The Divine Fire

courage to raise his head tentatively. He had only seen that young man's ba

y to go up and speak to him. The young man had changed his place; he was at his window again, contemplating-as Jewdwine reflec

?" he asked, s

s from the depths; but the "Mister" marked the sp

e looks innocent," sai

ren't prepar

is fascinated gaze.

y purchase Gentlemen's Libraries, but we sell the

an's face preserved its inimitable innocence,

for the behaviour of the Club. What could he do to make it up to him? Happy thought-he would ask him to dinner at-yes, at his sister's, Miss Jewdwine's, house at Hampstead. That was to

ster's possible criticism, he considered

what he has. He always seemed to be talking against time; and as he talked his emotions played visibly, too visibly, on his humorous, irregular face. Taking into account his remarkable firmness of physique, it struck you that this transparency must be due to some excessive radiance of soul. A soul (in Jewdwine's opinion) a trifle too demonstrative in its hospitality to v

a London Journalist. You divined that the process would be slow. There was no unseemly haste about Jewdwine; time had not been spared in the moulding of his body and his soul. He bore the impress of the ages; the whole man was clean-cut, aristocratic, finished, defined. You

ontrary, it meant that he was always losing sight of him in between. These lapses in their intercourse might be shorter or longer (they were frequently immense), but they had this advantage, that each fresh encounter presented Ric

he was under criticism. But he mi

shop. It isn't that. I wasn't ashamed of our

dered through

e, you know, without sucking the life out of the little booksellers. They mayn't h

ught of it i

t you?

tead? No-no, not at Hampstead; here, at the Club. The Club was the proper thing; a public recognition of him was the amende honorab

doing at Eas

hing a joy as secret and unborn as his moustache. He

e on Saturday? You're fre

pulled two ways, a hard pull. He admired Jewdwine with simple, hero-worshipping fervour; but he also admired Miss Poppy Grace. Again, he shran

"Thanks awfully, I'm afraid I can't.

felt that somehow it did not give you a very high idea of the lady, and that in this it did her an injustice. He could have avoided it by referring to her loftily as Miss Grace; but this course, besid

men was refined almost to nullity. How a poet and a scholar, even if not strictly speaking a gentlem

u cultivated that

ne implied that the soil wa

have you k

months, o

ly on a

said Rickman. "Anybody can know them on; but it's not

glad to

he was deeply interested; but at the momen

sole and chicken, with critical and pathetic twitchings of his fastidious n

exuberance of Rickman's youth. When it

o reach Hampstead in time for dinner, or whether he would dine at the Club. Edith would be annoyed if he failed to keep his appointment, and the Club dinners were not good

an who wrote Helen in Leuce was a poet. Or a

ctions with precision. The arithmetical method was perhaps suggested by the other calculation.

anyhow. A poet one day out of seven; the other six days a

th all its lights, he felt that he had h

onfer further with Jewdwine on this matt

so plainly, "Won't you hear me? I've so much to ask, so much to say. So many ideas, and you're the only man tha

further was he prepared to go? Why-provided he was sure of the genius, almost any length, short of introducing him to the ladies of his family. But was he sure? Savage Rickman wa

ce Jewdwine had hung about the shop for half an hour talking; the interview being broken by Rickman's incessant calls to the counter. Once, they had taken a walk together down Cheapside, which from that moment became a holy place. Then came the day when, at Jewdwine's invitation, Helen in Leuce travelled down from London to Oxford, and from Oxford to Harmouth. Her neo-classic beauty appealed to Jewdwine's taste (and to the taste of Jewdwine's cousin); he recognized in Rickman a disciple, and was instantly persuaded of h

'clock, if he took a cab-say,-twenty minutes. He could spare him another ten. The Junior Journalists were coming back from their dinner and the room would soon be crowded. He to

ot to have found your formula," he said s

aces," said Rickman, nobly touched, as he always

ce. Do you go there to find the ideal, o

l it. Its name on the prog

dwine, gently; "when are you g

h bus

ferred to your situation

ld spoil all his pleasure in that new plate-glass and mahogany

s a big ma

I must see

hing self-evident and indi

ped. So, for Goodness' sake, don't weight yourself any mor

weighs about as

drop her, a

wouldn't drop.

float w

you've got to do is to pull yourself together. Yo

nly distinguishable word in Rickman's answer was "Life." And as he said "Life" he blushed like a girl when for the first t

apathy wa

vaguely, and as he did so he laid on the young man's shoulder a delicate fastidious hand. "There are one or two men here I shoul

ake my advice and leave th

e hansom. It carried him to the classic heights of Hampstead,

ng a brutal challenge to the tender April sky. It stood for the vast material reality, the whole of that eternal, implac

lity was n