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TWO:To the left of the Gothic and inner halls, a very large room had been built out to the demolition of a laurel shrubbery. This was Mr Keelings study, and when he gave his house over to the taste of his decorators, he made the stipulation that they should not exercise their artistic faculties{17} therein, but leave it entirely to him. In fact, there had been a short and violent scene of ejection when the card-holding crocodile had appeared on a table there owing to the inadvertence of a house-maid, for Mr Keeling had thrown it out of the window on to the carriage sweep, and one of its hind legs had to be repaired. Here for furniture he had a gray drugget on the floor, a couple of easy chairs, half a dozen deal ones, an immense table and a step-ladder, while the wall space was entirely taken up with book shelves. These were but as yet half-filled, and stacks of books, some still in the parcels in which they had arrived from dealers and publishers, stood on the floor. This room with its books was Mr Keelings secret romance: all his life, even from the days of the fish-shop, the collection of fine illustrated books had been his hobby, his hortus inclusus, where lay his escape from the eternal pursuit of money-making and from the tedium of domestic life. There he indulged his undeveloped love of the romance of literature, and the untutored joy with which design of line and colour inspired him. As an apostle of thoroughness in business and everything else, his books must be as well equipped as books could be: there must be fine bindings, the best paper and printing, and above all there must be pictures. When that was done you might say you had got a book. For rarity and antiquity he cared nothing at all; a sumptuous edition of a book{18} of nursery rhymes was more desirable in his eyes than any Caxton. Here in his hard, industrious, Puritan life, was Keelings secret garden, of which none of his family held the key. Few at all entered the room, and into the spirit of it none except perhaps the young man who was at the head of the book department at Keelings stores. He had often been of use to the proprietor in pointing out to him the publication of some new edition he might wish to possess, and now and then, as on this particular Sunday afternoon, he was invited to spend an hour at the house looking over Mr Keelings latest purchases. He came, of course, by the back door, and was conducted by the boy in buttons along the servants passage, for Mrs Keeling would certainly not like to have the front door opened to him. That would have been far from proper, and he might have put his hat on one of the brass-tipped chamois horns. But there was no real danger of that, for it had never occurred to Charles Propert to approach The Cedars by any but the tradesmans entrance.
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TWO:It was extraordinary to him how this girl got on his mind. He thought he disliked her, but in some obscure way he could not help being interested in her. There was somebody there, somebody from whom there came a call to him. He wanted to know how she regarded him, what effect he had on her. And there were no data: she sat behind her impenetrable mask, and did her work in a manner more perfect than any secretary who had ever served him. She declined to come to his house with her brother, she had retreated again inside that beautiful shell. He noticed infinitesimal things about her: sometimes{120} she wore a hat, sometimes she left it in her room. One day she had a bandage round a finger of her left hand, and he wondered if she had cut herself. But her reserve and reticence permitted him no further approach to her: only he waited with something like impatience for the day when she would bring the block of his book-plate or an impression of it. There would surely be an opportunity for the personal relation to come in there.At the beginning of my question he straightened exactly as I had seen him do in the middle of the lane when our recoiled column was staggering; but as my extravagance flamed up he quieted rebukingly, and with a quieter smile than ever asked "Is that a soldier's question? Smith, is there not something wrong with you to-night?"
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TWO:He went to his library and gave a more detailed perusal to what Lord Inverbroom had to say. It was a disagreeable letter to read, and he felt that the writing of it had been disagreeable to its author. It informed him that since Lord Inverbroom had put his name up for election into the County Club, he had become aware that there were a considerable number of members who would certainly vote against his election. Lord Inverbroom had spoken to various of these, but had not succeeded in mitigating their opposition and was afraid that his candidate would certainly not be elected. In these circumstances did Mr Keeling wish him to withdraw his name or not? He would be entirely guided by his wishes. He added a very simple and sincere expression of his regret at the course events had taken.Arthur's recent reflections returned to him, and produced a little glow in his mind. "Is there a world," he questioned, "where the problems of Time and Space are different?"
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