I had every reason to congratulate myself on my new assistant. His zeal and ingenuity not only seconded my researches, but often supplemented them when over-fatigue persuaded me to repose. And Guy’s personal character proved as winning as his intellect keen and reliable. Before long I contrived that he should come and live with me, and I invented for him some light literary employment, by which he could pay me for his board and lodging, with an insignificant sacrifice of his time. He acceded to this arrangement upon its apparent terms, but none the less did he pierce its transparent motive, and tacitly devote to me his whole soul in acknowledgment of what he considered my delicate generosity. These unfledged souls are apt to throw themselves thus away in exchange for the most trifling pecuniary service, and torment themselves, moreover, that the compensation is so mean. I smiled at Guy’s naïveté, but none the less turned it to account. From the foothold thus gained, I rapidly extended my influence over his entire nature. My larger experience enabled me to complete his unfinished thoughts, to sympathize with his scarcely conscious feelings, to subtly impress his principles and co-ordinate them to my own scheme. Having begun by forestalling his material necessities, I continued to supply the finer wants of heart and intellect so completely, that he became habituated to turn to me for everything, and to receive everything that came from me with implicit faith. I fed him, taught him, loved him, and all with such artfulness, that he felt my presence in his life only as a plant feels the sunshine in its calyx, conscious of no intrusion to be resented, or tyranny to be repelled. It is so easy to make the conquest of a young, ingenuous nature! so easy to fix its impetuous, unsuspecting enthusiasm! I marvel that these exquisite relations between master and pupil are so generally left uncultivated, or their charm wasted. I almost marvel that I did not rest completely satisfied with my life at that time; with its arduous study, and its growing fame, and Guy, with the delicious task of educating his supple intellect to my ideas, and penetrating his nature with my personality. Only the loftiness of my ideal saved it from making womanish shipwreck on this episode in its austere voyage towards the realization.
As Guy became more and more competent, I delegated more and more into his hands the preparation for the lectures. The first excitement of getting them into train was past, the first keen interest dulled by habit; and when the second winter began, with repetition of all that had gone before, I went through the business almost mechanically. Often I left everything to my assistant, and shut myself up alone to dream over the project that secretly absorbed my soul. Guy fancied I was ill, and, as my exertions slackened, redoubled his own, consuming heart and brain in the resolve to maintain the course at the level of its original popularity. I was inwardly amused at his devotion to such secondary considerations, but did not interfere, for it helped to serve my purpose.
Finally, I believed my pupil to be fully prepared, and decided that the moment had come for the complete revelation of myself.
One evening,—I selected the evening advisedly, since at that time the imagination is more susceptible of impressions, and further removed from the vulgar influences of every-day life,—I entered our study. Guy was seated at a table, and working in his usual intense fashion, and I threw myself on a sofa beside him.
“Guy,” I exclaimed, “it tires me to look at you. For eight hours you have not stirred from those books. You will kill yourself.”
“Great loss,” he answered, “so that it were in your service, and during the pursuit of knowledge.”
“You love me then, Guy?”
“Love you!” He rose from the table, and coming to the sofa, kneeled and kissed my forehead, without shame, as in France men can kiss each other.
“My master, my friend!” he said; and I felt that he was mine, bound to me by a love passing the love of women. I drew him before me, and ran my fingers through his clustering hair. His affection was pleasant to me, independent of the use I meant to make of it; and I almost experienced a feminine desire to trifle with it for a moment, as one shifts a diamond from one hand to the other to watch its changing flame.
“How much do you love me? as the children say. What would you do for me?”