Chapter 7 - Page 2

freedom, her errand, her innocence. The confidence of young
Americans was notorious, and I speedily arrived at a conviction
that no impulse could have been more generous than the impulse that
had operated here. I foresaw at that moment that it would make her
my peculiar charge, just as circumstances had made Neil Paraday.
She would be another person to look after, so that one's honour
would be concerned in guiding her straight. These things became
clearer to me later on; at the instant I had scepticism enough to
observe to her, as I turned the pages of her volume, that her net
had all the same caught many a big fish. She appeared to have had
fruitful access to the great ones of the earth; there were people
moreover whose signatures she had presumably secured without a
personal interview. She couldn't have worried George Washington
and Friedrich Schiller and Hannah More. She met this argument, to
my surprise, by throwing up the album without a pang. It wasn't
even her own; she was responsible for none of its treasures. It
belonged to a girl-friend in America, a young lady in a western
city. This young lady had insisted on her bringing it, to pick up
more autographs: she thought they might like to see, in Europe, in
what company they would be. The "girl-friend," the western city,
the immortal names, the curious errand, the idyllic faith, all made
a story as strange to me, and as beguiling, as some tale in the
Arabian Nights. Thus it was that my informant had encumbered
herself with the ponderous tome; but she hastened to assure me that
this was the first time she had brought it out. For her visit to
Mr. Paraday it had simply been a pretext. She didn't really care a
straw that he should write his name; what she did want was to look
straight into his face.

I demurred a little. "And why do you require to do that?"

"Because I just love him!" Before I could recover from the
agitating effect of this crystal ring my companion had continued:
"Hasn't there ever been any face that you've wanted to look into?"

How could I tell her so soon how much I appreciated the opportunity
of looking into hers? I could only assent in general to the
proposition that there were certainly for every one such yearnings,
and even such faces; and I felt the crisis demand all my lucidity,
all my wisdom. "Oh yes, I'm a student of physiognomy. Do you
mean," I pursued, "that you've a passion for Mr. Paraday's books?"

"They've been everything to me and a little more beside - I know
them by heart. They've completely taken hold of me. There's no
author about whom I'm in such a state as I'm in about Neil
Paraday."

"Permit me to remark then," I presently returned, "that you're one
of the right sort."