He paused significantly. Brion, pale to the eyes, as if he had been running, made a gesture of despair:—
‘What hope could be for me, a nameless dependent!’
Raleigh cried out on him:—
‘What hope? And she, with a hundred suitors, still unwed! Come, while there’s time! I’ll see her; contrive a meeting for thee, so sing thy praises, all her heart shall melt upon the past and flow in one stream of passion towards her olden lover.’
Brion shook his head; but there was a warmth come back to his cheeks and a light to his eyes.
‘Bring me but to speech with her: I’ll ask no more.’
‘You’ll come, then?’
The boy broke into a shamefaced laugh.
‘It seems so.’
And thus was the surrender made. To London he had pledged himself, and now there was nothing for it but to secure his Uncle’s compliance. And that proved an easier matter than he had expected. It may have been that Bagott saw in this separation a temporary relief from that watchfulness which restricted his indulgences and embarrassed his secret devotions—for by now he was quite reverted to his former beliefs; or it may have been that he really wished his nephew to learn to take his independent place in the world, and so to shift any lingering responsibility for his welfare from his own shoulders. In any case he opposed no objection to the trip, but on the contrary expressed a desire to make it as full and pleasurable a one as possible, supplying the young man with ample funds for the occasion, and bidding him not hesitate to write for more should he come to need it.