Hetty saw him coming, and ran lightly to open the door for him, and as
he took his seat beside her at the table, he forgot straightway his
whole trouble, and found himself at once in Paradise once more. All
through lunch they talked about other things--happy plans for the
future, and the small prettinesses that lovers find so perennially
delightful; and long before Arthur went away the twitching in his face
had altogether ceased to trouble him. Once or twice, indeed, in the
course of the afternoon he happened to glance casually at the
looking-glass above the drawing-room fireplace (those were the
pre-Morrisian days when overmantels as yet were not), and he saw to his
great comfort that his face was resting in its usual handsome repose and
peacefulness. A bright, earnest, strong face it was, with all the
promise of greatness already in it; and so Hetty thought as she looked
up at it from the low footstool where she sat by his side, and half
whispered into his ear the little timid confidences of early betrothal.
Five o'clock tea came all too soon, and then Arthur felt he must really
be going and must get home to do a little reading. On his way, he
fancied once he saw a street boy start in evident surprise as he
approached him, but it might be fancy; and when the street boy stuck his
tongue into the corner of his cheek and uttered derisive shouts from a
safe distance, Arthur concluded he was only doing after the manner of
his kind out of pure gratuitous insolence. He went home to his lodgings
and sat down to an hour's work; but after he had read up several pages
more of "Stuckey on Gout," he laid down the book in disgust, and took
out Helmholtz and Joule instead, indulging himself with a little
desultory reading in his favourite study of the higher physics.
As he read and read the theory of correlation, the great idea as to the
real nature of energy, which had escaped all these learned physicists,
and which was then slowly forming itself in his own mind, grew gradually
clearer and clearer still before his mental vision. Helmholtz was wrong
here, because he had not thoroughly appreciated the disjunctive nature
of electric energy; Joule was wrong here, because he had failed to
understand the real antithesis between potential and kinetic. He laid
down the books, paced up and down the room thoughtfully, and beheld the
whole concrete theory of interrelation embodying itself visibly before
his very eyes. At last he grew fired with the stupendous grandeur of his
own conception, seized a quire of foolscap, and sat down eagerly at the
table to give written form to the splendid phantom that was floating
before him in so distinct a fashion. He would make a great name, for
Hetty's sake; and, when he had made it, his dearest reward would be to
know that Hetty was proud of him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account