By the time he reached Guilford Square he was almost himself again, a little paler than usual but outwardly quite calm.He went at once to No.16.The Raeburns had now been settled in their new quarters for some weeks, and the house was familiar enough to him;he went up to the drawing room or, as it was usually called, the green room.The gas was not lighted, but a little reading lamp stood upon a table in one of the windows, and the fire light made the paneled walls shine here and there though the corners and recesses were all in dusky shadow.Erica had made this the most home-like room in the house; it had the most beguiling easy chairs, it had all Mr.Woodward's best pictures, it had fascinating little tables, and a tempting set of books.There was something in the sight of the familiar room which made Brian's wrath flame up once more.Erica's guileless life seemed to rise before him the years of patient study, the beautiful filial love, the pathetic endeavor to restrain her child-like impatience of conventionalities lest scandalmongers should have even a shadow of excuse for slandering Luke Raeburn's daughter.The brutality of the insult struck him more than ever.Erica, glancing up from her writing table, saw that his face again bore that look of intolerable pain which had so greatly startled her in Westminster Hall.
She had more than half dreaded his arrival, had been wondering how they should meet after the strange revelation of the afternoon, had been thinking of the most trite and commonplace remark with which she might greet him.But when it actually came to the point, she could not say a word, only looked up at him with eyes full of anxious questioning.
"It is all right," he said, answering the mute question, a great joy thrilling him as he saw that she had been anxious about him.
"You should not have been afraid."
"I couldn't help it," she said, coloring, "he is such a hateful man! A man who might do anything.Tell me what happened.""I gave him a thrashing which he'll not soon forget," said Brian.
"But don't let us speak of him any more.""Perhaps he'll summons you!" said Erica.
"He won't dare to.He knows that he deserved it.What are you writing? You ought to be resting.""Only copying out my article.The boy will be here before long.""I am your doctor," he said, feeling her pulse, and again assuming his authoritative manner; "I shall order you to rest on your couch at once.I will copy this for you.What is it on?""Cremation," said Erica, smiling a little."A nice funereal subject for a dreary day.Generally, if I'm in wild spirits, Mr.
Bircham sends me the very gloomiest subject to write on, and if I'm particularly blue, he asks for a bright, lively article.""Oh! He tells you what to write on?"
"Yes, did you think I had the luxury of choosing for myself? Every day, about eleven o'clock a small boy brings me my fate on a slip of paper.Let me dictate this to you.I'm sure you can't read that penciled scribble.""Yes, I can," said Brian."You go and rest."She obeyed him, thankful enough to have a moment's pause in which to think out the questions that came crowding into her mind.She hardly dared to think what Brian might be to her, for just now she needed him so sorely as friend and adviser, that to admit that other perception, which made her feel shy and constrained with him, would have left her still in her isolation.After all, he was a seven years' friend, no mere acquaintance, but an actual friend to whom she was her unreserved and perfectly natural self.
"Brian," she said presently when he had finished her copying, "you don't think I'm bound to tell my father about this afternoon, do you?"A burning, painful blush, the sort of blush that she never ought to have known, never could have known but for that shameful slander, spread over her face and neck as she spoke.
"Perhaps not," said Brian, "since the man has been properly punished.""I think I hope it need never get round to him in any other way,"said Erica."He would be so fearfully angry, and just now scarcely a day passes without bringing him some fresh worry.""When will the Pogson affair come on?"
"Oh! I don't know.Not just yet, I'm afraid.Things in the legal world always move at the rate of a fly in a glue pot.""What sort of man is Mr.Pogson?"
"He was in court today, a little, sleek, narrow-headed man with cold, gray eyes.I have been trying to put myself in his place, and realize the view he takes of things; but it is very, very hard.
You don't know what it is to live in this house and see the awful harm his intolerance is bringing about.""In what way did you specially mean?"
"Oh! In a thousand ways.It is bringing Christianity into discredit, it is making them more bitter against it, and who can wonder.It is bringing hundreds of men to atheism, it is enormously increasing the demand for all my father's books, and already even in these few months it has doubled the sale of the 'Idol-Breakers.' In old times that would have been my consolation.
