It was Sir Creighton’s little fun to publish, unknown to any one in the world, a volume of verse that had achieved a brilliant success in the world and even in his own household where its apt lines were frequently quoted both by Amber and her brother. That was how it came about that Sir Creighton smiled quite vaguely when people remarked how strange it was that young Severn had shown an early taste for writing verse. Who was it that he took after, they enquired. They felt that the exigencies of the theory of heredity were fully satisfied when Lady Severn explained that there was a tradition in her family that her father had once sent a valentine to her mother. Still it was funny, they said, to find the son of a father who was a practical “scientist”—that was what they called Sir Creighton: a “scientist”—having a tendency to write verse.
Sir Creighton, when he had finished writhing at the word “scientist,” smiled quite vaguely; for no one seemed to entertain the idea that the inspiration which had enabled the man of science to look into the future and see ships moving silently over the water at a speed of forty-two knots an hour was precisely the same quality which permitted of his translating into English metre the passionate song sung by the Nightingale to the Rose.
No one knew how refreshed he felt on returning to his electrical designs after spending an hour or two over those exquisite fabrics of verse which appeared in the volume by “Alençon Hope” Rhythm and arithmetic seem to many people to be the positive and negative poles of a magnet, but both mean the same thing in the language from which they are derived.
“Poor old pater!” said Amber when the girls were left alone with Lady Severn. “He is back again at one of those problems which he has set himself to solve for the good of the world. Poor old pater!”
“Old!” cried Josephine. “I never met any one so young in the whole course of my life. In his presence I feel quite mature.”
“The greatest problem that he has solved is the science of living,” said Lady Severn. “If he has not discovered the secret of perpetual youth, he has mastered the more important mystery of perpetual happiness.”
“He knows that it is best seen through another’s eye,” said Josephine.
At this point a young man with a very shiny hat in his hand was shown in. He was greeted by Amber by the name of Arthur and by the others as Mr. Galmyn. He was a somewhat low-sized youth with very fair hair breaking into curls here and there that suggested the crests of a wave blown by the wind. It was not his curls, however, but his eyes that attracted the attention of most people; for his eyes were large and delicately blue. Sentimentalists who sat opposite him in an omnibus—an omnibus is full of sentimental people, six on each side—were accustomed to see a certain depth of sadness in Arthur Galmyn’s eyes. He would have felt greatly disappointed if they had failed to think them sad. He had long ago formed a definite opinion about their expression. They had caused him a great deal of thought and some trouble in his time, but he had long ago come to feel every confidence in their sadness. It was his aim to see that his life was congenially tinged with a mild melancholy.
He quoted from “The Lotus Eaters” and tried to realise a life “in which it always seemed afternoon.”
He took tea punctually at five.