“That we should separate, then?”
“Certainly.”
The Frenchman became pale, and suddenly his face flushed till it was deep crimson, and his eyes flashed with fire. The effort to be calm was almost a strain beyond his strength; but he succeeded, and in a voice scarcely above a whisper, he said, “I am deeply in your debt. I cannot say how deeply. My lawyer, however, does know, and I will confer with him.”
“This is a matter of small consequence, and does not press: besides, I beg you will not let it trouble you.”
The measured coldness with which these words were spoken seemed to jar painfully on Pracontal's temper, for he snatched his hat from the table, and with a hurried “Adieu—adieu, then,” left the room. The carriages of the hotel were waiting in the courtyard to convey the travellers to the station.
“Where is the train starting for?” asked he of a waiter.
“For Civita, sir.”
“Step up to my room, then, and throw my clothes into a portmanteau—enough for a few days. I shall have time to write a note, I suppose?”
“Ample, sir. You have forty minutes yet.” Pracontal opened his writing-desk and wrote a few lines to Lady Augusta, to tell how a telegram had just called him away—it might be to Paris, perhaps London. He would be back within ten days, and explain all. He wished he might have her leave to write, but he had not a moment left him to ask the permission. Should he risk the liberty? What if it might displease her? He was every way unfortunate; nor, in all the days of a life of changes and vicissitudes, did he remember a sadder moment than this in which he wrote himself her devoted servant, A. Pracontal de Bramleigh. This done, he jumped into a carriage, and just reached the train in time to start for Civita.
There was little of exaggeration when he said he had never known greater misery and depression than he now felt. The thought of that last meeting with Longworth overwhelmed him with sorrow. When we bear in mind how slowly and gradually the edifice of friendship is built up; how many of our prejudices have often to be overcome; how much of self-education is effected in the process; the thought that all this labor of time and feeling should be cast to the winds at once for a word of passion or a hasty expression, is humiliating to a degree. Pracontal had set great store by Longworth's friendship for him. He had accepted great favors at his hand; but so kindly and so gracefully conferred as to double the obligations by the delicacy with which they were bestowed. And this was the man whose good feeling for him he had outraged and insulted beyond recall. “If it had been an open quarrel between us, I could have stood his fire and shown him how thoroughly I knew myself in the wrong; but his cold disdain is more than I can bear. And what was it all about? How my old comrades would laugh if they heard that I had quarrelled with my best friend. Ah, my grandmother's reputation! Ma foi, how much more importance one often attaches to a word than to what it represents!” Thus angry with himself, mocking the very pretensions on which he had assumed to reprehend his friend, and actually ridiculing his own conduct, he embarked from Marseilles to hasten over to England, and entreat Kelson to discharge the money obligation which yet bound him to Longworth.