Tingling from her self-inflicted penance, she went to her mothers writing table, for she had to complete her humiliation by writing to him without delay, and expressing fully and unreservedly all that had made this last half-hour so replete with the luxury of self-reproach. But the expression{216} of it was not so easy as the perception of it had been, and she made half a dozen beginnings without satisfying herself. One began, Oh, Mr Silverdale, how could I? but then she despaired of how to proceed. Another began, I have honestly gone over every moment of this afternoon, and I find there is not a single point in which I am not entirely to blame, but that was too business-like and lacked emotion. But when she was almost in despair at these futile efforts, a brilliant idea came into her head. She would write in baby-language, which would surely touch his heart when he remembered how many serious things he and she had discussed together in this pretty jesting fashion.
"Even an absurdity," said Gregg, quietly, "may contain the positive truth. I admit it's ludicrous, but we both agree that it's inexplicable. We have to fall back on conjecture. To my mind there is something suggestive about that persistency in the future of things familiar to us. Suppose they have found a way of keeping things going, just as they are? Hasn't the aim of man always been the permanence of his institutions? And wouldn't it be characteristic of man, as we know him to-day, that he should hold on to purely utilitarian things, conveniences? In this age we sacrifice everything to utility. That's because we're getting somewhere in a hurry. Modern life is the last lap in man's race against Time."Keeling thought for half a minute, drumming with his fingers on the table."And yet, you look an intelligent sort of being," he continued, "even though you are an anachronism."[Pg 152]You will do the typewriting in that small room off this. You have a machine of your own?"O--oh!" groaned Harry in Gholson's exact tone, "'Hark from the tombs'!"
