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Rickman's motives; and at the end Kitty admitted that appearances were certainly against him; while Lucia protested that he was a poet and therefore constitutionally incapable of the peculiar sort of cleverness imputed to him. The man of law submitted that because he was a poet it did not follow that he was not an uncommonly knowing young man too.
So that now there was not a single need of the great book-buying, book-loving Public that Rickman's did not provide for and represent. Only Isaac was wise enough to keep the two branches of the business separate and distinct. His right hand professed complete ignorance of the doings of his left. It may be that Isaac's heart was in his City shop.
I didn't mean to do it quite so soon, but rather than 'ear this talk of flinging up the business, I'm prepared to do it now." "On the same conditions?" Now that Rickman's should eventually become Rickman and Son was a very natural development, and in any ordinary circumstances Isaac could hardly have made a more innocent and suitable proposal.
Rickman's letter was the first intimation that anything had gone wrong. It was a shock none the less severe because it was not altogether a surprise. It was just like his uncle Frederick to raise money on the Harden Library. The shock lay in Rickman's assumption that he, Jewdwine, was prepared, instantly, at ten days' notice, to redeem it.
I couldn't dream of treating him as I treat, say, Rankin or Fulcher. The best service I could do him was to leave him alone to keep off and give him room." "Room to stand in?" "No. Room to grow in, room to fight in " "Room to measure his length in when he falls?" "If you like. Rickman's length will cover a considerable area." Lucia looked at her cousin with genuine admiration.
Her vision of him would be free and undisturbed by any suggestion of his bodily presence. Meanwhile, Rickman's poem, or rather the first two Acts of his neo-classic drama, Helen in Leuce, lay on Lucia's lap. Jewdwine had obtained it under protest and with much secrecy. He had promised Rickman, solemnly, not to show it to a soul; but he had shown it to Lucia.
"Do you mind telling me," she continued, still imperturbably, "how you came to know anything about it?" Maddox stiffened. "I am Mr. Rickman's oldest and most intimate friend, and he has done me the honour to make me his literary executor." "Did he also give you leave to settle his affairs beforehand?" Maddox shrugged his shoulders by way of a reply.
He tried to console himself with the reflection that she was no longer overworking herself; and herein appeared the great purity and self-abnegation of Mr. Rickman's love. Rather than see her making herself ill, he was actually manoeuvring so as not to see her at all. He kept his vigils secret, having a suspicion that if she heard of them she would insist on returning to her hideous task.
Not that there was any cheating in the second-hand book-trade; it was each man for himself and the Lord for us all. The question was, what was young Rickman driving at? And what was he, Jewdwine, being let in for now? He found himself unable to accept Rickman's alleged motive in all its grand simplicity. It was too simple and too grand to be entirely probable.
That at the same time it provided him with the means of bodily subsistence only added to the horror of the thing. It was as if "Rickman's", destroyer and preserver, renewed his life every quarter day that it might draw in, devour, annihilate it as before. There was a diabolical precision in the action of the machine that made and unmade him.
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