‘You forget to go out for your lunch,’ she said. ‘That is not good for the young. You spend too much time over those queer characters. You will lose the brightness of your eyes; your back will bend. I like to look up and see you there when I am awake. But⸺I was once as pretty as you. Do not come here too much. This place is full of dreams. I have found it worth while to give up all things, but⸺’
She would be quite sensible and coherent for a while; then she would wander off into something unintelligible.
While they were talking one day the librarian came in. He greeted Miss Brooke in a murmur as he passed on to find the thing he needed. He seemed to need many books from those otherwise undisturbed shelves.
‘That is a pleasant young man,’ Miss Brooke said as he went out, closing the door behind him. ‘He is in and out here a great deal since you began to read here, much more than formerly.’
She fixed her rather mad, bright eyes on Esther, who, to her annoyance, felt the colour come to her cheeks; she always coloured very easily.
‘Ah, that is right,’ Miss Brooke said. ‘Mr. Tyrrell is an excellent young man. You do not know him. I must make you known to each other. I was afraid that you were going to follow me. You are so exactly like a girl I once knew. I am disappointed in you, but it is best so. One should grasp at the happiness near at hand, even though grace and beauty—and more than that—are dead a hundred years.’
She stopped suddenly as though she listened, and went on again.
‘What was I talking about?’ she asked. ‘My poor head! It is full moon. I always talk nonsense when there is a full moon. Is that your brother come for you, my dear?’
It was not Bobby. It was the librarian. He brought a message from Bobby, who was unable to come for her. She was to take a cab home with her books and papers.
Having delivered his message the librarian waited while Esther put on her hat. She dressed very prettily, in the picturesque fashion of a day which had an artistic movement all to itself. Her cloak and flat cap of green velvet were like the sheathing of a flower. As she came from the inner room so attired, the librarian’s eyes fluttered as though he had seen a vision.