I assure you that I made a great fool of myself; though such an assurance is superfluous to any man who has ever earned his salt. I had just enough sense left to say "Yes" or "No," with a "Please" in a deep breath now and then, and a "Thank you" that took away breath altogether. Dariel, who was as fit as a fiddle—how those low expressions spoil one's most exalted moments!—saw with her ill-timed serenity the confounded tumult of my system; and, as she told me in the wiser days, felt ashamed of herself for enjoying it. Ah, me! it is not often, in the little square-round of human life, that we get tossed over the boundaries thus, with the profundity of misery struggling with the sublimity of ecstasy.
"My dear young friend," said the tranquil Lesghian, who had let his eyes follow the lines of his beard in amiable serenity, though there must have been a stealthy smile under it, "few things are more gratifying than to have one's own productions valued by those who understand the subject, and speak without prepossession; especially when the producer has departed from general usage, and carried out his own opinions. You are really sure that you admire——"
"Admire is too weak a word, Sûr Imar,"—my eyes were still upon the charming result of his system of education,—"worship, love, adore, enshrine——"
"We will put it on the labels of our tins, as soon as we have a London agency. But only your initials, as your friends might not approve. I am always at a loss for those strong, expressive words of your language, which now survive only in advertisements. My dear, put them down in your tablets; I defy any soap to surpass them. G. C. worships, loves, adores, and enshrines the coffee of the Caucasus. I am not enthusiastic, Mr. Cranleigh; but next to education and the spread of Christianity, I trust to the civilising effects of commerce, which your nation insists upon, perhaps even more strenuously than the other two great agents. The Russians have introduced the growth of tea, and I heartily hope that it may answer. But knowing the genius of our people, which certainly is not inclined to persistent toil, I have come to the conclusion that coffee, which requires less constant attention, would have a better chance upon our Southern slopes, where the summer is long and the heat intense. I wish I could have seen your brother Harold, that universal genius, about it. The preparation which has so impressed you is not from our native berries yet, only from the slopes near Tiflis. But I hope we shall have our own in a few years' time. And then my discovery comes in."
For all that I knew to the contrary, I might have been drinking bilge-water flavoured with tar and stirred with marlin-spikes. But I grasped his hand with emotion, and said, "No words are adequate, Sûr Imar."
He must have known as well as I did—or what would be the good of his having ever loved his Oria?—that confusion was far too weak a word, and fusion itself not strong enough to describe the condition of my brain. Till Dariel, with one precious glance of reserve and soft sympathy—as if her father really must not claim to be the only one having any knowledge of me—bowed for me to move a little; and oh, she quite hung over me! For, being so stupid, I had not moved; and stupidity gets the prize more often than the cleverest volatility. "Darling!" I whispered through her hair; for her father was gone to his coffee-grinder, to secure some more of my adoration. And Dariel only whispered "Hush," with a quiver, but no repugnance.
"Father," she said with pure presence of mind, as he looked round from his grinding, "my senestra is a little out of tune; but Mr. Cranleigh will allow for that. He is kind enough to wish to hear me sing; and he thinks that my voice is rather agreeable."
"He is right enough in his judgment there. But what opportunity has he ever had of hearing it?" This question made me tremble when I thought of my first offence; but the nymph answered very bashfully—
"You remember—the day, dear father, when you invited Mr. Cranleigh to attend our little service. We all sang in our quiet way; and he was kind enough to be pleased with it."