ine he
was almost incredibly abstemious. It was the first time that Jewdwine
had come to close quarters with his disciple, and with some surprise
he saw himself going through the experience without a shock. Either he
had been mistaken in Rickman, or Rickman had improved. Shy he still
was, but he had lost much of his old ungovernable nervousness, and
gave Jewdwine the impression of an immense reserve. He seemed to have
entered into some ennobling possession which raised him above the
region of small confusions and excitements. His eye, when Jewdwine
caught it, no longer struggled to escape; but it seemed to be held
less by him than by its own controlling inner vision.

Jewdwine watched him narrowly. It never entered into his head that
what he was watching was the effect of three weeks' intercourse with
Lucia Harden. He attributed it to Rickman's deliverance from the shop.
To be sure Rickman did not strike him as particularly happy, but this
again he accounted for by the depressing state of his finances.

Neither of them made the most distant allusion to Lucia. Jewdwine was
not aware of the extent of Rickman's acquaintance with his cousin,
neither could he well have conceived it. And for Rickman it was not
yet possible either to speak or to hear of Lucia without pain.

It was not until dinner was over, and Rickman was no longer eating
Jewdwine's food, that they ventured on the unpleasant topic that lay
before them, conspicuous, though untouched. Jewdwine felt that, as it
was impossible to ignore what had passed between them since they had
last met, the only thing was to refer to it as casually as might be.

"By the way, Rickman," he said when they were alone in his study, "you
were quite right about that library. I only wish you could have let me
know a little sooner."

"I wish I had," said Rickman, and his tone implied that he appreciated
the painfulness of the subject.

There was a pause which Rickman broke by congratulating Jewdwine on
his appointment. This he did with a very pretty diffidence and
modesty, which smoothed over the awkwardness of the transition, if
indeed it did not convey an adroit suggestion of the insignificance of
all other affairs. The editor, still observing his unconscious
candidate, was very favourably impressed. He laid before him the views
and aims of _The Museion_.

Yes; he thought it had a future before it. He was going to make it the
organ of philosophic criticism, as opposed to the