Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/380

 of life, their movement was seen in the shadows which, when they wrap us round at remoter distance, seem to lose their trouble as they gain their width. He broke from his musing attitude with an abrupt angry movement, as if shaking off thoughts which displeased him, and gathering his arms tightly to his breast, in a gesture peculiar to himself, walked to and fro the room, murmuring inaudibly. The door opened; he turned quickly, and with an evident sense of relief, for his face brightened. "Alban, my dear Alban!"

"Darrell! old friend! old school-friend! dear, dear Guy Darrell!" The two Englishmen stood, hands tightly clasped in each other, in true English greeting, their eyes moistening with remembrances that carried them back to boyhood.

Alban was the first to recover self-possession; and, when the friends had seated themselves, he surveyed Darrell's countenance deliberately, and said, "So little change!--wonderful! What is your secret?"

"Suspense from life,—hibernating. But you beat me; you have been spending life, yet seem as rich in it as when we parted."

"No; I begin to decry the present and laud the past; to read with glasses, to decide from prejudice, to recoil from change, to find sense in twaddle, to know the value of health from the fear to lose it; to feel an interest in rheumatism, an awe of bronchitis; to tell anecdotes, and to wear flannel. To you in strict confidence I disclose the truth: I am no longer twenty-five. You laugh; this is civilized talk: does it not refresh you after the gibberish you must have chattered in Asia Minor?"

Darrell might have answered in the affirmative with truth. What man, after long years of solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however trivial, that recalls to him the gay time of the world he remembered in his young day,—and recalls it to him on the lips of a friend in youth! But Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in his chair with a more cheerful ease, and inclined his relaxing brows with a nod of encouragement or assent.

Colonel Morley continued. "But when did you arrive? whence? How long do you stay here? What are your plans?"

DARRELL.—"Caesar could not be more laconic. When arrived? this evening. Whence? Ouzelford. How long do I stay? uncertain. What are my plans? let us discuss them."

COLONEL MORLEY.—"