“I must go now, Mr. Morgan.”
“No, stay; you shall look at some of my things,” he cried, making a
movement to detain her. “These are the alembics where the scent is
distilled,” he went on; “of course, these are only the small ones that I
use for my own experiments; I expect you’ve seen the big ones in the
shed downstairs.
“The shed all littered with sandal-wood shavings? I like it; it smells
good.”
“It smells good here in my room too, don’t you think? That’s because of
the scent dripping from the alembics. You see it drips into these
pannikins that are put there to catch it. They are all new scents—new
combinations of scents, that is—that I’m trying.” He was eager, both for
the sake of his work and in his anxiety to hold her interest. “Now I’ll
show you some of the raw material; it doesn’t always smell good before
we’ve been to work upon it.”
He wondered whether he might take her arm, whether he might venture. She
was like the little bird to which he always compared her, and as easily
scared! He turned the question over and over in his mind while he was
talking, now bracing himself to be bold, now shrinking back; almost
moving towards her; but while hesitation still swirled within his mind
he found that his hand had, quite simply, taken hers. “It’s so natural,
so fitting, for me to take her hand, that she hasn’t even noticed,” he
thought with joy.
“These are the canisters where I keep my raw stuff,” he said, pointing
to the tin canisters ranged on shelves. They stood hand in hand reading
the names on the labels.
“Ambergris—that’s the name of a scent I bottle,” she said, with a little
laugh. “I use a lavender ribbon for that. And orris—that’s the powder.
Don’t they have queer names? Opoponax, that always makes me laugh.”
They laughed together over opoponax.
“And there’s names out of Scripture,” she said, “frankincense and
myrrh.”
He took down the tin of benzoin, and made her smell it, shaking some of
the brittle stuff into the palm of her hand; crumbling up her hand into
a cup, and guiding it now to her nose and now to his own. They compared
their tastes; “I think this sort smells nicest,” she said to him,
gravely holding out her cupped hand, but he would not agree, after
bending over it with the deliberation of a practised critic, and added a
little storax, which, he said, brought out the pungency of the benzoin.
“All these gums and resins,” he said, “come from trees; you cut a gash
in the tree, and the gum comes from it like blood from a wound, oozing
out. And one of them—labdanum—is got by the natives by beating the bush
with long whips; or sometimes they get it by combing the beards of the
goats which have been browsing off the bush.”
That made her laugh too, but she was impressed by his knowledge, and
that made him laugh in his turn.
“Now I’ll show you the woods,—you said you liked the sandal-wood; well;
this is cedar, don’t you like that even better? Shall I give you some to
take away in a little packet? you can keep it with your clothes, like
the sachets you tie up downstairs.” He thought with a momentary panic
that he might have offended her by referring to her clothes, but the
hint of intimacy in the suggestion pleased and troubled him so much that
he was glad he had taken the risk for the sake of that pleasure.
She was not offended; she only blushed a little.
“That will be nice,—but I’m taking all your time, Mr. Morgan.”
“Oh no; I have plenty of time, and there’s lots more that I could show
you. I could tell you a good deal, too, that might amuse you: how the
Egyptians used to embalm their mummies, and how an Assyrian king caused
himself to be burnt with all his wives on a high pyre of scented boughs
sooner than fall into the hands of an enemy. And how the Chinese hunt
for musk; this is musk; it doesn’t smell nice in this state, but it’s
very precious. This is attar of roses in this little bottle; smell very
carefully. Let me hold it for you. Do you like my things?”
She liked his things very much.
“Do you think my room less untidy and dusty, now that you know there are
other things in it besides dust and untidiness?”
“All those tins, full of sweet scents,” she said unexpectedly. “Only, I
ought to go back to my work now, don’t you think? You said you would
give me something to take to the forewoman.”
“But you said that wasn’t right.”
“No, perhaps it isn’t,—Oh, I see: you’re teasing me. Well, I’ll go
without it.”
“But you’re frightened of being scolded?” he said, following her and
laying his hand upon the handle of the door. “Now aren’t you? confess!
What do you say when the forewoman is cross? Do you stand hanging your
head and twisting your apron?” He was laughing down at her.
“She isn’t often cross, but she will be if I stay dawdling here,—oh,
_please_, Mr. Morgan!”
He saw with astonishment that her eyes were suddenly brimming with
tears, and her soft mouth quivered.
“You are dreadfully unkind, getting me into trouble and then teasing me
about it,” she said, nearly crying, but trying to conceal it from him.
“I enjoyed looking at the scents, and I forgot the time, but now it is
all different, and I want to go away, please. Please take your hand off
the door-handle,” she continued, trying to pull away his fingers with
her weak ones.
“Why, you have got quite excited,” he said gently; “look, I am not
keeping you—I have let go of the handle—but won’t you wait while I write
a note to the forewoman? I want to send her a message, I really do!
Won’t you wait for it?”
“Of course, if you ask me as one of the girls, I must.”
“You’re terribly perverse!” he exclaimed, half annoyed.
“If you ask me as one of the girls....”
“Very well; Nan, will you please wait a minute while I write a note for
you to take to Miss Dawson?” He was not sure to what extent she was
serious or joking. Then she flushed at his use of her name, but he saw
that she was not joking at all. “What a strange, perplexing thing!” he
commented inwardly, as he searched for a pencil among the litter on his
table.
“If you’re looking for your pencil, I put it in the tray with your
measure and the little thermometer,” she volunteered sulkily.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “You said you hadn’t tidied!”
but a glance at her face, which was still quivering with her aroused
sensitiveness, warned him not to tease her. He sat down and wrote his
note while she waited over by the door, then he brought it across to
her.
“Have we quarrelled?” he said wistfully.
“Is there no message with the note?”
“How severe you are!” He held the note just out of her reach, risking
her anger if he might keep her a moment longer. “Have you got the packet
of cedar-dust I gave you?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
She made one of the patch-pockets on her overall gape, and let him see
the packet within. He gave her the note reluctantly, and opened the door
for her.
“Good-bye, Mr. Necromancer, with your alembics,” she said.
“Stop! where did you get that big word?”
“Out of a book.”
He could think of nothing to say but “What book?” in order to delay her,
but she was already half-way down the passage. He watched her till she
was out of sight, then returned to his room and shut the door. “She’s
like a little delicate moth flitting through gross life,” he thought,
and he wandered about his room, touching the things which had taken her
fancy most.