He repeated it enthusiastically several times.
“Ah, Kingcote and I used to hunt up lines like that and revel over them! I have no one now with whom to talk in that way. He had a fine taste, a wonderful palate for pure literary flavour. His ear was finer than my own, much finer. He showed me metrical effects in Marlowe which I am ashamed to say I had utterly missed. There was one sonnet of old Drummond’s—Drummond of Hawthornden—that we relished together. Of course you know it well; the one beginning—
‘Lamp of heaven’s crystal hall that brings the hours.’
In it comes that phrase, ‘Apelles of the flowers.’ A grievous loss to me, an irreparable loss! I am engaged at present on an edition of Twelfth Night, in which, by-the-bye”—his eye twinkled—“I explain ‘the lady of the Strachy,’ I constantly miss Kingcote’s comments.”
Ada listened with thoughtful countenance.
“He ought to do something himself,” Mr. Vissian added, “but I fear his health is very bad. Last autumn he had a severe illness——”
“Last autumn?”
She interrupted involuntarily, and at once dismissed the curiosity which had risen to her face.
“Yes; I didn’t hear from him for a long time. He told me afterwards that he had beea at the point of death.”
“I hope you will let me have your Twelfth Night when it appears,” Ada said, after a short silence.