"You are precious quiet, Harry," said Lionel, as they strolled on till
they reached Trafalgar Square, almost without a word having been spoken.
"I was only thinking," was the reply, and then they walked on again in
silence; for Harry Clayton was indeed thinking, deeply too, of his
position. There was a vague sense of danger, of disappointment,
troubling him. One moment he felt ready to hurry back to the wretched
street, and beg Patty to grant him an interview; the next he shrank from
it, and asked himself how he could expect her, if she had any proper
sense of pride, to listen to him again. Now, too, came a growing
feeling of dislike to Lionel. He told himself that life with him would
now be insupportable, and he fell to wondering again what the young man
had seen. Would he jeer and banter him, and torture him by endeavouring
to excite jealousy? However, he felt that he must let matters take
their course.
How his thoughts ran riot, though! From time to time the busy traffic
of the London streets faded from before his eyes, for a bright little
vision to occupy the place--always a fair young face bent towards a
dove, the startled look of confusion, and then the subsequent scene.
It was nothing new that it would come--that face; try as he would to
drive it from him, there it was again and again, soft, gentle, and
pleasing. He told himself that it was absurd; that he had seen in
different society hundreds of sweeter faces, but no one had ever so
impressed him before.
"Could she have been acting?" he muttered; "but what a place, and what
associations!"
He could not have analysed his thoughts had he tried, for they were
strangely mingled, and involuntarily he gazed uneasily from time to time
at the careless frank-looking young fellow at his side, apparently now
too much occupied with his dog to heed aught beside.
Harry roused himself at last, though, from his reverie as Lionel spoke.
"See you at dinner, I suppose, old fellow?"
"Are you going away? Anywhere in particular?"
"No--no--no!" was the reply. "May perhaps take the dog in the Park for
a swim. Change for him, poor fellow!"
Harry hesitated, as if about to speak, and then they parted, taking
different directions, but with thoughts centring at the same spot.
Involuntarily Harry glanced over his shoulder, when he had gone about
fifty yards, and then he bit his lip with annoyance, for he had turned
to encounter the sharp glance of Lionel, who was also looking back.
The young men then walked hastily on, each moody and frowning, and
thinking that the possibility of their continuing to be dwellers beneath
the same roof was hourly diminishing; for though Harry would gladly have
stayed, there seemed to be a rock springing up between them, momentarily
dividing more and more their course; and Harry began now to recapitulate
the past, and to recollect that Lionel had during the last fortnight
been growing more impatient of the slight control placed upon him.
"I shall be answerable to the father for the escapades of the son,"
muttered Harry. "He trusts me, and I cannot shut my eyes to all the
follies I shall be called upon to witness."
He bit his lip again here, and asked himself if he were not becoming a
hypocrite, and drawing too largely upon the future?
"We shall have to part," he said, half aloud. "I can't help it--we
shall never get on together now. What a fool! what a weak idiot I am
growing!" he exclaimed. "It will take very little to bring about a
rupture now. Well, the sooner perhaps the better!" he added, moodily;
and then he walked on and on, with the threatening rupture nearer at
hand than he thought for, as, in spite of himself, he made his way back
to Brownjohn Street, eliciting from D. Wragg the words uttered at the
end of a previous chapter--
"It's one of them swells as come about the dorg!"
D. Wragg accompanied his words with a great deal of pantomimic gesture,
as he stood smiling at the two girls, heedless of the fact that Patty
was shrinking from the encounter.
"It is not to see me--I cannot see anybody!" she stammered, crimsoning
the while. And then a few hurried questions were put by Janet, and
replied to by D. Wragg, the result being that hand-in-hand the young
girls entered the little back-room,--Patty's face flushing a still
deeper crimson upon finding that Harry Clayton was already there, and
standing with his back to the window.
"I was so completely taken by surprise," exclaimed Harry, eagerly
advancing with outstretched hand, "that I hardly knew--"
He stopped short, for he saw in the manner in which Patty drew back how
thoroughly she read his heart. He was ashamed of his past weakness,
that would not own her before his friend; and with burning face and
beating heart, Patty, ready to burst into tears though she was, held
herself aloof. "He would not know her then," she said to herself; "he
should not know her now." It was all at an end, and the old childish
dream must be forgotten altogether.
What Patty would have said, what more Harry Clayton would have whispered
in excuse, it is impossible to say; for while Janet scanned first one
face and then the other, D. Wragg whispered, from just inside the shop,
where he had gone to respond to a summons, "Here's your friend come
back. I ain't told him as you're here. Don't you make no mistake; but
shall I ask him in, too?"
For a moment Harry Clayton's face was troubled, but the next instant he
had recovered himself.
"Yes, Mr Wragg," he said, quietly, "ask him to come in," and the rough
head of the dealer was drawn back into the shop.
If possible Patty's flush grew deeper, and lines began to make their
appearance in the forehead of Harry Clayton, as he scrutinised the young
girl attentively, while a few words were heard in the shop.
Directly after, in a cool, insolent fashion, and with a smile upon his
face, Lionel Redgrave sauntered in; but the smile faded on the instant
as he saw who stood beside the door. The blood mounted to his boyish
temples, and for a while youthful ingenuousness had the full sway.
He soon laughed it off, assuming the cool easy way of the
man-about-town, and speaking lightly, he exclaimed--
"Quite a _contretemps_! I am rather late in the field, it seems. I was
not aware that Mr Harry Clayton was turning gay. Not the first saint
who has carried the world beneath his sackcloth. Good morning all!"
"Stop," cried Harry, hastily, and he struggled to speak all he knew, and
tell of the previous meeting at Norwood, but his courage failed. "Stop
a moment! My visit here was for the purpose of giving advice."
"Cheap, and always plenty on supply," sneered Lionel.
"--Of uttering a few words of warning."
"Exactly; to practise the part of mentor to the young. Rather selfish,
though, Harry--rather selfish. Shouldn't have thought it of you!"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh! nothing--nothing at all," said Lionel, lightly--"nothing surprising
in _my_ coming; but for you to be here! Ah! Harry, I'm afraid the
study of the classics is making you light and wild."
It was now Harry's turn to look conscious, for his heart seemed to
whisper to him that the shafts let fly by his companion were not so
badly aimed; and for a few moments he strove vainly for the composure he
needed to carry on the wordy warfare with effect.
"Perhaps we had better bring this interview to a close," he said at
last; for, in spite of Lionel's talk of withdrawing, he still stayed.
Clayton looked round as he spoke, to find Janet's fierce dark eyes fixed
upon him as if they would read his every thought. Then bowing to Patty,
he turned as if to leave, hesitating though as he reached the door.
"Oh! I'm ready," said Lionel, superciliously, as he rightly interpreted
the other's uneasiness. "Good morning, ladies."
Then closely following Clayton, he once more passed through the shop,
followed by the head-shakings of D. Wragg, and encountering the
offensive stare of the heavy young man outside, who now followed the
friends until they reached the streets traversed by a more respectable
class than those who favoured the Decadian.
No words were spoken--the young men walking side by side--the one
careless and indifferent, the other anxious and troubled in mind--more
so even than he cared to own to himself.
Volume 2, Chapter III.