“That’s awfully interesting,” said Olivia. “But—forgive me—who pays you for it?”
“Possibly mankind two hundred years hence,” he laughed. “But, if I stick it long enough, they may make me a Fellow of the Royal Society when I’m—say—seventy-three.”
“I wish you’d tell me some more about these forami—funny little things I’ve never heard of,” said Olivia.
But he answered: “No. If once I began, I would bore you so stiff that you would curse the hour you allowed me to cross your threshold. There are other things just as vital as foraminifera. I’ve made my confession, Miss Gale. Now, won’t you make yours? What are you keen on?”
At the direct question, Olivia passed in review the aims and interests and pleasures of her past young life, and was abashed to find them a row of anæmic little phantoms. For years her head had been too full of duties. She regarded him for a moment or two in dismay, then she laughed in young defiance.
“I suppose I’m keen on real live human beings. That’s my starting-point to the solution of the riddle of existence.”
“We’ll see who gets there first,” said he.
When the meal was over, she stood by the door which he held open for her and hesitated for a moment.
“I wonder whether you would care to look over the house?”
“I should immensely. But—if you’re not going to let it——”
“You’ll be able, at any rate, to tell Mr. Trivett that he had no business to send you to such an old rabbit warren,” she replied, with some demureness.
“I’m at your orders,” smiled Olifant.
She played cicerone with her little business-like air of dignity, spoke in a learned fashion of water supply, flues, and boilers. Olifant looked wisely at the kitchen range, while Myra stood at impassive attention and the cook took refuge in the scullery.
“These holes are to put saucepans on, I presume,” said he.
“You’ve hit it exactly,” said Olivia.
They went upstairs. On the threshold of the best bedroom he paused and cried, in some astonishment: “What an exquisite room!”
“It was my mother’s,” said Olivia. “You can come in. It has a pleasant view over the garden.”
Then Olifant, who had inspected the study, solved the puzzle of the drawing-room. There the man and woman had compromised. She had suffered him to hang his Victorian mirror and his screaming pictures in the midst of her delicate scheme. But here her taste reigned absolute. It was all so simple, so exquisite: a few bits of Chippendale and Sheraton, a few water-colours on the walls, a general impression for curtains and upholstery of faded rose brocade. On a table by the bed-head stood a little row of books in an inlaid stand. With the instinct of a bookish man, Olifant bent over to look at their backs, but first turned to Olivia.
“May I?”
“Of course.” Then she added, with a vague longing to impress on a stranger the wonder and beauty of the spirit that had created these surroundings: “My mother knew them all by heart, I think. Naturally she used to read other things and I used to read aloud to her—she was interested in everything till the day of her death—but these books were part of her life.”
There were: Marcus Aurelius, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The Imitation of Christ, Christina Rossetti, the almost forgotten early seventeenth century Arthur Warwick (“Spare Minutes; or, Resolved Meditation and Premeditated Resolutions”), Crabbe … a dozen volumes or so. Olifant picked out one.
“And this, too? The Pensées de Pascal?”
“She loved it best,” said Olivia.
“It is strange,” said he. “My father spent most of his life on a monumental work on Pascal. He was a Professor of Divinity at a Scotch University, but died long before the monument could be completed. I’ve got his manuscripts. They’re in an awful mess, and it would take another lifetime to get them into order. Anyhow, he took good care that I should remember Pascal as long as I lived.”
“How?”
“He had me christened Blaise.”
“Blaise Olifant,” she repeated critically. She laughed. “He might have done worse.”
He turned over the pages. “There’s one thing here that my father was always drumming into me. Yes, here it is. It’s marked in blue pencil.”
“Then it must have been drummed into me, too,” said Olivia.
“ ‘On ne consulte que l’oreille, parce qu’on manque de cœur. La règle est l’honnêteté.´”
“Yes,” she said, with a sigh.
He replaced the book. They went in silence out to the landing. After a few seconds of embarrassment they turned and descended to the hall.
“I can more than understand, Miss Gale, why you feel you can’t let the house. But I’m sorry.”
She weakened, foreseeing the house empty and desolate, given over to dust and mice and ghosts.
“It was the idea of a pack of people, the British Family in all its self-centredness and selfishness, coming in here that I couldn’t stand,” she confessed.
“Then is there a chance for me?” he asked, his face brightening. “Look. I’m open to a bargain. The house is just what I want. I’m not a recluse. I’m quite human. I should like to have a place where I can put up a man or so for a week-end, and I’ve a married sister, none too happy, who now and then might like to find a refuge with me. There’s also a friend, rather a distinguished fellow, who wants to join me for a few months’ quiet and hard work. So, suppose I give you my promise to hold that room sacred, to keep it just as it is and allow no one to go into it except a servant to dust and so forth—what would you say? Not now. Think it over and write to me at your convenience.”
His sympathy and comprehension had won her over. He was big and kind and brotherly. Somehow she felt that her mother would have liked him, accepting him without question as one of her own caste, and would have smiled on him as High Priest in charge of the Household Gods. She reflected for a while, then, meeting his eyes:
“You can have the house, Major Olifant,” she said seriously.
He bowed. “I’m sure you will not regret it,” said he. “I ought to remind you, however,” he added after a pause, “that I may have a stable companion for a few months. The distinguished fellow I mentioned. I wonder whether you’ve heard of Alexis Triona.”
“The man who wrote Through Blood and Snow?”
“Have you read it?”
“Of course I have,” cried Olivia. “What do you think I do here all day? Twiddle my thumbs or tell my fortune by cards?”
“I hope you think it’s a great book,” he said, with a smile.
“An amazing book. And you’re going to bring him to live here? What’s he like?”
“It would take days to tell you.”
“Well, compress it into a sort of emergency ration,” said Olivia.