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Their three unmarried daughters had departed in successive carriages, one to a dinner, one to a Nietszche club, one to a ball given for the girls employed in the big department stores. When Ottenburg and Thea entered, Henry Nathanmeyer and his wife were sitting at a table at the farther end of the long room, with a reading-lamp and a tray of cigarettes and cordial-glasses between them.
The room was cosy and lavishly furnished, while the shaded electric reading-lamp cast its gentle radiance upon the woman's white hair and soft evening-gown. It was a rough night, and the wind howling outside beat furiously against the closely-blinded windows. It was a night such as this, nearly twenty years before, of which the woman was thinking.
Ponting waited a moment, and then began: "My mistress didn't seem inclined to go to bed at once, so I settled her down nicely and comfortably with her reading-lamp and a copy of The World newspaper. She found the papers very dull lately, poor old lady, for you see, ma'am, there was nothing in them but things about the war, and she didn't much care for that.
Judith with a mumbled apology disappeared at once, but not before she had seen that Miss Ashwell's busy-ness had to do apparently with the snapshot of a handsome soldier propped against the reading-lamp a despatch case lay open on the floor beside her and there were letters strewn over the table and in Miss Ashwell's lap.
"He rose, and suddenly removed the shade from the reading-lamp, so that the light fell on my face. "'You are not looking well, he said. 'What's the matter? "'My head feels dull, and my eyes are heavy and hot, I replied. 'The weather, I suppose. "It was strange how we both got further and further from the one vitally important subject which we had both come together to discuss!
The piano, a baby-grand, stood open, with dust on its dingy keys and more dust on its shining case. The centre-table held a handsome reading-lamp and some books, but was littered with piles of old newspapers and magazines without covers.
But at last he heard her stirring and called out to her. He explained he had returned because he wanted to write. He wanted indeed to write quite urgently. He went straight up to his room, lit his reading-lamp, made himself some tea, and changed into his nocturnal suit. Daylight found him still writing very earnestly at his pamphlet. The title he had chosen was: "And Now War Ends." Section 15
The one could have sympathies and do kindnesses; and the other must needs be always selfish. He could not cultivate a friendship or do a charity, or admire a work of genius, or kindle at the sight of beauty or the sound of a sweet song he had no time, and no eyes for anything but his law-books. All was dark outside his reading-lamp.
It was lit but by a small reading-lamp, and the bright, steady blaze of the fire; and by this light they both continued to gaze on each other, as if spellbound, in complete silence. At last Philip, by an irresistible impulse, fell upon Sidney's bosom, and, clasping him with convulsive energy, gasped out: "Sidney! Sidney! my mother's son!"
It fluttered the papers on the table, and stirred a cartoon upon the wall with a dry rustling as of wind in corn. The man who sat at the table turned his face as it were mechanically towards that blessed breath from the snows. His chin was propped on his hand. He seemed to be waiting. The light failed very quickly, and he presently reached out and drew a reading-lamp towards him.
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