“When you’re speaking to a young lady – say, for instance, Miss Lizzie Smith[36] – do you say ‘Miss Lizzie’? or ‘Miss Smith’?”

“Say ‘Miss Smith,’” the librarian stated authoritatively. “Say ‘Miss Smith’ always – until you come to know her better.[37]”

So it was that Martin Eden solved the problem.

“Please, come any time; I’ll be at home all afternoon,” was Ruth’s reply over the telephone to his request as to when he could return the borrowed books.

She met him at the door herself, and her woman’s eyes noticed the certain slight but indefinable change in him for the better.[38] Also, she was struck by his face. She felt the desire to lean toward him for warmth.

Once they were seated in the living-room, they talked first of the borrowed books, of Swinburne, and of Browning. Ruth wanted to help him. His neck was near, and there was sweetness in the thought of laying her hands upon it. She did not dream that the feeling he excited in her was love. She thought she was merely interested in him as an unusual type.

She did not know she desired him; but with him it was different. He knew that he loved her, and he desired her as he had never before desired anything in his life. He had loved poetry for its beauty; but since he met her the gates to the vast field of love-poetry had been opened wide.

His gaze wandered often toward her lips, and he yearned for them hungrily. But there was nothing gross or earthly in it. They were lips of pure spirit, and his desire for them seemed absolutely different from the desire that had led him to other women’s lips. He did not dream how ardent and masculine his gaze was, her spirit was affecting him. Her virginity exalted and disguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts to a chastity.

“I wonder if I can get some advice from you,” he began. “You remember I said I couldn’t talk about books and other things because I didn’t know how? Well, I’ve done a lot of things ever since. I never had any advantages. I’ve worked hard ever since I was a kid. I was never inside a house like this. When I come a week ago, and saw all this, and you, and your mother, and brothers, and everything – well, I liked it. I’d heard about such things and read about such things in some of the books, and when I looked around at your house, why, the books come true.[39] And I liked it. I wanted it. I want it now. I want to breathe air like you get in this house – air that is filled with books, and pictures, and beautiful things, where people talk in low voices and are clean, and their thoughts are clean. When you were crossing the room to kiss your mother, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, but I want to see more.

But listen, here it is. I want to enter the kind of life you have in this house. There’s more in life than drinking, and hard work. Now, how to begin? I can make most men sick when it comes to hard work.[40] Once I get started, I’ll work night and day. Maybe you think it’s funny, when I ask you about all this. I know you’re the last person in the world I ought to ask, but I don’t know anybody else I could ask – unless it’s Arthur. Maybe I must ask him. If I was – ”

His voice died away. Ruth did not speak immediately. She had never looked in eyes that expressed greater power. Here was a man who could do anything. Her face was all sympathy when she began to speak.

“What you need, you realize yourself, and it is education. You should go back and finish grammar school, and then go through to high school and university.”