LITMIR.BIZ

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she looked him in the eyes. “What is it, honest?”

      Oh, he knew those girls, and knew them well, from A to Z. They work hard, they are nervously desirous for some happiness in the desert of existence.

      “Bill,” he answered, nodding his head. “Sure, Bill and no other.”

      “He isn’t Bill at all,” her friend noticed.

      “How do you know?” he demanded. “You never saw me before.”

      “No need to, to know you’re lying,” was the retort.

      Those girls from the factory… The cheap cloth, the cheap ribbons, and the cheap rings on the fingers. He felt a tug at his arm, and heard a voice saying:

      “Wake up, Bill! What’s the matter with you?”

      “What were you saying?” he asked. “There’s only one thing wrong with the programme,” he said aloud. “I’ve got a date already.”

      The girl’s eyes blazed her disappointment.

      “To visit a sick friend, I suppose?” she sneered.

      “No, a real, honest date with – ” he faltered, “with a girl. But why can’t we meet some other time? You didn’t tell me your name. And where do you live?”

      “Lizzie,” she replied, her hand pressing his arm, while her body leaned against his. “Lizzie Connolly.”

      He talked on a few minutes before saying good night. He did not go home immediately; and under the tree he looked up at a window and murmured: “That date was with you, Ruth.”

      Chapter 7

      A week of heavy reading had passed since the evening he first met Ruth Morse, and still he dared not call. He did not know the proper time to call, and he was afraid of a blunder. He left his old companions, and has no new companions. Nothing remained for him but to read, and long hours he devoted to it. But his eyes were strong, and they were placed on a strong body.

      It seemed to him, by the end of the week, that he had lived centuries, so far behind was the old life. He attempted to read books that required years of studying. One day he read a book of philosophy, and the next day one that was ultra-modern. It was the same with the economists. On the one shelf at the library he found Karl Marx, Ricardo, Adam Smith, and Mill.

      Poetry, however, was his solace, and he read much of it, finding his greatest joy in the simpler poets, whom he could understand. He loved beauty, and there he found beauty. Poetry, like music, touched him profoundly. The pages of his mind were blank, so he was soon able to extract great joy from chanting aloud. He enjoyed music and the beauty of the printed words he had read.

      The man at the desk in the library had seen Martin there so often that he had become quite cordial, always greeting him with a smile and a nod when he entered. One day Martin asked him:

      “Well, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”

      The man smiled and paid attention.

      “When you meet a young lady and she asks you to come, how soon can you come?”

      “Why, any time,” the man answered.

      “Yes, but this is different,” Martin objected. “She – I – well, you see, it’s this way: maybe she won’t be there. She goes to the university.”

      “Then come again.”

      “If I could …,” he said.

      “I beg pardon?”

      “What is the best time to come? The afternoon? Or the evening? Or Sunday?”

      “I’ll tell you,” the librarian said with a brightening face. “You call her up on the telephone and find out.”

      “I’ll do it,” he said, picking up his books and starting away.

      He turned back and asked:

      “When you’re speaking to a young lady – say, for instance, Miss Lizzie Smith – do you say ‘Miss Lizzie’? or ‘Miss Smith’?”

      “Say ‘Miss Smith,’” the librarian stated authoritatively. “Say ‘Miss Smith’ always – until you come to know her better.”

      So it was that Martin Eden solved the problem.

      “Please, come any time; I’ll be at home all afternoon,” was Ruth’s reply over the telephone to his request as to when he could return the borrowed books.

      She met him at the door herself, and her woman’s eyes noticed the certain slight but indefinable change in him for the better. Also, she was struck by his face. She felt the desire to lean toward him for warmth.

      Once they were seated in the living-room, they talked first of the borrowed books, of Swinburne, and of Browning. Ruth wanted to help him. His neck was near, and there was sweetness in the thought of laying her hands upon it. She did not dream that the feeling he excited in her was love. She thought she was merely interested in him as an unusual type.

      She did not know she desired him; but with him it was different. He knew that he loved her, and he desired her as he had never before desired anything in his life. He had loved poetry for its beauty; but since he met her the gates to the vast field of love-poetry had been opened wide.

      His gaze wandered often toward her lips, and he yearned for them hungrily. But there was nothing gross or earthly in it. They were lips of pure spirit, and his desire for them seemed absolutely different from the desire that had led him to other women’s lips. He did not dream how ardent and masculine his gaze was, her spirit was affecting him. Her virginity exalted and disguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts to a chastity.

      “I wonder if I can get some advice from you,” he began. “You remember I said I couldn’t talk about books and other things because I didn’t know how? Well, I’ve done a lot of things ever since. I never had any advantages. I’ve worked hard ever since I was a kid. I was never inside a house like this. When I come a week ago, and saw all this, and you, and your mother, and brothers, and everything – well, I liked it. I’d heard about such things and read about such things in some of the books, and when I looked around at your house, why, the books come true. And I liked it. I wanted it. I want it now. I want to breathe air like you get in this house – air that is filled with books, and pictures, and beautiful things, where people talk in low voices and are clean, and their thoughts are clean. When you were crossing the room to kiss your mother, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, but I want to see more.

      But listen, here it is. I want to enter the kind of life you have in this house. There’s more in life than drinking, and hard work. Now, how to begin? I can make most men sick when it comes to hard work. Once I get started, I’ll work night and day. Maybe you think it’s funny, when I ask you about all this. I know you’re the last person in the world I ought to ask, but I don’t know anybody else I could ask – unless it’s Arthur. Maybe I must ask him. If I was – ”

      His voice died away. Ruth did not speak immediately. She had never looked in eyes that expressed greater power. Here was a man who could do anything. Her face was all sympathy when she began to speak.

      “What you need, you realize yourself, and it is education. You should go back and finish grammar school, and then go through to high school and university.”

      “But that takes money,” he interrupted.

      “Oh!” she cried. “I had not thought of that. But then you have relatives, somebody who could assist you?”

      He shook his head.

      “My father and mother are dead. I have two sisters, one married, and the other’ll get married soon, I suppose. I have brothers, – I’m the youngest, – but they never helped anybody. The oldest died in India. Two are in South Africa now, and another is travelling with a circus – he does trapeze work. All what I want to know is where to begin.”

      “I should say the first thing of all is the grammar. Your grammar is – ” She

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