he
formidable and unattractive wilderness that a new textbook commonly
presents to the pupil's mind.' I call that jolly good, Marko. I call it
all awfully good. Fancy you sitting in here and thinking out all those
ideas. Or do you think them out at home? Do you talk them out with
Mabel?"

He thought of Mabel's expression. "Those lesson books." He lied. "Oh,
yes. Pretty often."

"Show me which was the first one of all--the one you began with."

He showed her. "Fancy!" She handled it. "How fearfully proud of it you
must have been, Marko. And Mabel; wasn't she proud? The very first!" She
called it "Dear thing" and returned it to its place with a little pat,
as of affection.

He turned away. "Oh, well, that's enough," he said.

V

She moved about the room, touching things, looking at things.

"Show me something else. Is that where the old trout basks? Can he hear
us? I'm glad I've seen your room, Marko. I shall imagine you puzzling in
here."

Touching things, looking at things.... He thought the room would always
look different--after this. He felt strangely disturbed. He could with
difficulty reply to her. His mind threw back, in its habit, to some dim
occasion when he had felt in some degree as he was feeling now. When?
Certainly he had felt it before. When?

He remembered. It was a Saturday in the first month of his first term at
Tidborough School when his father had come over to see him. The
loneliness of newness was still upon him. He had been affected almost to
tears by being with some one whose mind was open, as it were, for him to
jump into: some one to whom he could open his mind, unseal the home
thoughts, unlock the timid tongue. He had talked how he had talked! He
had felt bursting to talk; and only talking could ease the feeling; and
how it had eased! Yes, this was the same again. He did not want her to
go. He wanted to talk--how he wanted to talk!--to tell, unseal, unlock,
expose.

He said, "I tell you what, Nona. I'll tell you something. I've an idea
sometimes of cutting out from all this place and starting an
educational publishing business on my own."

She was enormously interested. "Oh, Marko, if only you would!"

"Well, I think about it. I do. I can see a biggish thing in it. The
Tidborough Press, I'd call it. Like the University Press, you know,
Oxford and Cambridge. By Jove, it might go any distance, you know!"

"Oh, you must! You must!"

He began to pour out the tremendous and darin