"Oh, I clean forgot," remarked Roy. "I said they could look in."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Own country.
CHAPTER III.
"It is the spirit of the quest which helps. I am the slave of this spirit of the quest."—Kabir.
Roy's recherché little dinner proved an unqualified success. With sole and chicken sauté, with trifle and savoury, he mutely pleaded his cause; feeling vaguely guilty, the while, of belittling his childhood's idol, whom he increasingly admired and loved. But this India business was tremendously important, and the dear old boy would never suspect——
Roy watched him savouring the chicken and peas; discussing the decay of falling in love, its reasons and remedies; and thought, for the hundredth time, what a splendid old boy he was; so big and breezy, nothing bookish or newspapery about him. Quite a masterpiece of modelling, on Nature's part; the breadth and bulk of him; the massive head, with its thatch of tawny-grey hair that retreated up the sides of his forehead, making corners; the nose, rugged and full of character; the beard and the sea-blue eyes that gave him the sailor aspect Roy had so loved in nursery days. Now he appraised it consciously, with the artist's eye. A vigorous bust of his godfather was his acknowledged masterpiece, so far, in the modelling line, which he preferred to brush or pencil. But first and foremost, literature claimed him: poetry, essays, and the despised novel—truest and most plastic medium for interpreting man to man and race to race: the most entirely obvious medium, thought Roy, for promoting the cause he had at heart.
Though his brain was overflowing with the one subject, he was reserving it diplomatically for the more intimate atmosphere of port wine, coffee and cigars. Meantime they always had plenty to talk about, these two. Broome held the unorthodox view that he probably had quite as much to learn from the young as they from him; and at the moment, the question whether Roy should take up literature in earnest was very much to the fore.
Once or twice during a pause, he caught the shrewd blue eye watching him from under shaggy brows; but each kept his own counsel till the scout had removed all superfluities. Then Broome chose a cigar, sniffed it, and beheaded it.