And, after all, it was not her voice Narcissus had heard in the church.
It was but the still sweeter voice of his own heart.




CHAPTER VI


THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS

I hope it will be allowed to me that I treat the Reader with all
respectful courtesy, and that I am well bred enough to assume him
familiar with all manner of exquisite experience, though in my heart I
may be no less convinced that he has probably gone through life with
nothing worth calling experience whatsoever. It is our jaunty modern
fashion, and I follow it so far as I am able. I take for granted, for
instance, that every man has at one time or another--in his salad days,
you know, before he was embarked in his particular provision
business--had foolish yearnings towards poesy. I respect the mythical
dreams of his 'young days'; I assume that he has been really in love;
but, pray press me not too curiously as to whether I believe it all, as
to whether I really imagine that his youth knew other dreams than those
of the foolish young 'masherdom' one meets in the train every morning,
or that he has married a wife for other than purely 'masculine' reasons.

These matters I do not mind leaving in the form of a postulate--let them
be granted: but that every man has at one time or another had the craze
for saving the world I will not assume. Narcissus took it very early,
and though he has been silent concerning his mission for some time, and