'You can't reach those upper shelves,' he said; 'please let me.'
He was already beside her, and she gave way.
'I want Charles Auchester,' she said, still forbiddingly. 'It ought to be there.'
'Oh, that queer musical novel—I know it quite well. No sign of it here,' and he ran over the shelves with the practised eye of one accustomed to deal with books.
'Robert must have lent it,' said Rose, with a little sigh. 'Never mind, please. It doesn't matter,' and she was already moving away.
'Try some other instead,' he said, smiling, his arm still upstretched. 'Robert has no lack of choice.' His manner had an animation and ease usually quite foreign to it. Rose stopped, and her lips relaxed a little.
'He is very nearly as bad as the novel-reading bishop, who was reduced at last to stealing the servant's Family Herald out of the kitchen cupboard,' she said, a smile dawning.
Langham laughed.
'Has he such an episcopal appetite for them? That accounts for the fact that when he and I begin to talk novels I am always nowhere.'
'I shouldn't have supposed you ever read them,' said Rose, obeying an irresistible impulse, and biting her lip the moment afterwards.