Arminell: A Social Romance, Vol. 2

BY THE
AUTHOR OF “MEHALAH,” “JOHN HERRING,” Etc.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
LONDON:
METHUEN & CO., 18 Bury Street, W.C.
1890
ARMINELL.
Giles Inglett Saltren had promised his mother to say nothing to any one of what had been told him, but the temptation had come strongly upon him to tell Arminell that he was not the nobody she and others supposed, and he had succumbed in the temptation. He and the girl had interests in common, sympathies that drew them together, and he felt that it would be of extraordinary benefit to her, and a pleasure to himself, if, in that great house, where each was so solitary, they could meet without the barrier which had hitherto divided them and prevented the frank interchange of ideas and the communication of confidences. Later on in the evening, it is true, that he felt some twinges of conscience, but they were easily stilled.
Jingles had greatly felt his loneliness. He had been without a friend, without even a companion. He could not associate with those of his mother’s class, for he was separated from them by his education, and he made no friends in the superior class, from the suspicion with which he regarded its members. He had made acquaintances at college, but he could not ask them to stay at Chillacot when he was at the park, nor invite them as guests to Orleigh; consequently, these acquaintanceships died natural deaths. Nevertheless, that natural craving which exists in all hearts to have a familiar friend, a person with whom to associate and open the soul, was strong in Jingles.
If the reader has travelled in a foreign country—let us say in Bohemia—and is ignorant of the tongue, Czech, he has felt the irksomeness of a table d’hôte at which he has sat, and of which he has partaken, without being able to join in the general conversation. He has felt embarrassed, has longed for the dinner to be over, that he might retire to his solitary chamber. Yet, when there, he wearies over his loneliness, and descends to the coffee-room, there to sip his café noir , and smoke, and pare his nails, and turn over a Czech newspaper, make up his accounts, then sip again, again turn over the paper, re-examine his nails, and recalculate his expenditure, in weariful iteration, and long for the time when he can call for his bill and leave. But, if some one at an adjoining table says, “Ach! zu Englitsch!” how he leaps to eager dialogue, how he takes over his coffee-cup and cognac to the stranger’s table; how he longs to hug the barbarian, who professes to “speaque a littelle Englitsch.” How he clings to him, forgives him his blunders, opens a thirsty ear to his jargon, forces on him champagne and cigars, forgets the clock, his nails, his notes, the bill and the train, in the delight of having met one with whom he can for a moment forget his isolation.