“You do not mean me to take this reproach seriously?” he asked, feeling somewhat touched by his friend’s words. “You know well enough I only asked a friendly service of one whose clear judgment I prize above my own, blinded as I now am by a confusion of contending passions.”
“Of course. I quite understand your meaning. It was only my chaff; but, unfortunately, it is only too true that I am prevented from obliging you. To-morrow I stay here in the Hague to look after my own affairs, and then I shall have not a day, nor even an hour, to lose in making my preparations for a long voyage.”
“What long voyage are you alluding to?”
“Ah! that’s true; we have had so much to say about the change in your life, that I have forgotten to tell you about the change in my own. You are not the only person on whom fortune smiles. I have been offered and have accepted the post of private secretary to the newly appointed Governor-General of our Indian possessions. Besides the high salary, and the excellent opportunity of travelling to Java in such a comfortable way, my future prospects are so promising that I could not for a moment resist the temptation to go. It is much more agreeable to me than vegetating in a provincial town, on the look-out for ill-paid lawsuits or some legal appointment. I expatriate myself for a year or two, to return with all the importance of an Eastern nabob,” continued Verheyst, with a faint attempt at a jest which evidently did not come from the heart, as no pleasant smile lit up his face.
“I cannot say you are wrong, and yet I am sorry,” replied Leopold, with an effort to be cheerful; “all my plans for the future enjoyment of my fortune were bound up with you—we were to shoot, hunt, and travel together.”
“What about your wife?” asked William.
“My first condition would have been that she must treat my friend kindly.”
“It is all the better; you should not be under the necessity of making any such conditions. Possibly you may have difficulties enough to overcome, without my standing in the way.”
“Really, William, I feel inclined to refuse the fortune, and go to Java with you.”
“Nonsense, man, pluck up your courage, and trust to those feelings of honour and delicacy of which your present scruples only afford me a new proof. She may turn out to be a pearl of a wife, this young lady whom you are requested to enchase in gold. By the way, do you know her name, or where you are to go in order to make her acquaintance?”