He looked round and realized that his separation from Poppy would be
disagreeably prolonged if he was expected to catalogue and arrange all
the books in the Harden Library. Allowing so much time to so much
space, (measuring by feet of bookshelf) hours ran rapidly to days, and
days to weeks--why, months might pass and find him still labouring
there. He would be buried in the blackness, forgotten by Poppy and the
world. That was assuming that the Harden Library really belonged to
the Hardens. And if it was to belong to Dicky Pilkington, what on
earth had he been sent for?

"You were sent in answer to my letter, I suppose?"

Rickman's nervous system was still so far under the dominion of
Dicky's champagne that he started violently. Double doors and double
carpets deadened all sound of coming and going, and the voice seemed
to have got into the room by itself. As from its softness he judged it
to be still some yards distant, he suffered a further shock on finding
a lady standing by his elbow.

It had been growing on him lately, this habit of starting at nothing,
this ridiculous spasm of shoulder-blade, eyelids and mouth. It was a
cause of many smiles to the young ladies of his boarding-house; and
this lady was smiling too, though after another fashion. Her smile was
remote and delicately poised; it hovered in the fine, long-drawn
corners of her mouth and eyes; it sobered suddenly as a second and
less violent movement turned towards her his white and too expressive
face. He could not say by what subtle and tender transitions it passed
into indifference, nor how in passing it contrived to intimate her
regret at having taken him somewhat at a disadvantage. It was all done
and atoned for in the lifting of an eyelid, before he could take in