With faltering accents and downcast look he began to mutter excuses for his intrusion; when Cashel, in a mild and gentle voice, interrupted him, saying in English, “I am your countryman, young gentleman, and my age not six-and-twenty.”
The quiet courtesy of his manner as he spoke, as well as the surprise of his being English, seemed to increase the youth's shame for the liberty he had taken, and he was profuse in his apologies; but Cashel soon allayed this anxiety by adroitly turning to another part of the subject, and saying, “If I look much older than I am, it is that I have travelled and lived a good deal in southern climates, not to speak of other causes, which give premature age.”
A slight, a very slight touch of melancholy in the latter words gave them a deep interest to the youth, who, with a boyish frankness, far more fascinating than more finished courtesy, asked Roland if he would join their party. Had such a request been made half an hour before, or had it come in more formal fashion, Cashel would inevitably have declined it; but what between the generous candor of the youth's address, and a desire to show that he did not resent his intrusion, Cashel acceded good-naturedly, and took his seat amongst them.
As Roland listened to the joyous freshness of their boyish talk,—the high-hearted hope, the sanguine trustfulness with which they regarded life,—he remembered what but a few years back he had himself been. He saw in them the selfsame elements which had led him on to every calamity that he suffered,—the passionate pursuit of pleasure, the inexhaustible craving for excitement that makes life the feverish paroxysm of a malady.
They sat to a late hour together; and when they separated, the chance acquaintance had ripened into intimacy. Night after night they met in the same place; and while they were charmed with the gentle seriousness of one in whom they could recognize the most manly daring, he, on his side, was fascinated by the confiding warmth and the generous frankness of their youth.
One evening, as they assembled as usual, Roland remarked a something like unusual excitement amongst them; and learned that from a letter they had received that morning, they were about to leave Naples the next day. There seemed some mystery in the reason, and a kind of reserve in even alluding to it, which made Cashel half suspect that they had been told who he was, and that a dislike to further intercourse had suggested the departure. It was the feeling that never left him by day or night, that dogged his waking and haunted his dreams,—that he was one to be shunned and avoided by his fellow-men. His pride, long dormant, arose under the supposed slight, and he was about to say a cold farewell, when the elder of the party, whose name was Sidney, said,—
“How I wish you were going with us!”
“Whither to?” said Cashel, hurriedly.
“To Venice—say, is this possible?”
“I am free to turn my steps in any direction,—too free, for I have neither course to sail nor harbor to reach.”