Playing With Fire. Amelia E. Barr
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of yourself, Ian, you are in far greater temptation than Marion will ever have to face. Did you notice a book lying open on the small table in your study?"
"No."
"I want you to notice it. I left it lying face downward purposely. If you lift it carefully, you will see that I have marked a few lines. Read them."
"Lines! Poetry, I suppose! Jessy, I have not time to read outside my present work."
"They are directly inside of your work."
"I wish you would drive over to Cramer, and say a few words of counsel to Marion."
"I will not, Ian. Marion must learn how to counsel herself. She is now in a fine school to learn that lesson, and she will come home dux of her class when it is closed."
He was turning toward his study as Mrs. Caird spoke, and he was closing the door as her last words reached him, "Read what I have marked, Ian."
He said to himself that he would not read it. Jessy required to be put a little more in her proper place. She had advised him too much lately, and he felt that she ought to wait until asked for her opinion on subjects belonging particularly to his profession. Her attitude was subversive of all recognized authority.
So he looked at the book lying on the table, but did not lift it. He was the more determined not to read the marked "lines" because Jessy had left the book face downward. She knew that this habit of hers seriously annoyed him, and that she had calculated on this annoyance making him lift the book and so in straightening the pages see the marked passage. He told himself that this was taking an unfair advantage of one of his most innocent peculiarities. He was resolved not to sanction it.
But the book lying on its face vexed and even troubled him. It might be a good book, the mental abode of some wise man, who had pressed his finest hopes and thoughts on its white leaves. He could neither read nor write with that fallen volume before him. For he was so used to listen with his eyes to the absent or dead who spoke to him in a low counterpoint that he could not avoid a feeling that he was treating a visitor, whether friend or foe, with great unkindness.
He rose and he sat down, then rose again, and, with a resolved attitude, lifted his prostrate friend or enemy. One leaf was crumpled and, when he had smoothed it carefully out, he saw a passage enclosed in strong pencil lines. So he walked to his desk and, taking a piece of rubber, erased with pains and caution the indexing marks, nor did he read one word of the message the book brought him until he had set it free to advise, or reprove, or comfort him, according to its tenor. Then the words that met his eyes, and never again left his memory, were the following:
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