But was it Maimonides which kept him till the porter began to put up
the shutters? Was he pondering exclusively upon God as the folio lay
open before him? He did think about Him, but whether he would have
thought about Him for nearly twenty minutes if Clara had not been
there is another matter.
'Do you walk home alone?' he said as she gave the proof to the boy
who stood waiting.
'Yes, always.'
'I am going to see Marshall to-night, but I must go to Newman Street
first. I shall be glad to walk with you, if you do not mind
diverging a little.'
She consented and they went along Oxford Street without speaking, the
roar of the carriages and waggons preventing a word.
They turned, however, into Bloomsbury, and were able to hear one
another. He had much to say and he could not begin to say it. There
was a great mass of something to be communicated pent up within him,
and he would have liked to pour it all out before her at once. It is
just at such times that we often take up as a means of expression and
relief that which is absurdly inexpressive and irrelevant.
'I have not seen your sister yet; I hope I may see her this evening.'
'I hope you may, but she frequently suffers from headache and prefers
to be alone.'
'How do you like Mr Barnes?' The answer is not worth recording, nor is any question or answer
which was asked or returned for the next quarter of an hour worth
recording, although they were so interesting then. When they were
crossing Bedford Square on their return Clara happened to say amongst
other commonplaces, 'What a relief a quiet space in London is.'
'I do not mind the crowd if I am by myself.'
'I do not like crowds; I dislike even the word, and dislike "themasses" still more. I do not want to think of human beings as if they were a cloud of dust, and as if each atom had no separate
importance. London is often horrible to me for that reason. In the
country it was not quite so bad.'
'That is an illusion,' said Baruch after a moment's pause.
'I do not quite understand you, but if it be an illusion it is very
painful. In London human beings seem the commonest, cheapest things
in the world, and I am one of them. I went with Mr Marshall not long
ago to a Free Trade Meeting, and more than two thousand people were
present. Everybody told me it was magnificent, but it made me very
sad.' She was going on, but she stopped. How was it, she thought
again, that she could be so communicative? How was it? How is it
that sometimes a stranger crosses our path, with whom, before we have
known him for more than an hour, we have no secrets? An hour? we
have actually known him for centuries.