and to all time; this room to her
and to the burning present. There was no sign or suggestion of another
presence.

A kindly room (barring that parquet floor!); a beautiful room; full of
warm lights, and broad and pleasing shadows; furnished with an extreme
simplicity, such bareness as musicians love. He was struck by that
absence of all trivial decoration, all disturbing and irrelevant
detail. In such a room, the divinity of the human form was not dwarfed
or obscured by excess of furniture. Such a room, he reflected, was
also eminently disadvantageous to any figure that was not entirely
sure of its divinity. But for two persons who desired to know each
other better there couldn't be a better place. It left them so
securely, so intimately alone.

For the first time, then, he was alone with Lucia Harden.

She had risen and had unlocked a drawer in the writing-table near her,
and taken out the thick pile of manuscript. He noticed that she
detached from it some loose pencilled sheets and put them back into
the drawer. She seated herself in her old place and signed to him to
take the low chair beside her.

He approached her (for the first time) without nervousness or
embarrassment; for he saw his _Helen_ lying on her knees and knew that
she held his dreams in her soul. He had made her acquainted with the
best and highest in him, and she would judge him by that alone. In her
sight his genius would stand apart from all in him that was jarring
and obscure. It at least was untouched by the accident of his birth,
the baseness of his false position.

"I sent for you," said she, "because I wanted to talk to you about
this, while it is all fresh in my mind. I thought we could talk better
here."

"Thanks. I want awfully to know what you have to say."

"I can't have anything to say that you don't know already."

"I--I know nothing." (What a hypocrite he felt as he said it!)

"Nor I. As far as knowledge goes I haven't any right to speak.
Only--the other evening, you expressed such absolute disbelief in
yourself--"

"I was perfectly sincere."

"I know you were. That's what made me believe in you."

(Well then, if _that_ was what made her believe in him he would
continue to express disbelief in himself.)

She paused. "It's the little men, isn't it, the men of talent, that
are always so self-conscious and so sure? I don't know much about it,
but it seems to me that genius isn't bound to be like that. It might
be so dif