ir and
could have steadied his nerves by synchronous smoking, as he was
accustomed to do whenever he had any embarrassing business matters to
settle, he might have succeeded in expressing to Phillida the smoldering
passion that made life a bitterness not to be sweetened even by Caxton
imprints and Bedford-bound John Smiths of 1624.

He always knew that if he should ever succeed in letting Phillida know
of his affection it would be by a sudden charge made before his
diffidence could rally to oppose him. He had once or twice in his life
done bold things by catching his dilatory temper napping. With this idea
he went every day to call on Phillida, hoping that a fit of desperation
might carry him at a bound over the barrier. At first he looked for some
very favorable opportunity, but after several visits he would have been
willing to accept one that offered the least encouragement.

There were but a few days left before Phillida's departure southward,
and if he should allow her to escape he would incur the bitter
reproaches of his own conscience, and, what seemed even worse, the
serious disapproval of Mrs. Gouverneur.

Phillida and her mother were to leave on Friday afternoon by the
Congressional Limited for Baltimore, and to take boat down the bay on
Saturday. Philip had arranged it all. It was now Tuesday, and the time
for "improving his opportunity in life" was short. On this Tuesday
afternoon he talked an hour to Phillida, but he could not possibly
cause the conversation to swing around so as to be able, even with
considerable violence, to make the transition he desired. He first let
her lead, and she talked to him about the East and the queer ways of the
yellow Mongolians she remembered. These memories of early childhood, in
the blessed period when care and responsibility had not yet disturbed
the spirit's freedom, brought her a certain relief from gnawing
reflections. When she tired it was his turn to lead, and he soon slipped
into his old grooves and entertained her with stories of the marvelous
prices fetched by Mazarin Bibles, and with accounts of people who had
discovered "fourteeners" in out-of-the-way places, and such like lore of
the old book-shop. All the time he was tormented by a despairing
under-thought that love-making was just as far from book-collecting as
it was from Phillida's Oriental memories. At length the under-thought
suppressed the upper ones, and he paused and looked out of the window
and dre