CHAPTER XIV.
‘O that this calculating soul would ceaseTo forecast accidents, Time’s limping errors,And take the present, with the present’s peace,Instead of filling life’s poor day with terrors.’
‘O that this calculating soul would ceaseTo forecast accidents, Time’s limping errors,And take the present, with the present’s peace,Instead of filling life’s poor day with terrors.’
‘O that this calculating soul would ceaseTo forecast accidents, Time’s limping errors,And take the present, with the present’s peace,Instead of filling life’s poor day with terrors.’
‘O that this calculating soul would cease
To forecast accidents, Time’s limping errors,
And take the present, with the present’s peace,
Instead of filling life’s poor day with terrors.’
About seven o’clock, Wyndham (who had come up to Dublin by the afternoon train), going down Nassau Street, finds himself face to face with a tall, big, good-humoured-looking man of about thirty-two.
‘Hallo! that you?’ cries the latter, stopping Wyndham, who, in somewhat preoccupied mood, would have gone by without seeing him. The preoccupation disappears at once, however, and it is with genuine pleasure that he grasps the hand held out to him.
‘You, Crosby, of all men!’
‘Even so.’
‘Why, last week, when we met in Paris, you told me you were going to Vienna to see a friend there.’
‘The friend came to me at Paris instead the very day after you left.’
‘But I thought you had arranged with him to go on an expedition to some unpronounceable place in Africa?’
‘So I had, but he proved disappointing. Hummed and hawed, said he couldn’t go just now, but perhaps a little later on. One saw through him at once. I told him I never travelled about with fellows’ wives, and that settled it.’
‘He was going to be married?’
‘Of course. Love was writ large all over him—in huge capitals. And he was in such a hurry over everything. People in love are always in a hurry—to get back. So I dismissed him with my blessing, and a bauble for the venturesome young woman he has chosen to explore life’s boundless ways with him. R.I.P. He’s done for; and a rightgood fellow he was, too! Well, what’s up with you?’
‘With me?’
‘Think I can’t see? You’re out of your luck in some way.’
‘Nothing much, any way,’ says Wyndham, with an involuntary smile.
‘Too vague—too vague by half,’ says Crosby, laughing. It is the happiest, heartiest laugh. ‘Come, what’s the matter? Out with it. Money?’
‘No, no,’ says the barrister, laughing in turn.
‘Still, there is something.’
‘Is there? I don’t know,’ says Wyndham, in a tone half comical, half forlorn.
At this Crosby thrusts his arm into his, and wheels him down the street.
‘It must be hunger,’ says he gaily, seeing the other is not ready for confession yet. That the confession will come he knows perfectly well. Ever since they were boys together, Wyndham, whose brain was then, as now, very superior to Crosby’s, had stillalways given in to the personal attractions of the stronger and older boy, whose big fists often fought Wyndham’s battles for him on the public playground.
Crosby had been a big boy then; he is a big man now, and, in spite of his adventurous wanderings by land and sea, looks younger than Wyndham, though he is actually four years older. A splendid man, bronzed, bearded, and broad-shouldered, with the grand look of one who has been through many a peril and many a fight, who has led a cleanly life, and can look the world in the face fearlessly. His eyes are large and blue, and full of life and gaiety. He has a heart as true as gold, and a strong right arm, good for the felling of a foe or the saving of a friend.
‘For my own part, I’m starving,’ says he. ‘Come along; we’re near our club, and you’ll dine with me. Considering what a stranger I am in my own land, you’ll be able to help me out a bit. I feel as if I did not know anyone—that is, if you are not going anywhereelse. There’s a wandering look about you. No? No other engagements? That’s good.’
They have reached the steps of the Kildare Street Club by this time, and presently are in the pleasant dining-room.
‘By the way, talking of engagements,’ says Crosby, between the soup and fish, ‘I have one for to-night, at your aunt’s—Mrs. Prior’s. In some odd fashion she heard I was in Dublin, and sent a card to the Gresham for me. You’—glancing at Wyndham’s evening dress—‘are going somewhere, too, perhaps?’
‘There, too,’ says Wyndham. ‘I’ve got out of it a good deal lately; but it doesn’t do to offend her overmuch. She’s touchy. And the old man, my uncle, Lord Shangarry—you remember him, how he used to tip us at school long ago?—makes quite a point of my being civil to her.’
‘To her, or——’
‘My cousin?’ Wyndham lifts his brows. ‘I feel sure my cousin is as indifferent to me as I am to her.’ He pauses. ‘Still, I willnot conceal from you that my uncle desires a marriage between us.’
‘Is this the cause of your late depression?’ asks Crosby, with a quizzical expression.
‘Not it,’ says Wyndham. ‘By-the-by’—a little hurriedly—‘what of that late adventure of yours in Siam? You were just telling me about it when——’
Crosby at once plunges into the interrupted anecdote, bringing it, however, to a somewhat sharp close.
‘You know what life is!’ says Wyndham a little moodily when it is over. ‘I envy you; I often think I too should like to break off the threads of society that bind one in, and start on a career that would leave civilization and—its worries behind.’
‘Its worries?’
‘Well, gossip for one thing, and that delicate espionage that so often leads to the damning of a man.’
‘Poor old boy! Got into deep water,’ thinks Crosby whilst toying with his champagne.
‘Once in it, one never gets out of civilization,’ says he. ‘It sticks to one like a burr. Don’t hope for that when you start on the wild career you speak of. For myself, I like civilization. It’s clean, for one thing—savages don’t do much in the way of washing. But I confess I like wandering for wandering’s sake. It’s a mania with me. Here to-day and gone to-morrow—that’s the motto that suits me. Yet, I dare say, in time I shall get tired of it.’
‘Not you. Where are you going next?’
‘Not made up my mind yet. But I’ll tell you where I’ve been last—right into Arcadia! A difficult place to find nowadays, the savants tell you; but the savants, like the Cretans, are all liars. And in my Arcadia I fell in with an adventure, and met——’
He pauses, and, leaning back in his chair, clasps his hands behind his head and gives way to silent laughter. Evidently some memory is amusing him.
‘Someone who apparently was kind to you,’ says Wyndham indifferently, breakingoff from the stem, but not eating, the purple grapes before him.
‘Kind!’ says Crosby. ‘Hardly that.’
‘Unkind?’
‘More than that.’
‘She told you——’
‘That I was a thief.’ Wyndham’s indifference ceases for a moment.
‘Strong language,’ says he.
‘True, I assure you. Do I look like one? Ever since that terrible denunciation I have often asked myself whether so much knocking about as I have known has not ruffianized me in appearance, at all events.’
‘Where on earth is the Arcadia you speak of?’ asks Wyndham.
‘Well, to tell you everything, I went down to Curraghcloyne this morning to have a look at the old place.’
‘What! There! Why, I was there to-day, too,’ says Wyndham, and then pauses, as if suddenly sorry he had spoken.
‘We must have missed each other, then, and come up by different trains.’
‘I suppose so,’ says Wyndham slowly. ‘And so your Arcadia is Curraghcloyne? Fancy an adventure there!’ He shrugs his shoulders, and leans back in his chair. ‘You have had so many real adventures that I expect you like to revel in imagining one now and then.’
‘Perhaps so,’ says Crosby. ‘Still, even in Arcadia one doesn’t like to be called a thief. I say, it is getting late, isn’t it? Your aunt spoke of ten. It is now well after eleven. Buck up, my child, and let us on.’