The Heart Line by Gelett Burgess — Read

Blanchard Cayley strolled into the Mercantile Library, one afternoon, / and, nodding to the clerk at the desk, walked to an alcove in the corner / of the main hall. He stopped at a shelf and sat down on a stool. He had / done this several afternoons a week for years, going through the library / as a business man takes account of stock, examining every book in order. / Of some he read only the titles, glancing perhaps also at the date of / the edition; of some he looked over the table of contents. Others he / read, nibbling here and there. A few he took home. He had, by this / time, almost exhausted the list. He read, not like a bookworm, with / relish and zest, nor like a student desirous of a mastery of his / subject; he read, as he did everything, even to his love-making, / deliberately, accurately, with an elaborate scientific method that was, / in its intricacy, something of a game, whose rules he alone knew. He / had, indeed, specialized, taking up such subjects as jade, Japanese / poetry, Esperanto, higher space, Bahiism, and devil-worship, and in such / subjects he had what is termed "lore," but his main object was the / conquest of the whole library in itself.

This afternoon he did not read long. Looking over the top of his book, / as was his custom from time to time, to discover what women were / present, he caught sight of Clytie Payson in the alcove containing the / government reports. He replaced his volume and went over to her.