"That's what I think; but if it forbids him, and if consequently he will not, well,--Harry,--I will."He smiled. "No, but I can put some there if you want it."Keeling had intended to pass an hour among his books to wash off the scum, so to speak, of this atrocious conversation, but when he got to his library, and had taken down his new edition of Omar Khayyam, which Charles Propert had induced him to buy, he found it could give him very little emotion. He was aware of the exquisite type, of the strange sensuous wood-cuts that somehow{289} affected him like a subtle odour, of the beautiful binding, and not least of the text itself, but all these perfections were no more than presented to him; they did not penetrate. He could not rid himself of the scum; the odiousness of his wifes approbation would not be washed off. And what made it cling was the fact that she had divined him correctly, had rejoiced at his serving the Club out. It was just that which Norah deprecated, and he felt that Lord Inverbrooms complete silence on the point, his forbearance to hint ever so faintly that perhaps Keeling would reconsider his action, expressed disapprobation as eloquently as Norahs phrase, which he had finished for her, had done. It was a caddish act, that was what they both thought about it, and Alice, when she had finished her nonsense about Mr Silverdales rubber of bridge, had a similar protest in her mind. He did not rate poor Alices mind at any high figure; it was but the fact that she was allied to the other two, and opposed to her mother, that added a little weight to her opinion.
FORE:They looked at the Falls from all the points of view. They went under the Canadian side, and they also went under the Central Fall, and into the Cave of the Winds. They stood for a long time watching the water tumbling over Horseshoe Fall, and they stood equally long on the American side. When the day was ended, the boys asked the Doctor if he would not permit them to remain another twenty-four hours.
For a few minutes he sat glowering and sipping."Oh, no, indeed! I am the one to blame, the only one. If you had not, both of you, been so blameless--so splendidly blameless--I should hardly have let myself sink so deep into blame; but I knew you would never take the last glad step until you had seen the last sad proof that you might take it. Oh, Captain, to-night is the third time that in my dreams I have seen that man alive.""The proudest day of my lifeI've been to the top of Fusiyama.""Exceedingly." The Clockwork man's head nodded up and down with a regular rhythm. "The whole aim of man is convenience." He jerked himself forward a few paces, as though[Pg 81] impelled against his will. "But my present situation, you know, is extremely inconvenient.""Nearly every one who comes to Pekin is thus disappointed," said Doctor Bronson; "he expects to see the city from a distance, while, in reality, it is not visible till you are quite close to it."
