The wrinkled old man who was the presiding genius of the place had two customers, a tall, gray-bearded clergyman with bright, kindly eyes, and his son, the same Brian Osmond whom Erica had charged with her umbrella in Gower Street.
“An outside customer for you,” remarked Charles Osmond, the clergyman, glancing at the shop keeper. Then to his son, “What a picture she makes!”
Brian looked up hastily from some medical books which he had been turning over.
“Why that's my little Gower Street friend,” he exclaimed, the words being somehow surprised out of him, though he would fain have recalled them the next minute.
“I don't interrupt her,” said the shop owner. “Her father has done a great deal of business with me, and the little lady has a fancy for poetry, and don't get much of it in her life, I'll be bound.”
“Why, who is she?” asked Charles Osmond, who was on very friendly terms with the old book collector.
“She's the daughter of Luke Raeburn,” was the reply, “and whatever folks may say, I know that Mr. Raeburn leads a hard enough life.”
Brian turned away from the speakers, a sickening sense of dismay at his heart. His ideal was the daughter of Luke Raeburn! And Luke Raeburn was an atheist leader!
For a few minutes he lost consciousness of time and place, though always seeing in a sort of dark mist Erica's lovely face bending over her book. The shop keeper's casual remark had been a fearful blow to him; yet, as he came to himself again, his heart went out more and more to the beautiful girl who had been brought up in what seemed to him so barren a creed. His dream of love, which had been bright enough only an hour before, was suddenly shadowed by an unthought of pain, but presently began to shine with a new and altogether different luster. He began to hear again what was passing between his father and the shop keeper.
“There's a sight more good in him than folks think. However wrong his views, he believes them right, and is ready to suffer for 'em, too. Bless me, that's odd, to be sure! There is Mr. Raeburn, on the other side of the Row! Fine-looking man, isn't he?”