‘The rest of her time is her own,’ repeated Mr. Blisset, as if he clung to that concession with fondness and pride, feeling that it made up for all other privations which her day’s work might entail--which indeed was the case. His infirmity--his long confinement to one house and one spot--the absorbed concentration of his faculties upon one work--a work which he was determined should burst upon the world, and make him illustrious--all this, and above all, Adrienne’s own devotion to him and his pursuits, since she had come to live with him, had fostered his natural egotism; till now he verily believed that his yoke was easy and his burden light to the young creature who bore it, and that that hour ‘after she came in’ was an elastic period, in which any amount of private work and reading could be done, and pleasure enjoyed. Yet he was not a hard-hearted man, and if Adrienne had been by any cause removed from him, it would have been her gentle presence and the charm of her company that he would have lamented--not the loss of her services in reading, writing, and research. His intense and almost forbidding coldness of manner was soon understood by Myles, who discovered before long that it arose chiefly from physical weakness and languor--not from any want of interest in the questions of the day, or in the men and things about him. ‘You are writing a great book, sir?’ inquired Myles, by way of something to say. ‘A book,’ corrected Mr. Blisset--a slight but ineffable smile playing upon the marble of his face. ‘Let no men and no generation call any of their own achievements--whether in literature or legislation--great. That is for posterity to decide.’ (‘Humph!’ thought Myles. ‘That implies that posterity will take some notice of it, in which case--but the reflections opened up were too large to be fully followed out then.) ‘One branch of knowledge, and one alone, can produce works which at the very time of their appearance may be safely pronounced great--and that is science, of course,’ resumed Mr. Blisset half-closing his eyes. ‘Then yours is not a scientific work,’ said Myles politely. ‘It is chiefly historical and speculative, but based, I trust, on the truest and most profoundly scientific principles. It is an inquiry into the question whether highly advanced civilisation and an art-spirit living, original, and capable of producing new and great works, can exist together--whether they are ever likely to go hand in hand.’ ‘And what do you conclude?’ asked Myles. ‘I began in hope,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘But the hope has died away. Music still remains--a wide, only partially trodden field, but for the rest----’ he shook his head. ‘Of course it is a gigantic undertaking,’ he went on, ‘and I have been engaged upon it for twenty years. But I think when my work is complete, that I shall have pretty well exhausted the subject.’