Stephen selects a doorway, and ascends an old though wide wooden staircase, with moulded bal.u.s.ters and handrail, which in a country manor-house would be considered a noteworthy specimen of Renaissance workmanship. He reaches a door on the first floor, over which is painted, in black letters, "Mr. Henry Knight"--"Barrister-at-law" being understood but not expressed. The wall is thick, and there is a door at its outer and inner face. The outer one happens to be ajar: Stephen goes to the other, and taps.
"Come in!" from distant penetralia.
First was a small anteroom, divided from the inner apartment by a wainscoted archway two or three yards wide. Across this archway hung a pair of dark-green curtains, making a mystery of all within the arch except the spasmodic scratching of a quill pen. Here was grouped a chaotic a.s.semblage of articles--mainly old framed prints and paintings--leaning edgewise against the wall, like roofing slates in a builder"s yard. All the books visible here were folios too big to be stolen--some lying on a heavy oak table in one corner, some on the floor among the pictures, the whole intermingled with old coats, hats, umbrellas, and walking-sticks.
Stephen pushed aside the curtain, and before him sat a man writing away as if his life depended upon it--which it did.
A man of thirty in a speckled coat, with dark brown hair, curly beard, and crisp moustache: the latter running into the beard on each side of the mouth, and, as usual, hiding the real expression of that organ under a chronic aspect of impa.s.sivity.
"Ah, my dear fellow, I knew "twas you," said Knight, looking up with a smile, and holding out his hand.
Knight"s mouth and eyes came to view now. Both features were good, and had the peculiarity of appearing younger and fresher than the brow and face they belonged to, which were getting sicklied o"er by the unmistakable pale cast. The mouth had not quite relinquished rotundity of curve for the firm angularities of middle life; and the eyes, though keen, permeated rather than penetrated: what they had lost of their boy-time brightness by a dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness to their gaze which suited them well.
A lady would have said there was a smell of tobacco in the room: a man that there was not.
Knight did not rise. He looked at a timepiece on the mantelshelf, then turned again to his letters, pointing to a chair.
"Well, I am glad you have come. I only returned to town yesterday; now, don"t speak, Stephen, for ten minutes; I have just that time to the late post. At the eleventh minute, I"m your man."
Stephen sat down as if this kind of reception was by no means new, and away went Knight"s pen, beating up and down like a ship in a storm.
Cicero called the library the soul of the house; here the house was all soul. Portions of the floor, and half the wall-s.p.a.ce, were taken up by book-shelves ordinary and extraordinary; the remaining parts, together with brackets, side-tables, &c., being occupied by casts, statuettes, medallions, and plaques of various descriptions, picked up by the owner in his wanderings through France and Italy.
One stream only of evening sunlight came into the room from a window quite in the corner, overlooking a court. An aquarium stood in the window. It was a dull parallelopipedon enough for living creatures at most hours of the day; but for a few minutes in the evening, as now, an errant, kindly ray lighted up and warmed the little world therein, when the many-coloured zoophytes opened and put forth their arms, the weeds acquired a rich transparency, the sh.e.l.ls gleamed of a more golden yellow, and the timid community expressed gladness more plainly than in words.
Within the prescribed ten minutes Knight flung down his pen, rang for the boy to take the letters to the post, and at the closing of the door exclaimed, "There; thank G.o.d, that"s done. Now, Stephen, pull your chair round, and tell me what you have been doing all this time. Have you kept up your Greek?"
"No."
"How"s that?"
"I haven"t enough spare time."
"That"s nonsense."
"Well, I have done a great many things, if not that. And I have done one extraordinary thing."
Knight turned full upon Stephen. "Ah-ha! Now, then, let me look into your face, put two and two together, and make a shrewd guess."
Stephen changed to a redder colour.
"Why, Smith," said Knight, after holding him rigidly by the shoulders, and keenly scrutinising his countenance for a minute in silence, "you have fallen in love."
"Well--the fact is----"
"Now, out with it." But seeing that Stephen looked rather distressed, he changed to a kindly tone. "Now Smith, my lad, you know me well enough by this time, or you ought to; and you know very well that if you choose to give me a detailed account of the phenomenon within you, I shall listen; if you don"t, I am the last man in the world to care to hear it."
"I"ll tell this much: I HAVE fallen in love, and I want to be MARRIED."
Knight looked ominous as this pa.s.sed Stephen"s lips.
"Don"t judge me before you have heard more," cried Stephen anxiously, seeing the change in his friend"s countenance.
"I don"t judge. Does your mother know about it?"
"Nothing definite."
"Father?"
"No. But I"ll tell you. The young person----"
"Come, that"s dreadfully ungallant. But perhaps I understand the frame of mind a little, so go on. Your sweetheart----"
"She is rather higher in the world than I am."
"As it should be."
"And her father won"t hear of it, as I now stand."
"Not an uncommon case."
"And now comes what I want your advice upon. Something has happened at her house which makes it out of the question for us to ask her father again now. So we are keeping silent. In the meantime an architect in India has just written to Mr. Hewby to ask whether he can find for him a young a.s.sistant willing to go over to Bombay to prepare drawings for work formerly done by the engineers. The salary he offers is 350 rupees a month, or about 35 Pounds. Hewby has mentioned it to me, and I have been to Dr. Wray, who says I shall acclimatise without much illness.
Now, would you go?"
"You mean to say, because it is a possible road to the young lady."
"Yes; I was thinking I could go over and make a little money, and then come back and ask for her. I have the option of practising for myself after a year."
"Would she be staunch?"
"Oh yes! For ever--to the end of her life!"
"How do you know?"
"Why, how do people know? Of course, she will."
Knight leant back in his chair. "Now, though I know her thoroughly as she exists in your heart, Stephen, I don"t know her in the flesh. All I want to ask is, is this idea of going to India based entirely upon a belief in her fidelity?"
"Yes; I should not go if it were not for her."
"Well, Stephen, you have put me in rather an awkward position. If I give my true sentiments, I shall hurt your feelings; if I don"t, I shall hurt my own judgment. And remember, I don"t know much about women."
"But you have had attachments, although you tell me very little about them."
"And I only hope you"ll continue to prosper till I tell you more."
Stephen winced at this rap. "I have never formed a deep attachment,"
continued Knight. "I never have found a woman worth it. Nor have I been once engaged to be married."