Supposing all the time you're
thinking, 'Oh, what a morbid young man!'"
Helen sat and looked at him with her needle in her hand. From
her position she saw his head in front of the dark pyramid of a
magnolia-tree. With one foot raised on the rung of a chair, and her
elbow out in the attitude for sewing, her own figure possessed the
sublimity of a woman's of the early world, spinning the thread of
fate--the sublimity possessed by many women of the present day who fall
into the attitude required by scrubbing or sewing. St. John looked at
her.
"I suppose you've never paid any a compliment in the course of your
life," he said irrelevantly.
"I spoil Ridley rather," Helen considered.
"I'm going to ask you point blank--do you like me?"
After a certain pause, she replied, "Yes, certainly."
"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "That's one mercy. You see," he continued
with emotion, "I'd rather you liked me than any one I've ever met."
"What about the five philosophers?" said Helen, with a laugh, stitching
firmly and swiftly at her canvas. "I wish you'd describe them."
Hirst had no particular wish to describe them, but when he began to
consider them he found himself soothed and strengthened. Far away to the
other side of the world as they were, in smoky rooms, and grey medieval
courts, they appeared remarkable figures, free-spoken men with whom one
could be at ease; incomparably more subtle in emotion than the people
here.
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