If the green-baize
covers of the drawers were lifted, there were seen coins, carefully
arranged with labels--as one may see plants growing in rows, each with
its little name tied on. To these tidy rows of shining metal discs
Stephen turned in moments when his spirit was fatigued. To add to them,
touch them, read their names, gave him the sweet, secret feeling which
comes to a man who rubs one hand against the other. Like a dram-drinker,
Stephen drank--in little doses--of the feeling these coins gave him.
They were his creative work, his history of the world. To them he
gave that side of him which refused to find its full expression in
summarising law, playing golf, or reading the reviews; that side of a
man which aches, he knows not wherefore, to construct something ere
he die. From Rameses to George IV. the coins lay within those
drawers--links of the long unbroken chain of authority.
Putting on an old black velvet jacket laid out for him across a chair,
and lighting the pipe that he could never bring himself to smoke in his
formal dinner clothes, he went to the right-hand cabinet, and opened it.
He stood with a smile, taking up coins one by one. In this particular
drawer they were of the best Byzantine dynasty, very rare. He did not
see that Cecilia had stolen in, and was silently regarding him.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266