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.And if it comes to cursing and prophesying, by God, you will see some of them dead before you die.”“Perhaps,” said Herne looking at him with his large pale eyes, “you may see them die and then live; which is a very different thing from existing.I am not sure that the King may not be a King once more.”The Syndicalist seemed to see something in the staring eyes of the librarian that changed and almost chilled his mood.“Do you think this is an age,” he asked, “for anybody to play King Richard?”“I think this is an age,” replied the other, “when somebody ought to play.Coeur-de-Lion.”“Ah,” said Olive, as if she began to see something for the first time.“You mean we lack the only virtue of King Richard.”“The only virtue of King Richard,” said Braintree, “was staying out of the country.”“Perhaps,” she answered.“He and his virtue might come back.”“When he comes back he will find the country a good deal changed,” said the Syndicalist grimly.“No serfs; no vassals; and even the labourers daring to look him in the face.He will find something has broken its chain; something has opened, expanded, been lifted up; something wild and terrible and gigantic that strikes terror even into the heart of a lion.”“Something?” repeated Olive.“The heart of a man,” he replied.Olive stood looking in a sort of daze or dazzle from one to the other.For on one side stood all the things she had dreamed of, clothed in their right century.And on the other something more deeply thrilling, of which she had never dreamed.Her tangled emotions broke out of her with a rather curious cry.“Oh I wish Monkey were back again!”Braintree glanced sharply at her and asked rather gruffly: “Why?”“Because you are all changing,” she said.“Because you are all talking as you did in the play.Because you are both of you fierce and splendid and magnificent and magnanimous and have neither of you a grain of common sense.”“I didn’t know you specialised in having common sense,” said Braintree.“I never had any,” she replied.“Rosamund always told me I hadn’t got any.But any woman would have more than you have.”“Here comes the lady in question,” said Braintree rather gloomily.“I hope she will meet your requirements.”“She will say what I say,” said Olive calmly.“The madness is infectious.The infection is spreading.None of you can get out.of my poor little play.”And indeed when Rosamund Severne came sweeping across the lawn in her resolute way, like a wind, the wind struck something and turned to a storm.The storm raged for an hour or two and we need only record its end; which was that Rosamund did what was very rarely done by her or anyone else; what had not been done since Murrel had presented the petition for the admission of Braintree.She burst into her father’s study and faced her father.Lord Seawood looked up from a pile of letters and said: “What is it?” His tone might have been called apologetic or even nervous; but it was of the sort that makes others feel nervous and apologise.But Rosamund never felt nervous and did not think of apologising; or indeed even of explaining.She said explosively: “Things out there are getting perfectly awful.The librarian won’t take off his clothes.”“Well, I should hope not,” said Lord Seawood, and waited patiently.“I mean,” she added hastily, “I mean it’s getting past a joke.Don’t you understand? He’s still dressed in all his green.”“I suppose, strictly speaking, our livery is blue,” said Lord Seawood thoughtfully.“That doesn’t matter much nowadays; but heraldry was always a hobby of mine.Well, I don’t think it’s possible now to insist on the correct colours.And nobody ever sees much of the librarian.Libraries are not very popular resorts.And the fellow himself.very quiet fellow, if I remember right.Nobody likely to notice him.”“Oh,” said Rosamund, with almost ominous quiet and restraint.“You think nobody will ever notice him?”“Shouldn’t think so,” said Lord Seawood.“I never noticed him myself.”.If Lord Seawood has hitherto remained behind the scenes of the drama of “Blondel the Troubadour,” if he has remained behind the curtains and tapestries of Seawood Abbey, it is only because he did so remain during all such superficial social proceedings, and was, in the true sense of the word, conspicuous by his absence.This fact arose from many causes but chiefly from two: first that he had the misfortune to be an invalid and second that he had the misfortune to be a statesman [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]