ONE:It was many years since Keeling had given any notice at all to such unmarketable objects as chestnut-buds or building birds. Spring had a certain significance, of course, in the catering department, for early vegetables made their appearance, and{230} soon there would arrive the demand for plovers eggs: spring, in fact, was a phenomenon that stirred in his pocket rather than his heart. But this year it was full of hints to him, of delicate sensations too fugitive to be called emotions, of sudden little thrills of vague longings and unformulated desires. A surreptitious half-sheet lurked in the blotting-paper on his library table on which he scrawled the date of some new flowers epiphany, or the fact that a thrush was building in the heart of a syringa outside the window. It was characteristic of his business habits to tabulate those things: it was characteristic also that he should thrust the catalogue deep into the leaves of his blotting-paper, as if it held some guilty secret.
THREE:That is very kind of her. But, indeed, I think we had better go.After that last glimpse of the Clockwork man, and the conversation with Doctor Allingham and Gregg that followed, Arthur had hurried home to his tea. No amount of interest in the affair, however stupendous it might appear both to himself and others, could dissuade him from his usual Saturday night's programme. Rose Lomas, to whom he had recently become engaged, was a hundred times more important than a clockwork man, and whether a human being could actually exist who walked and talked by mechanical means was a small problem in comparison with that of changing his clothes, washing and tidying himself up in time for his assignation. As soon as the cricketers showed signs of stirring themselves, and so conveyed the comforting impression that they were not dead, Arthur felt himself able to resume normal existence.
"Oh, I don't doubt you have; though I didn't know but it might be Charlie Toliver or something."You may tell your mother this, he said, that I wont be called a seller of bad goods by anybody. If another man did that Id bring a libel action against him to-morrow. Your mother should remember that shes largely dependent on me, and though she may detest me, she must keep a civil tongue in her head about me in my presence. She may say what she pleases of me behind my back, but dont you repeat it to me."Of loving somehow. Oh, don't you understand? I want to care for you, but you're making it impossible. You will jest about the things sacred to me. Your flippant tongue destroys everything. It's as I said just now. I like my friends to be humorous; but my lover must be serious."{295}I am sure you are very useful to Mr Keeling, she said, in helping to arrange his books, and it must be a great treat to you to have access to so large a library, if you are fond of reading.
