And as he lay there, he prepared himself to act the part of the cold,
abstracted, supercilious man of business, the part already too
horribly familiar to him as young Mr. Rickman of Rickman's. He
reflected how nearly he had wrecked his prospects in that character.
He bade himself beware of woman and of drink, the two things most
fatal to stability of judgement. He recalled, painfully, the events of
last evening. He was not quite sure what he had done, or hadn't done;
but he believed he had all but flung up the chance of securing for
Rickman's the great Harden Library. And he had quite a vivid and
disturbing recollection of the face, the person that had inspired him
with that impulse of fantastic folly.

In the candid light of morning this view of his conduct presented
itself as the sane thinking of a regenerated intellect. He realized,
as he had not realized before, how colossal was the opportunity he had
so narrowly let slip. The great Harden Library would come virgin into
the market, undefiled by the touch of commerce, the breath of
publicity. It had been the pure and solitary delight of scholar lovers
who would have been insulted by the suggestion that they should
traffic in its treasures. Everything depended on his keeping its
secret inviolate. Heavens! supposing he had backed out of that
catalogue, and Miss Harden had called in another expert. At this
point he detected in himself a tendency to wander from the matter in
hand. He reminded himself that whatever else he was there for, he was
there to guard the virginal seclusion of the Aldine Plato, the
Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He tried
to shut his eyes against his vivid and disturbing vision of the lady
of the library. It suggested that he was allowing that innocent person
to pay fifteen pounds for a catalogue which he had some reason to