mere personal view.
It would, therefore, be unique. Yes; certainly it would also be
unpopular. Heaven forbid that anything he was concerned in should be
popular. It was sufficient that it should be impartial and
incorruptible. Its tone was to be sober and scholarly, but militant.
Rickman gathered that its staff were to be so many knights-errant
defending the virtue of the English Language. No loose slip-shod
journalistic phrase would be permitted in its columns. Its articles,
besides being well reasoned, would be examples of the purity it
preached. It was to set its face sternly against Democracy,
Commercialism and Decadence.

The disciple caught fire from the master's enthusiasm; he approved,
aspired, exulted. His heart was big with belief in Jewdwine and his
work. Being innocent himself of any sordid taint, he admired above all
things what he called his friend's intellectual chastity. Jewdwine
felt the truth of what Lucia had told him. He could count absolutely
on Rickman's devotion. He arrived by well-constructed stages at the
offer of the sub-editorship.

Rickman looked up with a curious uncomprehending stare. When he
clearly understood the proposal that was being made to him, he flushed
deeply and showed unmistakable signs of agitation.

"Do you think," said Jewdwine discreetly, "you'd care to try it for a
time?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," said Rickman thoughtfully.

"Well, it's only an experiment. I'm not offering you anything
permanent."

"Of course, that makes all the difference."

"It does; if it isn't good enough--"

"You don't understand me. That's what would make it all right."

"Make what all right?"

"My accepting--if you really only want a stop-gap."

"I see," said Jewdwine to himself, "the youth has tasted liberty, and
he objects to being caught and caged."

"The question is," said Rickman, sinking into thought again, "whether
you really want _me_."

"My dear fellow, why on earth should I say so if I didn't?"

"N--no. Only I thought, after the mess I've made of things, that none
of your family would ever care to have anything to do with me again."
It was the nearest he had come to mentioning Lucia Harden, and the
pain it cost him was visible on his face.

"My family," said Jewdwine with a stiff smile, "will _not_ have
anything to do with you. It has nothing to do with _The Museion_.

"In that case, I don't see why I shouldn't try it, if I can be of any
use to you." From the calmness