"Don't wait any longer, Carew. Really, it's not worth while."
"Too late for us to part company now," Carew answered serenely.
"I know. You've stood by me like a good fellow; but it will be some
time yet before I can sail. And you know you are in a hurry to get
away."
"Don't be too sure of that," Carew advised him. "All my good things
aren't at one end of the world."
Weldon's lips curled into the ghost of his old smile.
"Then take one of them along with you," he suggested.
Elbows on knees and chin on fists joined knuckle to knuckle, Carew
turned and smiled blandly down at the face on the pillow.
"Weldon, for a man who has been off his head for a month, you do
have singularly wise ideas. But do you suppose she'd go?"
"Which?"
"Miss Mellen, of course. It's a question of ages. Young Mahomet is
easier to move than the everlasting hills."
"Meaning your mother? She would thank you." "She will thank me, when
she sees Alice," Carew responded hopefully. "But, honor bright, do
you suppose Miss Mellen would go back with me?"
"I thought she promised."
"Yes, but now," Carew persisted, with the eagerness of a boy. "Right
off, next month."
"There's only one way to tell; ask her," Weldon answered. "If she is
the girl I think she is, she will say yes."
"You do like her; don't you, Weldon?" The eagerness was still in his
tone.
"Intensely," Weldon replied quietly. "I have seen few women I have
liked as well."
"What larks we'll be having, this time next year, talking it all
over together," Carew said, in a sudden, thoughtful burst of
prophecy. "By the time we get home, we shall forget the blood and
the dog-biscuit, and only remember the skittles and beer. If only--"
"What?" Weldon looked up at him without flinching.
Carew did flinch, however.
"Nothing," he said hastily. "One is never quite content, you know."
Weldon drew a deep, slow breath.
"No," he echoed. "One is never quite content."
Carew crossed his legs, as he settled back in his chair.
"Mayhap. Some of us ought to be, though."
"Yes. You're a lucky fellow, Carew."
"So are you. The trouble is, one never knows when he is well off."
"But we all know when we aren't," Weldon replied succinctly.
Carew's glance was expressive, as it roved about the luxurious room,
with the bed drawn up near the window which looked out, between the
branches of an ancient oak tree, on the blue waters of Table Bay and
on the fringe of shipping by the Docks far to the eastward. Faintly
from the room below came the sound of a piano and of a hushed
girlish voice singing softly to itself.
"It all depends on one's point of view," Carew said, after an
interval. "I am living in a seven-by-nine room in a hotel, and Miss
Mellen is seventy-two miles and three quarters away. Weldon, you are
a lucky dog, if you did but know it."