his shortcomings. Time would certainly improve her savage. Several
times she gazed at him with those large dark eyes of hers, of which the
pupils to-day seemed larger than usual. They made him feel dizzy and
clutch tightly the arm of his chair. Then she began to talk about her
life since childhood--how they got to the subject he never knew--and
made a number of those confidences which are so dangerous because so
flattering. To love--there is nothing else worth living for; but then
men are so shallow. She had never found a nature deep as her own.
She would not pretend that she had not often been in love, but never
had any heart rung back to her the true note. As she spoke her face
quivered with excitement. The exulting flame of life seemed spreading
from her to the other things in the room. To Howard's eyes it seemed as
though the bright pots and stuffed birds and plush curtains began to
glow with a light not of this world--to glimmer like the strange and
chaotic colours the mystic Blake imagined upon the scaled serpent of
Eden. The light seemed gradually to dim his past and future, and to
make pale his good resolves. Was it not in itself that which all men
are seeking, and for which all else exists?
many matters, because of my wide religious experience. You must really
improve yourself. You must paint or something. '
'Well, I will paint or something. '
'I am quite serious, Sherman. Try and be worthy of her, a soul as
gentle as Saint Cecilia's. '
'She is very wealthy,' said Sherman. 'If she were engaged to you and
not to me you might hope to die a bishop. '
Howard looked at him in a mystified way and the conversation dropped.
Presently Howard got up and went to his room, and Sherman, resetting
the chess-board, began to play again, and, letting longer and longer
pauses of reverie come between his moves, played far into the morning,
cheating now in favour of the red men, now in favour of the white.
V
The next afternoon Howard found Miss Leland sitting, reading in an
alcove in her drawing-room, between a stuffed parroquet and a blue De
Morgan jar. As he was shown in he noticed, with a momentary shock, that
her features were quite commonplace. Then she saw him, and at once
seemed to vanish wrapped in an exulting flame of life. She stood up,
flinging the book on to the seat with some violence.
'I have been reading the "Imitation of Christ," and was just feeling
that I should have to become a theosophist or a socialist, or go and
join the Catholic Church, or do something.
How delightful it is to see
you again! How is my savage getting on? It is so good of you to try
and help me to reform him. '
They talked on about Sherman, and Howard did his best to console her
for his shortcomings. Time would certainly improve her savage. Several
times she gazed at him with those large dark eyes of hers, of which the
pupils to-day seemed larger than usual. They made him feel dizzy and
clutch tightly the arm of his chair. Then she began to talk about her
life since childhood--how they got to the subject he never knew--and
made a number of those confidences which are so dangerous because so
flattering. To love--there is nothing else worth living for; but then
men are so shallow. She had never found a nature deep as her own.
She would not pretend that she had not often been in love, but never
had any heart rung back to her the true note. As she spoke her face
quivered with excitement. The exulting flame of life seemed spreading
from her to the other things in the room. To Howard's eyes it seemed as
though the bright pots and stuffed birds and plush curtains began to
glow with a light not of this world--to glimmer like the strange and
chaotic colours the mystic Blake imagined upon the scaled serpent of
Eden. The light seemed gradually to dim his past and future, and to
make pale his good resolves. Was it not in itself that which all men
are seeking, and for which all else exists?
