So while Jimmy, heedless of anything but the great prospect that was
looming before him, set to work then and there, making copious notes,
and lifting passages out of the wonderful book that must not by any
chance be omitted from the still more wonderful play that was to be
written; and while the day drew on to a close, and the lamps were lit in
the streets, and he still worked; someone set out for his rooms with the
purpose of seeing him, someone who had been forgotten by Jimmy for the
time, in the pressure of more urgent things. She came eagerly, and yet
with a certain reluctance; she was turning to Jimmy in a crisis in her
life, as to someone who might put a different complexion upon that life.
The girl was Moira.
She came almost straight from that momentous interview with Charlie; for
in a curious way she felt that this was a matter upon which Jimmy must
have a word to say. Charlie had held her in his arms, and had kissed
her; and almost, as she walked through the lighted streets, she was a
child again in the garden of the rectory, with Charlie's arm about her,
and his lips striving to meet hers; almost, too, she was the girl who
had hidden among the trees and seen Jimmy fight for her. Oh, yes--Jimmy
must have a word to say!
What that word would be or what she desired it to be, she scarcely knew
or cared to think. It is safe at least to say that in that inmost heart
of hers--that heart she had kept concealed from everyone, and which it
might be her fate never to show at all, Jimmy stood first. She had
passionately longed to see him; it had been Jimmy she was going to meet
in London when first she came there with Patience; it was of Jimmy she
had been so anxious to hear. On the other hand, of course, there was the
natural girlish gratitude to the man who had spoken the first words of
love to her--the man who had stepped brightly into her life, and
stripped away her loneliness. An additional factor, too, in the case,
and one which weighed with her heavily, was that Charlie needed help and
guidance; had indeed asked for her strength to lean upon. Jimmy
apparently needed no help and no guidance, and had strength enough for
himself. Nevertheless, Jimmy must have a word to say in the matter.
Jimmy heard the tap upon the door; felt in his own mind that it heralded
a visitor who would interrupt the important work--that work at the end
of which lay a much-needed twenty pounds, to say nothing of fame and
success. Glancing round impatiently from his desk, he called to the
unknown one to come in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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