He parted from his Uncle that evening, as he and Clerivault had to be on their way at an early hour the following morning. Going in to the recluse, with a certain emotion at his heart, he found him characteristically occupied between a Vulgate and a great tankard of burnt sack plentifully laced with Nantes brandy. A thread of incense, rising from a tiny chafing dish on the table, seemed designed, like a pious kissing-comfit, to neutralise the pungent breath of that ungodly mixture; while the mentality which could appropriate such material to such a use appeared further illustrated in the faldstool, or prie-Dieu, set before a bureau on which stood a laughing head in bronze of a leaf-crowned Dionysus.
The ex-Judge looked up vacantly, as Brion entered, and motioned him mechanically to a seat.
‘Not now,’ said the young man. ‘The time that remains to me here is short. I have come to ask your blessing on my venture, Uncle Quentin.’
Staring a moment, the other shook his head.
‘What venture, nephew?’
‘Have you forgotten? To the New World.’
He seemed to listen and weigh; and then a sudden light went up in his brain:—
‘To the New World? My blessing? A devil’s viaticum that! A curse from my lips might speed thee better.’
‘Come, Uncle. You will not start me on such handicap, like the poor scratch in the game. I of all should know what your blessing is worth to one you love.’
Bagott passed his hand across his eyes.