ry would come virgin into
the market, undefiled by the touch of commerce, the breath of
publicity. It had been the pure and solitary delight of scholar lovers
who would have been insulted by the suggestion that they should
traffic in its treasures. Everything depended on his keeping its
secret inviolate. Heavens! supposing he had backed out of that
catalogue, and Miss Harden had called in another expert. At this
point he detected in himself a tendency to wander from the matter in
hand. He reminded himself that whatever else he was there for, he was
there to guard the virginal seclusion of the Aldine Plato, the
Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He tried
to shut his eyes against his vivid and disturbing vision of the lady
of the library. It suggested that he was allowing that innocent person
to pay fifteen pounds for a catalogue which he had some reason to
believe would be of no earthly use to her. He sat up in bed, and
silenced its suggestions with all the gravity of his official
character. If the young lady insisted on having a catalogue made, he
might as well make it as any one else; in fact, a great deal better.
He tried to make himself believe that he regretted having charged her
fifteen pounds when he might have got fifty. It was more than
unbusiness-like; it was, even for him, an incredibly idiotic thing to
do; he would never have done it if he had not been hopelessly drunk
the night before.

He got out of bed with a certain slow dignity and stepped into his
cold bath solemnly, as into a font of regeneration. And as he bathed
he still rehearsed with brilliance his appointed part. No criticism of
the performance was offered by his actual self as revealed to him in
the looking-glass. It stared at him with an abstracted air,
conspicuous in the helpless pathos of its nakedness. It affected
absorption in the intricate evolutions of the bath. Something in its
manner inspired him with a vague distrust. He noticed that this
morning it soaped itself with a peculiar care, that it displayed more
than usual interest in the trivial details of dress. It rejected an
otherwise irreproachable shirt because of a minute wine stain on the
cuff. It sniffed critically at its coat and trousers, and flung them
to the other end of the room. It arrayed itself finally in a brand-new
suit of grey flannel, altogether inexpressive of his role. He could
not but feel that its behaviour compromised the dignity of the