Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/53

 he could feed—in reality, the only pleasure left to him was to eat, drink, and sleep.

One day he was in Kensington Gardens, sitting half asleep in the sun. People walked up and down the walk before him; beautiful women gaily dressed; sprightly women gaily talking; the world of wealth, fashion, extravagance, and youth. He was no more than three-and-twenty himself. He ought to have been fired by the sight of all this beauty, and all this happiness. Nobody in the world can look half so happy as a lovely girl finely dressed. But he sat there like a clod, dull and insensate.

Presently, a voice which he remembered: "Papa, it is Will Challice!" He looked up heavily. "Why, Will," the girl stood before him, "don't you know me?"

It was Nell, the daughter of his tutor, now a comely maiden of one-and-twenty, who laughed and held out her hand to him. He rose, but not with alacrity. The shadow of a smile crossed his face. He took her hand.

"Challice!" his tutor clapped him on the shoulder. "I haven't seen you since you took your degree. Splendid, my boy! But it might have been better. I hear you are reading Law—good. With the House before you? Good again! Let me look at you. Humph!" He grunted a little disappointment. "You don't look quite so—quite so—what? Do you take exercise enough?"

"Plenty of exercise—plenty," replied the young scholar, who looked so curiously dull and heavy.

"Well, let us walk together. You are doing nothing for the moment."

They walked together; Nelly between them.

"Father," she said, when they arrived at their lodgings in Albemarle Street, "what has come over that poor man? He has gone stupid with his success. I could not get a word out of him. He kept staring at me without speaking."

Was he a lumpish log, or was he a man all nerves and electricity?

In the morning Will Challice partly solved the question, because he called and showed clearly that he was an insensible log and a lumpish log. He sat for an hour gazing at the girl as if he would devour her, but he said nothing.

In the evening Cousin Tom called, bringing Will Challice again—but how changed! Was such a change really due to evening dress? Keen of feature, bright of eye, full of animation. "Why, Will," said Nelly, "what is the matter with you sometimes? When you were here this morning, one could not get a word out of you. Your very face looked heavy."

He changed colour. "I have times when I—I—lose myself—thinking—thinking of things, you know."

They passed a delightful evening. But when Will went away, the girl became meditative. For, although he had talked without stopping, on every kind of subject, there was no hungry look in his eye, such as she had perceived with natural satisfaction in the morning. Every maiden likes that look of hunger, outward sign and indication of respect to her charms.

They were up in town for a month. Every morning Will called and sat glum but hungry-eyed, gazing on the girl and saying nothing. Every evening he called again and talked scholarship and politics with her father, his face changed, his whole manner different,