Noble Rose together, arm-in-arm, in very happy mind. We walked for a few paces in silence, the sweet silence that often falls upon long-parted friends when their hearts are too full for parley. Then Lancelot asked me suddenly ‘Is she not wonderful?’ [Pg 90]and I could answer no more than ‘indeed,’ for she seemed to me the most wonderful creature the world had ever seen, which opinion I entertain and cherish to this very day and hour. [Pg 90] ‘Is she not better than her picture in little?’ he questioned, and again I had no more to say than ‘indeed,’ though I would have liked to find other words for my thoughts. By this time we had come to the way where I should turn to my home, but here Lancelot would needs have it that we should go and visit Mr. Davies’s shop in the High Street. I must say that this resolve somewhat smote my conscience, for it was many a long day since I had crossed Mr. Davies’s threshold; but I would not say Lancelot nay, and so we went our ways to the High Street and Mr. Davies’s shop. And indeed I am glad we did so. [Pg 91] [Pg 91] CHAPTER XII MR. DAVIES’S GIFTS Mr. Davies did not seem at all surprised to see us when we entered, and he turned round and faced us. The poor little man had lived so long among his musty books that the real world had become as it were a kind of dream to him, wherein people came like shadows and people went like shadows, and where still the battered battalions of his books abided with him. But he seemed very well pleased to see us, and shook us both warmly by the hands and called us by our right names, without confounding either of us with the other, and had us into his little back parlour and pressed strong waters upon us, all very hospitably. Of the strong waters Lancelot and I would have none, for in those days I never touched them, nor did Lancelot. I never drank aught headier than ale in the time when I used to frequent the Skull [Pg 92]and Spectacles, and as for Lancelot, who was a gentleman born and used to French wines, he had no relish for more ardent liquors. Then he begged we would have a dish of tea, of which he had been given a little present, he said, of late; and as it would have cut him to the heart if we had refused all his proffers, we sat while he bustled about at his brew, and then
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