Even in the pitchy gloom I could feel that Tom's step was buoyant. He was treading already in imagination the path of love and fame. How should I have the heart to tell him? How wither the chaplet that already seemed to bind his brow?
Tom was the first to break the silence which had fallen upon us.
"Jasper, did you ever see or hear the like? Can a man help worshipping her? But for her, 'Francesca' would have been hissed. I know it, I could see it, and now, I suppose, I shall be famous.
"Famous!" continued he, soliloquising. "Three months ago I would have given the last drop of my blood for fame; and now, without Clarissa, fame will be a mockery. Do you think I might have any chance, the least chance?"
How could I answer him? The fog caught my breath as I tried to stammer a reply, and Tom, misinterpreting my want of words, read his condemnation.
"You do not? Of course, you do not; and you are right. Success has intoxicated me, I suppose. I am not used to the drink!" and he laughed a joyless laugh.
Then, with a change of mood, he caught my hat from off my head, and set his own in its place.
"We will change characters for the nonce," he said, "after the fashion of Falstaff and Prince Hal, and I will read myself a chastening discourse on the vanity of human wishes. 'Do thou stand for me, and I'll play my father.' Eh, Jasper?"
"'Well, here I am set,'" quoted I, content to humour him.
"Well, then, I know thee; thou art Thomas Loveday, a beggarly Grub Street author, i' faith, a man of literature, and wouldst set eyes upon one to whom princes fling bouquets; a low Endymion puffing a scrannel pipe, and wouldst call therewith a queen to be thy bride. Out upon thee for such monstrous folly!"