A Little World

But the vicar seemed uneasy: the music had lost its charm; and instead of following his usual custom of sitting down in some comfortable pew to listen for half-an-hour, he softly followed the churchwarden into the street, and went homewards shaking his head, – that head being, the while, sorely troubled with thoughts of sacrilege and the missing sovereign.

Volume Two – Chapter Two.

Grit in the Wheel

“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 Two – Chapter Three.

Separation

On reaching Lionel’s chambers, a show of cordiality was kept up; but during the walk back, Harry, filled with bitterness, had decided upon his future course – rashly enough, he knew – but he was determined to put an end to what he told himself had been but a mad dream after one who was not worthy of his regard.

The young men lunched, walked out, and dined together, after which, with their coffee and cigars, they sat by the open window, where Lionel, who had evidently been turning something over in his mind – suddenly exclaimed —

“I don’t want to quarrel, Harry; but I have been thinking over that meeting this morning.”

“Hear me first,” exclaimed Harry, almost fiercely. “You spoke in a strangely supercilious way, Lionel – a way that cut severely; and I feel it due to myself and to my position to declare solemnly that my visit to that place this morning was prompted by the purest motives.” He hesitated for a moment, but the feeling of weak pride even now restrained him from telling Lionel who the object of this conversation was. “By a desire for the well-being of one who struck me as – ”

“Oh, yes!” burst in Lionel, “of course. I know what you would say. So was I moved by the purest motives.”