Part 63 (1/2)
”Of course--with lots of other interesting books, and such queer folios and quartos and first editions. The collector was a man of taste. Why do you never come and let me show them you?”
”You'd run away.”
”No, I wouldn't,” he smiled encouragingly.
”Yes, you would. And leave your pipe on Plato!”
He laughed. ”Was I rude? But I didn't know you then. Come to-morrow afternoon and show you've forgiven me.”
The new interest was sufficiently tempting. But her maidenliness held back. ”I'll come with your mother.”
Disgust lent him wit. ”You're her companion--not she yours.”
”True. Nor I yours.”
”Then I'll come here.”
”Bringing the Plato and the folios--?”
”Why not? You can't forbid me my own drawing-room.”
”I can run away and leave my crochet-hook behind.”
”You'll find me hooked on whenever you return.”
”Well, if you're determined--by hook or by crook! But you're not going to convert me to Socialism?”
”I won't promise.”
”You must. I don't mind reading Plato.”
”He's worse. He isn't a Christian at all.”
”I don't mind that. He's B.C. He couldn't help it. But you Socialists came after Christ.”
”How do you know Socialism isn't a return to Him?”
”Is it?”
”Aha! You are getting interested.... But I hear my mother coming down to dinner. To be continued in our next. _a demain_, is it not?”
He held out his shapely white hand, and hastened through the conservatory into the garden.
”Going to dig?” Eileen called after him maliciously.
VIII
Eileen became interested in Robert Maper, for the old books he opened up to her were quite new and enlarging. She had imagined the Church replacing Paganism as light replaced darkness. Now she felt that it was only as gas replaced candle-light. The darkness was less Egyptian than the nuns insinuated. Plato in particular was a veritable chandelier. It occurred to her suddenly that he might be on the black list. But she was afraid to ask her Confessor for fear of hearing her doubt confirmed. To tell the good father of the semi-secret meetings in the library would have been superfluous, since there was nothing to conceal even from Mrs.
Maper, though that lady did not happen to know of them. Eileen did not even use the garden door. Besides, there was never a formal appointment, not infrequently, indeed, a disappointment, when the library held nothing but books. Robert Maper merely provided that possibility of an innocent double life, without which existence would have been too savourless for Eileen. Even a single line of railway always appeared dismal to her; she liked the great junctions with their bewildering intertanglements, their possibilities of collision. And now that Lieutenant Doherty had faded away into Afghanistan and silence--he did not even acknowledge the letter announcing her approaching marriage--Robert Maper proved a useful subst.i.tute.