lifted to inspiration by the romance of real life into which he had just walked. He was really a great critic; he had a genius for admiration, and his admiration varied fittingly with everything he admired.
“A splendid girl and a splendid story,” he cried. “I feel as if I were in love again myself, not so much with her as with Eve or Helen of Troy, or some such tower of beauty in the morning of the world. Don’t you love all heroic things, that gravity and great candor, and the way she took one step from a sort of throne to stand in a wilderness with a vagabond? Oh, believe me, it is she who is the poet; she has the higher reason, and honor and valor are at rest in her soul.”
“In short, she is uncommonly pretty,” replied Ashe, with some cynicism. “I knew a murderess rather well who was very much like her, and had just that colored hair.”
“You talk as if a murderer could be caught red-haired instead of red-handed,” retorted Paynter. “Why, at this very minute, you could be caught red-haired yourself. Are you a murderer, by any chance?”
Ashe looked up quickly, and then smiled.
“I’m afraid I’m a connoisseur in murderers, as you are in poets,” he answered, “and I assure you they are of all colors in hair as well as temperament. I suppose it’s inhumane, but mine is a monstrously interesting trade, even in a little place like this. As for that girl, of course I’ve known her all her life, and—but—but that is just the question. Have I known her all her life? Have I known her at all? Was she even there to be known? You admire her for telling the truth; and so she did, by God, when she said that some people wake up late, who have never lived before. Do we know what they might do—we, who have only seen them asleep?”
“Great heavens!” cried Paynter. “You don’t dare suggest that she—”
“No, I don’t,” said the lawyer, with composure, “but there are other reasons.... I don’t suggest anything fully, till we’ve had our interview with this poet of yours. I think I know where to find him.”
They found him, in fact, before they expected him, sitting on the bench outside the Vane Arms, drinking a mug of cider and waiting for the return of his
Prev.
Back
Top