Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/368



"Dear Fellow Hermit," said Darrell, almost gaily, yet with more than usual affection in his greeting and voice, "you find me just when I want you. I am as one whose eyes have been strained by a violent conflict of colours, and your quiet presence is like the relief of a return to green. I have news for you, Fairthorn. You, who know more of my secrets than any other man, shall be the first to learn a decision that must bind you and me more together--but not in these scenes, Dick.

'Ibimus--ibimus! Supremum Carpere iter, comites, parati!'"

"What do you mean, sir?" asked Fairthorn. "My mind always misgives me when I hear you quoting Horace. Some reflection about the certainty of death, or other disagreeable subjects, is sure to follow!"

"Death! No, Dick--not now. Marriage-bells and joy, Dick! We shall have a wedding!"

"What! You will marry at last! And it must be that beautiful Caroline Lyndsay! It must--it must! You can never love another! You know it, my dear, dear master. I shall see you, then, happy before I die."

"Tut, foolish old friend!" said Darrell, leaning his aria tenderly on Fairthorn's shoulder, and walking on slowly towards the house. "How often must I tell you that no Marriage-bells can ring for me!"

"But you have told me, too, that you went to Twickenham to steal a sight of her again; and that it was the sight of her that made you resolve to wed no one else. And when I have railed against her for fickleness, have you not nearly frightened me out of my wits, as if no one might rail against her but yourself? And now she is free--and did you not grant that she would not refuse your hand, and would be true and faithful henceforth? And yet you insist on being--granite."

"No, Dick, not granite; I wish I were."

"Granite and pride," persisted Dick, courageously. "If one chips a bit off the granite, one only breaks one's spade against the pride."

"Pride--you too!" muttered Darrell, mournfully; then aloud: "No, it is not pride now, whatever it might have been even yesterday. But I would rather be racked by all the tortures that pious inquisitors ever invented out