“Poor, poor thing. It is all too sad,” sighed Juanita. “Let us go into the library and forget them. There are no Strangways there, thank Heaven.”
She put her arm through Godfrey’s and led him off, unresisting. He was in that stage of devotion in which he followed her like a dog.
The library was one of the best rooms in the house, but the least interesting from an archæologist’s point of view. It had been built early in the eighteenth century for a ball-room, a long narrow room, with five tall windows, and it had been afterwards known as the music-room; but James Dalbrook had improved it out of its original character by throwing out a large bay, with three windows opening on to a semi-circular terrace, with marble balustrade and steps leading down to the prettiest portion of that Italian garden which was the crowning glory of Cheriton Manor, and which it had been Lord Cheriton’s delight to improve. The spacious bay gave width and dignity to the room, and it was in the space between the bay and the fireplace that people naturally grouped themselves. It was too large a room to be warmed by one fire of ordinary dimensions, but the fireplace added by James Dalbrook was of abnormal width and grandeur, while the chimney-piece was rich in coloured marbles and massive sculpture. The room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Clusters of wax candles were burning on the mantelpiece, and two large moderator lamps stood on a massive carved oak table in the centre of the room—a table spacious enough to hold all the magazines, reviews, and periodicals in three languages that were worth reading—Quarterlies, Revue des Deux Mondes, Rundschau, Figaro, World, Saturday, Truth, and the rest of them—as well as guide-books, peerages, clergy and army lists—which made a formidable range in the middle.
Godfrey flung himself into a long, low, arm-chair, and Juanita perched herself lightly beside him on the cushioned arm, looking down at him from that point of vantage. There was a wood fire here as well as in the hall; but the rain was over now, the evening had grown warmer, and the French windows in the bay stood open to the dull grey night.
“What are you reading now, Godfrey?” asked Juanita, glancing at the cosy double table in a corner by the chimney-piece, loaded with books above and below.
“For duty reading Jones’ book on ‘Grattan and the Irish Parliament;’ for old books ‘Plato;’ for new ‘Wider Horizons.’”
He was an insatiable reader, and even in those long summer days of honeymoon bliss he had felt the need of books, which were a habit of his life.
“Is ‘Wider Horizons’ a good book?”
“It is full of imagination, and it carries one away; but one has the same feeling as in ‘Esoteric Buddhism.’ It is a very comforting theory, and it ought to be true; but by what authority is this gospel preached to us, and on what evidence are we to believe?”
“‘Wider Horizons’ is about the life to come?”