But Baruch looked in the glass: his hair, jet black when he was a youth, was marked with grey, and once more the thought came to him—this time with peculiar force—that he could not now expect a woman to love him as she had a right to demand that he should love, and that he must be silent. He was obliged to call upon Barnes in about a fortnight’s time. He still read Hebrew, and he had seen in the shop a copy of the Hebrew translation of the _Moreh Nevochim_ of Maimonides, which he greatly coveted, but could not afford to buy. Like every true book-lover, he could not make up his mind when he wished for a book which was beyond his means that he ought once for all to renounce it, and he was guilty of subterfuges quite unworthy of such a reasonable creature in order to delude himself into the belief that he might yield. For example, he wanted a new overcoat badly, but determined it was more prudent to wait, and a week afterwards very nearly came to the conclusion that as he had not ordered the coat he had actually accumulated a fund from which the _Moreh Nevochim_ might be purchased. When he came to the shop he saw Barnes was there, and he persuaded himself he should have a quieter moment or two with the precious volume when Clara was alone. Barnes, of course, gossiped with everybody. He therefore called again in the evening, about half an hour before closing time, and found that Barnes had gone home. Clara was busy with a catalogue, the proof of which she was particularly anxious to send to the printer that night. He did not disturb her, but took down the Maimonides, and for a few moments was lost in revolving the doctrine, afterwards repeated and proved by a greater than Maimonides, that the will and power of God are co-extensive: that there is nothing which might be and is not. It was familiar to Baruch, but like all ideas of that quality and magnitude—and there are not many of them—it was always new and affected him like a starry night, seen hundreds of times, yet for ever infinite and original. But was it Maimonides which kept him till the porter began to put up the shutters? Was he pondering exclusively upon God as the folio lay open before him? He did think about Him, but whether he would have thought about Him for nearly twenty minutes if Clara had not been there is another matter. ‘Do you walk home alone?’ he said as she gave the proof to the boy who stood waiting. ‘Yes, always.’ ‘I am going to see Marshall to-night, but I must go to Newman Street first. I shall be glad to walk with you, if you do not mind diverging a little.’ She consented and they went along Oxford Street without speaking, the roar of the carriages and waggons preventing a word.