“Certainly not! But,” he added, with a half smile, “taking it out is different.”
“And so,” she began, feeling her way, “you carry the Iliad in one pocket and the Testament in the other.” But it was not now of the Iliad that she wished to hear him talk.
“Yes; a rather ill-assorted couple, you would say?”
“Very! One might suppose you either a—Greek professor in disguise—or—a—minister.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I never thought of that; so one might. We generally look too deep for motives. Truth is not often found in the bottom of a well. I carry these two books simply because—”
She looked up.
“Because,” he added, gravely, “they were given to me by—people that I—cared for.”
Constituted as she was, these few words affected Mary strongly. He had said so little, yet so much; revealing, in the unconscious simplicity of his nature, the very intensity of feeling that he strove to hide. And as she looked upon the two little volumes that he had carried all these years, saw how they had been worn away against his heart, a feeling of awe came over her. She found herself comparing, in her imaginative way, the man before her with one of the great, silent powers of nature,—the dark-floating tide, for instance, so noiseless when unresisted; or a black cloud charged with thunder, that seems, at first, but to mutter in its sleep, like a Cyclops in a battle-dream, but when yonder mountain dares to rear his crest in its path—
“You value them very highly on account of the givers,” put in Mary, as an entering wedge.
“Naturally; but not exclusively on that account.” And he drew the two little volumes from his pockets, and, placing them side by side, surveyed them lovingly.