'And you have come here to talk to me about that letter?'
'Yes—yes.' She caught at the hint. 'That is why I came—to talk about that letter. I came in the hope of finding the author of that letter at home.'
He threw open the door of his sitting-room.
'Will you step in? We can talk quite quietly here. The Inn at this hour on Saturday is almost deserted.' He closed the outer door and followed his visitor into the sitting-room. 'This,' he went on, 'is the quietest place in the whole of London. We have not, in this Square, the stately elms of the old garden, but still we have our little advantages—spacious rooms—quiet always in the evening and on Sundays. A few rackety young men, perhaps; but for one who reads and meditates, no better place in London.—Now, young lady, take the easy-chair and sit down. We will talk. There are very few people who talk to me about my theories. That is because I am old, so that I have lost my friends, and because my views are in advance of the world. No man is so lonely as the man born before his time. He is the prophet, you know, who must be stoned because he prophesies things unintelligible and therefore uncomfortable—even terrifying. I shall be very glad to talk a little with you.—Now, allow me first to open these letters.'
Elsie sat down and looked about her. She was in a large low wainscoted room, with two windows looking upon the Square. The room was quite plainly but quite well furnished. There was a good-sized study table with drawers: a small table between the windows: a few chairs, a couch and an easy-chair; and a large bookcase filled with books—books on Socialism, George had told her. A door opened upon a smaller room: there was probably a bedroom at the back. A plain carpet covered the floor. Above the high old-fashioned mantel were two or three portraits of Socialist leaders. The room, if everything had not been covered with dust, would have been coldly neat: the chairs were all in their places: the window-blinds were half-way down as the laundress thought was proper—millions of Londoners always keep their blinds half-way down—a subject which must some day be investigated by the Folklore Society: the curtains were neatly looped: it wanted only a Bible on a table at a window to make it the Front Parlour of a Dalston Villa. There were no flowers, no ornaments of any kind.
Mr. Edmund Gray opened half-a-dozen letters lying on his table and glanced at them. There were a great many more waiting to be opened.
'All are from people who have read my letter,' he said. 'They share with me in the new Faith of a new Humanity. Happy is the man who strikes the note of leading at the right moment. Happy he who lights the lamp just when the darkness is beginning to be felt.—Yes, young lady, you are not the only one who has been drawn towards the doctrines of that letter. But I have no time to write to all of them. A letter makes one convert—a paragraph may make a thousand.'
Elsie rose from her chair. She had decided on her line. You have heard that her voice was curiously soft and winning—a voice that charms—a voice which would soothe a wild creature, and fill a young man's heart with whatever passion she chose to awaken. She had, besides, those soft eyes which make men surrender their secrets, part with their power and their strength. Did she know that she possessed all this power?—the girl who had no experience save of one man's love, and that the most natural, easy, and unromantic love in the world, when two who are brought up side by side and see each other every day, presently catch each other by the hand and walk for the future hand in hand without a word. Yet Delilah herself, the experienced, the crafty, the trained and taught—could not—did not—act more cleverly and craftily than this artless damsel. To be sure, she possessed great advantages over Delilah—by some esteemed attractive—in the matter of personal charm.
'Oh!' she murmured softly, 'it is a shame that you should be expected to waste your valuable time in writing letters to these people. You must not do it. Your time is wanted for the world, not for individuals.'
'It is,' he replied—'it is. You have said it.'