The road here became so steep that they were obliged to get down and walk for some distance, while the horse toiled slowly up behind them. As they went, Norwood continued to talk on incessantly of this, that, and t' other, as though bound to occupy the attention of his companion; while George, with half-closed eyes, strolled onward, deep in his own thoughts.
“We 're not far off the place now, George,” said Norwood, at last, “and I wish you 'd throw off that look of care and abstraction. These foreign fellows will be quite ready to misinterpret it. Seem at your ease, man, and take the thing as I have seen you take it before, as rather good fun than otherwise.”
“But that is precisely what I do not feel it,” said George, smiling quietly. “Twenty-four hours ago, when life had every possible advantage to bestow on me, with the prospect of an ample fortune before me, I was perfectly ready to turn out with any man who had the right to ask me; and now that I am ruined—”
“Ruined!” broke in Norwood; “what do you mean? You have not lost to that Greek fellow so largely as that?”
“Now that my father is on the verge of utter ruin,” repeated George, slowly, “the news came last night, I never felt the desire of life so strong within me. A few days or weeks more will make it public gossip, so I may tell you that we have not escaped the torrent that is sweeping away so many of the richest houses in Europe; and what between our immense liabilities and my father's scrupulous sense of honor, the chances are we shall be utterly beggared.”
“The devil!” exclaimed Norwood, whose thoughts at once reverted to his own claims on George, and the unpaid acceptances he still held of his.
“That's what I feel so strange,” said George, now speaking with a degree of warmth and interest, “that it should be exactly when life ceases to give promise that I should care for it; and I own to you, I 'd give anything that this meeting was not before me.”
Norwood started, and turned his keen eyes on the other, but in the calm, unmoved features he saw no traces of fear or even agitation; and it was in his habitually calm voice Onslow resumed,
“Yes, I wish the Count's hand would shake a little, Norwood. I 'd be most grateful to the bullet that would take to the right or the left of me.”
“Come, come, George, no more of this. We are alone here, it's true; but if you talk this way now, you may chance to look like it by and by.”