“Well, you are very fond of books, are you not?” I said.
“Fond of books!” cried Augusta. “Fond of books! I love them. But that is not the right word: I reverence them; I have a passion for them.”
She looked hurriedly round her. “I shall never marry,” she continued in a low whisper, “but I shall surround myself with books—the books of the great departed; their words, their thoughts, shall fill my brain and my heart. I shall be satisfied; nothing else will satisfy me but books, books, books!”
“Do come to this corner of the playground,” I said. “You speak as though you were reciting, and if you raise your voice the least bit in the world some one will hear you, and we shall have a crowd round us.”
She obeyed me. She was in a world of her own. As I looked at her I thought she was marvellously like the Professor in her mind.
“It is a dreadful pity,” I said.
“What is a pity?” she asked.
“That you are not me, and I am not you.”
“Oh dear,” she said, “how you do mix things up! How could I be you?”
“Well, if you lived with the Professor—if you were his child—you’d have books; you’d live in the world you love.”