'Oh, you said it' cried Humphrey.
Thus Henry closed a door behind him. And treading the air, trying desperately to control the upward-twitching corners of his mouth, humming the wedding-march from Lohengrin to the familiar words:—
Here comes the bride—
Get on to her stride!
—he marched, a conqueror, down Simpson Street. Yes, it was worth a thousand.
Back in the old Voice office, Mr Boice sat motionless, big hands sprawling across his thighs, making little sounds.
I think he was trying, in his deliberate way, to figure out what had happened. But he never succeeded in figuring it out. Not this particular incident. He couldn't know that it is as well to face a tigress as an artist whose mental offspring you have injured.
No; to him, Henry, the boy of the silly little cane and the sillier moustache, had stepped out of character. He couldn't know that Henry, the drifting, helpless youth, and Henry the blazing artist were two quite different persons. In Mr Boice's familiar circles they played duplicate whist and talked business, but they were not acquainted with the mysteries of dual personality such as appear in the case of any genius, great or small.
Nor (for the excellent reason that he had never heard of William Blake or his works) did the immortal line come to mind;—
Did He who made the lamb make thee?