CHAPTER X. THE LIBRARY.
Simon and Richard followed the man through a narrow door in the thick wall, across a wide passage, and then along a narrow one. A door was thrown open, and they stepped into a sombre room. The floor of the hall was of great echoing slabs of stone, but now their feet sank in the deep silence of a soft carpet.
Here a new awe, dwelling, however, in an air of homeliness, awoke in Richard. Around him, from floor to ceiling, was ranged a whole army of books, mostly in fine old bindings; in spite of open window and great fire and huge chimney, the large lofty room was redolent of them. Their odour, however, was not altogether pleasing to Richard, whose practised organ detected in it the signs of a blamable degree of decay. The faint effluvia of decomposing paper, leather, paste, and glue, were to Richard as the air of an ill-ventilated ward in the nostrils of a physician. He sniffed and made an involuntary grimace: he had not seen Mr. Lestrange, who was close to him, half hidden by a bookcase that stood out from the wall.
“Good morning, Armour!” said Lestrange. “Your young man does not seem to relish books!”
“In a grand place like this, sir,” remarked Richard, taking answer upon himself, “such a library as I never saw, except, of course, at the British Museum, it makes a man sorry to discover indications of neglect.”
“What do you mean?” returned Lestrange in displeasure.
Richard's remark was the more offensive that his superior style issued in a comparatively common tone. Neither was there anything in the appearance of the place to justify it.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, fearing he had been rude, “but I am a bookbinder!”
“Well?” rejoined Lestrange, taking him now for a sneaking tradesman on the track of a big job.