She felt a little pang of self-reproach at the sight of him. There was
something pathetic in his attitude, in his bowed head and spread
elbows, the whole assiduous and devoted figure. How hard he was
working, with what a surprising speed in his slender nervous hands.
She had not meant him to give up the whole of his three days' holiday
to her, and she really could not take his Easter Sunday, poor little
man. So, with that courtesy which was Mr. Rickman's admiration and
despair, she insisted on restoring it to him, and earnestly advised
his spending it in the open air. In the evening he could have the
library to himself, to read or write or rest in; he would, she
thought, be more comfortable there than in the inn. Mr. Rickman
admitted that he would like to have a walk to stretch his legs a bit,
and as she opened the south window she had a back view of him
stretching them across the lawn. He walked as rapidly as he wrote,
holding his head very high in the air. He wore a light grey suit and a
new straw hat with a dull olive green ribbon on it, poor dear. She was
glad that it was a fine day for the hat.
She watched him till the beech-tree hid him from her sight; then she
opened the west windows, and the south wind that she had just let in
tried to rush out again by them, and in its passage it lifted up the
leaves of Mr. Rickman's catalogue and sent them flying. The last of
them, escaping playfully from her grasp, careered across the room and
hid itself under a window curtain. Stooping to recover it, she came
upon a long slip of paper printed on one side. It was signed S.K.R.,
and Savage Keith Rickman was the name she had seen on Mr. Rickman's
card. The headline, _Helen in Leuce_, drew her up with a little shock
of recognition. The title was familiar, so was the motto from
Euripides,
[Greek: su Dios ephus, ô HElena thugatêr,]
and she read,
The wonder and the curse of friend and foe,
She watched the ranks of battle cloud and shine,
And heard, Achilles, that great voice of thine,
That thundered in the trenches far below.
Tears upon tears, woe upon mortal woe,
Follow her feet and funeral fire on fire,
While she, that phantom of the heart's desire,
Flies thither, where all dreams and phantoms go.
Oh Strength unconquerable, Achilles! Thee
She follows far into the shadeless land
Of Leuce, girdled by the gleaming sand,
Amidst the calm of an enchanted sea,
Where, children of the Immortals, hand in hand,
Ye share one golden immortality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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