CHAPTER IX
"Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in."—W. E. Henley.
It was a summer night, hot and still, six weeks later, towards the end of July. Through the open windows of a house in Hamilton Gardens a divine voice came out into the listening night:—
"She comes not when Noon is on the roses—
Too bright is day.
She comes not to the Soul till it reposes
From work and play.
But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices
Roll in from Sea,
By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight
She comes to me."
Stephen sat alone in Hamilton Gardens, a massive figure under a Chinese lantern, which threw an unbecoming light on his grim face and heavy brows, and laid on the grass a grotesque boulder of shadow of the great capitalist.
I do not know what he was thinking about, as he sat listening to the song, biting what could only by courtesy be entitled his little finger. Was he undergoing a passing twinge of poetry? Did money occupy his thoughts?
His impassive face betrayed nothing. When did it ever betray anything?
He was not left long alone. Figures were pacing in the half-lit gardens, two and two.
Prose rushed in upon him in the shape of a small square body, upholstered in grey satin, which trundled its way resolutely towards him.