her eye discerned an official
walking along the upper gallery, and in pursuance of her grotesque
humour, her mocking misery, she likened him to a black, lost soul,
doomed to wander in an eternity of vain research along endless shelves.
Or again, the readers who sat here at these radiating lines of desks,
what were they but hapless flies caught in a huge web, its nucleus the
great circle of the Catalogue? Darker, darker. From the towering wall of
volumes seemed to emanate visible motes, intensifying the obscurity;
in a moment the book-lined circumference of the room would be but a
featureless prison-limit.

But then flashed forth the sputtering whiteness of the electric light,
and its ceaseless hum was henceforth a new source of headache. It
reminded her how little work she had done to-day; she must, she must
force herself to think of the task in hand. A machine has no business to
refuse its duty. But the pages were blue and green and yellow before her
eyes; the uncertainty of the light was intolerable. Right or wrong she
would go home, and hide herself, and let her heart unburden itself of
tears.

On her way to return books she encountered Jasper Milvain. Face to face;
no possibility of his avoiding her.

And indeed he seemed to have no such wish. His countenance lighted up
with unmistakable pleasure.

'At last we meet, as they say in the melodramas. Oh, do let me help you
with those volumes, which won't even let you shake hands. How do you do?
How do you like this weather? And how do you like this light?'

'It's very bad.'

'That'll do both for weather and light, but not for yourself. How glad I
am to see you! Are you just going?'

'Yes.'

'I have scarcely been here half-a-dozen times since I came back to
London.'

'But you are writing still?'

'Oh yes! But I draw upon my genius, and my stores of observation, and
the living world.'

Marian received her vouchers for the volumes, and turned to face Jasper
again. There was a smile on her lips.

'The fog is terrible,' Milvain went on. 'How do you get home?'

'By omnibus from Tottenham Court Road.'

'Then do let me go a part of the way with you. I live in Mornington
Road--up yonder, you know. I have only just come in to waste half an
hour, and after all I think I should be better at home. Your father is
all right, I hope?'

'He is not quite well.'

'I'm sorry to hear that. You are not exactly up to the mark, either.
What weather! What a place to live