'Come as soon as you are free.'

In ten minutes she appeared. There was apprehension on her face; she
feared he was going to lament his inability to work. Instead of that, he
told her joyfully that the first volume was finished.

'Thank goodness!' she exclaimed. 'Are you going to do any more
to-night?'

'I think not--if you will come and sit with me.'

'Willie doesn't seem very well. He can't get to sleep.'

'You would like to stay with him?'

'A little while. I'll come presently.'

She closed the door. Reardon brought a high-backed chair to the
fireside, and allowed himself to forget the two volumes that had still
to be struggled through, in a grateful sense of the portion that
was achieved. In a few minutes it occurred to him that it would be
delightful to read a scrap of the 'Odyssey'; he went to the shelves on
which were his classical books, took the desired volume, and opened it
where Odysseus speaks to Nausicaa:

'For never yet did I behold one of mortals like to thee, neither man nor
woman; I am awed as I look upon thee. In Delos once, hard by the altar
of Apollo, I saw a young palm-tree shooting up with even such a grace.'

Yes, yes; THAT was not written at so many pages a day, with a workhouse
clock clanging its admonition at the poet's ear. How it freshened the
soul! How the eyes grew dim with a rare joy in the sounding of those
nobly sweet hexameters!

Amy came into the room again.

'Listen,' said Reardon, looking up at her with a bright smile. 'Do you
remember the first time that I read you this?'

And he turned the speech into free prose. Amy laughed.

'I remember it well enough. We were alone in the drawing-room; I had
told the others that they must make shift with the dining-room for that
evening. And you pulled the book out of your pocket unexpectedly. I
laughed at your habit of always carrying little books about.'

The cheerful news had brightened her. If she had been summoned to hear
lamentations her voice would not have rippled thus soothingly. Reardon
thought of this, and it made him silent for a minute.

'The habit was ominous,' he said, looking at her with an uncertain
smile. 'A practical literary man doesn't do such things.'

'Milvain, for instance. No.'

With curious frequency she mentioned the name of Milvain. Her
unconsciousness in doing so prevented Reardon from thinking about the
fact; still, he had noted it.

'Did you understand the phrase slightingly?' he asked.

'