“Served him right, too, for running off with another man’s wife. Has he ever got out of Purgatory?” Uncle Zach exclaimed, and Helen blessed him for creating a diversion at a point from which she dared not venture much farther.
Everybody laughed except Mrs. Taylor, who had caught a whiff of burning jelly and arose hastily, saying she must be excused.
“Come back, Dot, as quick as you can; it won’t do to lose none of this feast of——, what do you call it?” Uncle Zach said to her, putting his hand on her chair as if to keep it from some imaginary claimant.
Dot did not answer, nor did she come back.
“I think I’ve done my part,” Helen said, but as Craig urged her to go on she continued, with an air of superior wisdom, “As to the much-abused poem, it was written, I suppose, to show the times in which Sordello lived, and is in some sense the history of the development of a great soul. It is the most obscure of all Mr. Browning’s poems, and is like a beautiful palace without a staircase; so if one would reach the rooms on the second floor, he must climb.”
“Bravo! Miss Tracy. That is a most original idea, and you have described it exactly,” Craig cried, enthusiastically.
He evidently had not studied the encyclopedia as she had, and was giving Helen credit for an originality of thought she did not possess. The absence of a staircase had struck her forcibly, and she remembered and repeated it, and, flushed with success, ventured out into waters which proved too deep for her. Why commit portions of Sordello, if she did not use them? she thought. “It is a grand poem, with so many fine passages,” she said, and began to repeat portions of it, but became confused, and strung together parts of sentences in two or three different books, making a medley at which even Craig looked perplexed, wondering where such passages occurred, while Mark disappeared around the corner to hide his merriment.
It was his face which told Helen of her blunder, but she was equal to it. With a gay laugh she said, “I’ve made a horrid mistake, I guess, and jumbled things some, but have done the best I could. Now I’ll give place to the master.”
She made a graceful gesture with her hands toward Craig, and then lay down among her cushions and prepared to listen. Craig was a fine reader and interested in his subject, but the air was hot and sultry and none of his audience very appreciative except Helen. He was sure of her; he was reading to her, and occasionally casting a look at the hammock and the white hand which lay on her grey dress, and the perfect contour of the side of her face he could see, with the rich coloring on her cheek and the soft curl of hair around her delicate ear. He did not mind if Mrs. Tracy did nod occasionally and his mother yawn and Alice cast glances at the village clock which could be seen up the street, while Uncle Zach was placidly sleeping with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open. He had his Plato and was satisfied. As yet he had asked no one for their ideas of the meaning of anything he had read. He had merely given his own and that of the most approved critics.
At last he came to a sentence rather obscure to himself. He asked for an opinion, looking first at Mrs. Tracy, whose eyes were closed,—then at his mother who shook her head,—then at Alice, who was convulsed with laughter, although what there was to laugh about he could not guess.