“We are friends, then; and in that relation, Arden, if there are privileges, there are also liabilities, remember, and both extend into a possibly distant future.”
Longcluse spoke with a gloomy excitement that his companion did not quite understand.
“That is quite true, of course,” said Arden.
Each was looking in the other's face for a moment, and each face grew suddenly dark, darker – and the whole room darkened as the air was overshadowed by a mass of cloud that eclipsed the sun, threatening thunder.
“By Jove! How awfully dark in a moment!” said Arden, looking from the face thus suddenly overcast through the window towards the sky.
“Dark as the future we were speaking of,” said Longcluse, with a sad smile.
“Dark in one sense, I mean unseen, but not darkened in the ill-omened sense,” said Richard Arden. “I have great confidence in the future. I suppose I am sanguine.”
“I ought to be sanguine, if having been lucky hitherto should make one so, and yet I'm not. My happiness depends on that which I cannot, in the least, control. Thought, action, energy, contribute nothing, and so I but drift, and – my heart fails me. Tell me, Arden, for Heaven's sake, truth – spare me nothing, conceal nothing. Let me but know it, however bitter. First tell me, does Miss Arden dislike me – has she an antipathy to me?”
“Dislike you! Nonsense. How could that be? She evidently enjoys your society, when you are in spirits and choose to be amusing. Dislike you? Oh, my dear Longcluse, you can't have fancied such a thing!” said Arden.
“A man placed as I am may fancy anything – things infinitely more unlikely. I sometimes hope she has never perceived my admiration. It seems strange and cruel, but I believe where a man cannot be beloved, nothing is so likely to make him hated as his presuming to love. There is the secret of half the tragedies we read of. The man cannot cease to love, and the idol of his passion not only disregards but insults it. It is their cruel nature; and thus the pangs of jealousy and the agitations of despair are heightened by a peculiar torture, the hardest of all hell's torture to endure.”
“Well, I have seen you pretty often together, and you must see there is nothing of that kind,” said Arden.
“You speak quite frankly, do you? For Heaven's sake don't spare me!” urged Longcluse.
“I say exactly what I think. There can't be any such feeling,” said Arden.
Longcluse sighed, looked down thoughtfully, and then, raising his eyes again, he said —
“You must answer me another question, dear Arden, and I shall, for the present, task your kindness no more. If you think it a fair question, will you promise to answer me with unsparing frankness? Let me hear the worst.”
“Certainly,” answered his companion.
“Does your sister like anyone in particular – is she attached to anyone – are her affections quite disengaged?”
“So far as I am aware, certainly. She never cared for any one among all the people who admired her, and I am quite certain such a thing could not be without my observing it,” answered Richard Arden.
“I don't know; perhaps not,” said Longcluse. “But there is a young friend of yours, who I thought was an admirer of Miss Arden's, and possibly a favoured one. You guess, I daresay, who it is I mean?”
“I give you my honour I have not the least idea.”
“I mean an early friend of yours – a man about your own age – who has often been staying in Yorkshire and at Mortlake with you, and who was almost like a brother in your house – very intimate.”
“Surely you can't mean Vivian Darnley?” exclaimed Richard Arden.
“I do. I mean no other.”
“Vivian Darnley? Why, he has hardly enough to live on, much less to marry on. He has not an idea of any such thing. If my father fancied such an absurdity possible, he would take measures to prevent his ever seeing her more. You could not have hit upon a more impossible man,” he resumed, after a moment's examination of a theory which, notwithstanding, made him a little more uneasy than he would have cared to confess. “Darnley is no fool either, and I think he is a honourable fellow; and altogether, knowing him as I do, the thing is utterly incredible. And as for Alice, the idea of his imagining any such folly, I can undertake to say, positively never entered her mind.”
Here was another pause. Longcluse was again thoughtful.
“May I ask one other question, which I think you will have no difficulty in answering?” said he.
“What you please, dear Longcluse; you may command me.”
“Only this, how do you think Sir Reginald would receive me?”
“A great deal better than he will ever receive me; with his best bow – no, not that, but with open arms and his brightest smile. I tell you, and you'll find it true, my father is a man of the world. Money won't, of course, do everything; but it can do a great deal. It can't make a vulgar man a gentleman, but it may make a gentleman anything. I really think you would find him a very fast friend. And now I must leave you, dear Longcluse. I have just time, and no more, to keep my appointment with old Mr. Blount, to whom my uncle commands me to go at twelve.”
“Heaven keep us both, dear Arden, in this cheating world! Heaven keep us true in this false London world! And God punish the first who breaks faith with the other!”
So spoke Longcluse, taking his hand again, and holding it hard for a moment, with his unfathomable dark eyes on Arden. Was there a faint and unconscious menace in his pale face, as he uttered these words, which a little stirred Arden's pride?
“That's a comfortable litany to part with – a form of blessing elevated so neatly, at the close, into a malediction. However, I don't object. Amen, by all means,” laughed Arden.
Longcluse smiled.
“A malediction? I really believe it was. Something very like it, and one that includes myself, doesn't it? But we are not likely to earn it. An arrow shot into the sea, it can hurt no one. But oh, dear Arden, what does such language mean but suffering? What is all bitterness but pain? Is any mind that deserves the name ever cruel, except from misery? We are good friends, Arden: and if ever I seem to you for a moment other than friendly, just say, ‘It is his heart-ache and not he that speaks.’ Good-bye! God bless you!”
At the door there was another parting.
“There's a long dull day before me – say, rather, night; weary eyes, sleepless brain,” murmured Longcluse, in a rather dismal soliloquy, standing in his slippers and dressing-gown again at the window. “Suspense! What a hell is in that word! Chain a man across a rail, in a tunnel – pleasant situation! let him listen for the faint fifing and drumming of the engine, miles away, not knowing whether deliverance or death may come first. Bad enough, that suspense. What is it to mine! I shall see her to-night. I shall see her, and how will it all be? Richard Arden wishes it – yes, he does. ‘Away, slight man!’ It is Brutus who says that, I think. Good Heaven! Think of my life – the giddy steps I go by. That dizzy walk by moonlight, when I lost my way in Switzerland – beautiful nightmare! – the two mile ledge of rock before me, narrow as a plank; up from my left, the sheer wall of rock; at my right so close that my glove might have dropped over it, the precipice; and curling vapour on the cliffs above, that seem about to break, and envelope all below in blinding mist. There is my life translated into landscape. It has been one long adventure – danger – fatigue. Nature is full of beauty – many a quiet nook in life, where peace resides; many a man whose path is broad and smooth. Woe to the man who loses his way on Alpine tracks, and is benighted!”
Now Mr. Longcluse recollected himself. He had letters to read and note. He did this rapidly. He had business in town. He had fifty things on his hands; and, the day over, he would