Professor Wilson had been living in London for six years and he was just

back from a visit to America. One afternoon, soon after his return, he

put on his frock-coat and drove in a hansom to pay a call upon Hilda

Burgoyne, who still lived at her old number, off Bedford Square. He

and Miss Burgoyne had been fast friends for a long time. He had first

noticed her about the corridors of the British Museum, where he read

constantly. Her being there so often had made him feel that he would

like to know her, and as she was not an inaccessible person, an

introduction was not difficult. The preliminaries once over, they came

to depend a great deal upon each other, and Wilson, after his day's

reading, often went round to Bedford Square for his tea. They had much

more in common than their memories of a common friend. Indeed, they

seldom spoke of him. They saved that for the deep moments which do not

come often, and then their talk of him was mostly silence. Wilson knew

that Hilda had loved him; more than this he had not tried to know.

It was late when Wilson reached Hilda's apartment on this particular

December afternoon, and he found her alone. She sent for fresh tea

and made him comfortable, as she had such a knack of making people

comfortable.

"How good you were to come back before Christmas! I quite dreaded the

Holidays without you. You've helped me over a good many Christmases."

She smiled at him gayly.

"As if you needed me for that! But, at any rate, I needed YOU. How well

you are looking, my dear, and how rested."

He peered up at her from his low chair, balancing the tips of his long

fingers together in a judicial manner which had grown on him with years.

Hilda laughed as she carefully poured his cream. "That means that I was

looking very seedy at the end of the season, doesn't it? Well, we must

show wear at last, you know."

Wilson took the cup gratefully. "Ah, no need to remind a man of

seventy, who has just been home to find that he has survived all his

contemporaries. I was most gently treated--as a sort of precious relic.

But, do you know, it made me feel awkward to be hanging about still."

"Seventy? Never mention it to me." Hilda looked appreciatively at the

Professor's alert face, with so many kindly lines about the mouth and

so many quizzical ones about the eyes. "You've got to hang about for

me, you know. I can't even let you go home again. You must stay put, now

that I have you back. You're the realest thing I have."




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024