"
"Dante?"
"Yes, Dante; he seems to care for hardly anything else. It has been
so for two or three years. Editions of Dante and books about Dante
crowd his room--they are constantly coming. I asked him once if he
was going to write on the subject, but he shook his head."
"It must be a very engrossing study," remarked Mrs. Jacks, with her
most intelligent air. "Dante opens such a world."
"Strange!" murmured her husband, with his kindly smile. "The last
thing I should have imagined."
They were summoned to luncheon. As they entered the dining-room,
there appeared a young man whom Mr. Jacks greeted warmly.
"Hullo, Arnold! I am so glad you lunch here to-day. Here is the son
of my old friend Jerome Otway."
Arnold Jacks pressed the visitor's hand and spoke a few courteous
words in a remarkably pleasant voice. In physique he was quite
unlike his father; tall, well but slenderly built, with a small
finely-shaped head, large grey-blue eyes and brown hair. The
delicacy of his complexion and the lines of his figure did not
suggest strength, yet he walked with a very firm step, and his whole
bearing betokened habits of healthy activity. In early years he had
seemed to inherit a very feeble constitution; the death of his
brother and sister, followed by that of their mother at an untimely
age, left little hope that he would reach manhood; now, in his
thirtieth year, he was rarely on troubled the score of health, and
few men relieved from the necessity of earning money found fuller
occupation for their time.
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