"Then, if you have nothing better to amuse you, just step with me into my study; I have a new discovery to communicate, which will, I think, delight you."
Nothing better to amuse him! to leave Blanche for some twaddle about Horace! was it not provoking? But he was forced to go, there was no escaping, If anything could have compensated him, it would have been the expression of impatience on Blanche's face, and the look with which she seemed to say, "Don't stay too long."
When they were in the study, Meredith Vyner placed his snuff-box on the table, and, resting his left foot on the fender, began stroking his protuberant calf in a very deliberate manner. This was a certain sign of his being at that moment struggling with some conception, which demanded the greatest clearness and composure, adequately to bring forth. His mind was tottering under the weight of an unusual burden. As the left hand slowly descended the inner part of his leg, from the knee to the ankle, and as slowly ascended again the same distance, Cecil saw that he was arranging in his head something of more consequence than a verbal criticism. "The discovery I am about to impart," he said at last, with a slight pomposity, "is not perfectly elaborated in my mind, since the first gleam of it only came to me last night. It kept me sleepless. I have meditated profoundly on it since, and I am now in a condition to communicate it to you."
In spite of the solemnity of this introduction, Cecil, whose thoughts were on the terrace, found great difficulty in assuming a proper air of attentive interest. Vyner did not remark it, but continued:—
"The discovery is so simple when once mentioned—like all truly great discoveries—that one asks oneself, is it possible that hitherto it should have been overseen? It goes, however, to nothing less than the entire revolution of the Horatian Sapphic. Look here: you must often, I am sure, have been disagreeably affected by the absurdity of
Labitur ripa, Jove non probante,
uxorius amnis.
"This sort of caprice is very funny in Canning's
U.
-niversity of Güttingen;
but only tolerable in comic verse: in a serious ode it is detestable, and I cannot believe so careful and fastidious a poet (who was no innovator, recollect! none of your école romantique!) guilty of it..."
"You propose a new reading?" suggested Cecil, feeling called upon to make some remark.