They walked up together under the high, frosty sky, talking of poetry, of all the beautiful things that they had worshipped in common without knowing it. It seemed strange to Edwin that they should have worked side by side for a couple of years and scarcely spoken to each other when all the time they had so many delights that might have been shared. The unlocking of this closed and secret chamber of his heart gave him a strange feeling of elation and made the world suddenly beautiful. The hard and wintry pavement seemed curiously smooth and resilient; the roadway ran in masterly and noble curves, the black branches of plane-trees and laburnums, even the pointed gables of the smug suburban villas seemed to take on a new and piercing beauty against the starry sky, and they swung along together as triumphant in their ecstasy of youth as if indeed they were treading on the stars.
“What a topping night,” said Boyce. “God . . . look at Vega!” He waved his long arms and quoted:—
“Or search the brow of eve, to catch
In opal depths the first faint beat
Of Vega’s fiery heart. . . .”
“My guvnor’s. He’s a tremendous chap on astronomy.”
“It’s damned good,” said Edwin, thrilling.
“Not bad, is it? He’s a very sound man, the guvnor. I think you’d like him.”
But when they reached the Boyces’ house they found that the poet was not at home. In place of him Edwin was introduced to a mild and beautiful figure with a soft voice who turned out to be Boyce’s mother. She had her son’s soft blue eyes, and spoke to him with such caressing tenderness that Edwin was seized with a sudden feeling of aching emptiness for the memory of his own mother, of whom, so potent is the anodyne of time, he had scarcely thought for more than a year.
Boyce presented Edwin with a high social recommendation. “A friend of Denis Martin’s,” he said. Mrs. Boyce smiled on him.
“Look here,” said her son, “I’m afraid we can’t very well go into the guvnor’s study. He hates any one invading it when he’s not there. Let’s go upstairs to my own room and talk.”