“Oh, thank you; I should like it so much.”
Darrell turned abruptly away from the bright, grateful
eyes. “I am only sorry,” he added,
looking aside, “that our excursions can be but
few. On Friday next I shall submit to you a
proposition; if you accept it, we shall part on Saturday,—liking
each other, I hope: speaking for myself, the
experiment has not failed; and on yours?”
“On mine!—oh, Mr. Darrell, if I dared
but tell you what recollections of yourself the experiment
will bequeath to me!”
“Do not tell me, if they imply a compliment,”
answered Darrell, with the low silvery laugh which
so melodiously expressed indifference and repelled
affection. He entered the stable-yard, dismounted;
and on returning to Lionel, the sound of the flute
stole forth, as if from the eaves of the gabled roof.
“Could the pipe of Horace’s Faunus be
sweeter than that flute?” said Darrell,
“’Utcunque
dulci, Tyndare, fistula,
Valles,’
etc.
What a lovely ode that is! What knowledge of
town life! what susceptibility to the rural!
Of all the Latins, Horace is the only one with whom
I could wish to have spent a week. But no!
I could not have discussed the brief span of human
life with locks steeped in Malobathran balm and wreathed
with that silly myrtle. Horace and I would have
quarrelled over the first heady bowl of Massie.
We never can quarrel now! Blessed subject and
poet-laureate of Queen Proserpine, and, I dare swear,
the most gentlemanlike poet she ever received at court;
henceforth his task is to uncoil the asps from the
brows of Alecto, and arrest the ambitious Orion from
the chase after visionary lions.”
Showing that if a good
face is a letter of recommendation, a good
heart is a letter of
credit.
The next day they rode forth, host and guest, and
that ride proved an eventful crisis in the fortune
of Lionel Haughton. Hitherto I have elaborately
dwelt on the fact that whatever the regard Darrell
might feel for him, it was a regard apart from that
interest which accepts a responsibility and links
to itself a fate. And even if, at moments, the
powerful and wealthy man had felt that interest, he
had thrust it from him. That he meant to be
generous was indeed certain, and this he had typically
shown in a very trite matter-of-fact way. The
tailor, whose visit had led to such perturbation,
had received instructions beyond the mere supply of
the raiment for which he had been summoned; and a large
patent portmanteau, containing all that might constitute
the liberal outfit of a young man in the rank of gentleman,
had arrived at Fawley, and amazed and moved Lionel,
whom Darrell had by this time thoroughly reconciled
to the acceptance of benefits. The gift denoted
this: “In recognizing you as kinsman, I
shall henceforth provide for you as gentleman.”
Darrell indeed meditated applying for an appointment
in one of the public offices, the settlement of a
liberal allowance, and a parting shake of the hand,
which should imply, “I have now behaved as becomes
me: the rest belongs to you. We may never
meet again. There is no reason why this good-by
may not be forever.”
