This young man had set aside a cherished tradition, as lightly as if he were blowing the dust off the leaves. She was interested.
"How can you tell that?"
"Oh, I know. It's very like a manuscript in the British Museum."
"What manuscript?"
"The Greek text of the Complutensian Polyglot." (He could not help saying to himself, 'That ought to fetch her!') "But it doesn't follow that it's the same type. Whatever it is, it's very beautiful."
"It's easier to read, too, than the ordinary kind."
He was still turning over the pages, handling the book as a lover handles the thing he loves. The very touch of the vellum thrilled him with an almost sensual rapture. Here and there a line flashed from a chorus and lured him deeper into the text. His impulse was still to exclaim, but a finer instinct taught him to suppress his scholarly emotion. Looking up as she spoke he saw her eyes fixed on him with a curious sympathy. And as he thought of the possible destiny of the Euripides he felt guilty as of a treachery towards her in loving the same book.
"Do you read Euripides?" he asked with naïve wonder.
"Yes."
"And Æschylus and Sophocles and Aristoph—?" Mr. Rickman became embarrassed as he recalled certain curious passages, and in his embarrassment he rushed upon his doom—"and—and 'Omer?"