“Why should I let daylight in, David?” Gaveston responded to his manly remonstrances. “It only stifles the imagination.”
“And fresh air?” queried David with astonishment.
“Only chills,” came the pointed reply. And Gaveston turned to the table heaped high with the rarest etchings of Bakst and Barribal and Beardsley, and resumed his task of passepartouting these sinuous Salomes and fat-fingered Fanfreluches.… After that, David came no more.
But one morning, shortly before six, he was hurrying down the slumberous Woodstock Road, returning from an early bathe at Marston Ferry. Past him hastened a gaunt figure, spare and ascetic, but unmistakably distinguished; in the deep earth-bound eyes shone the glow of an inner fire, and from the wrist dangled a simple rosary of pearls and a neat scapular of plain design; the lips muttered. In the uncertain light of the February morning, David had difficulty in recognizing that once familiar and friendly form.
But yes! It was! It was!
“Gaveston!” he cried out, almost involuntarily, so great was his surprise. “Where on earth are you off to at this time?”
But Gaveston (for such it was) did not stop.
“Terce,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’m late.” And through the morning mists he hurried towards the distant spire of SS. Protus and Hyacinth. David stood for a moment watching his retreating figure, and wondering, as was his wont, what new notes were now being tested in the inexhaustible gamut of Gaveston’s soulstrings.
Well might he wonder, for apace discovery was following on discovery, vista too upon vista.…