“Is there anything you would like better to do?” said Hugh, with the elaborate gentleness with which he often addressed his cousin.
“Oh, no,” said Arthur again. “I am sorry to make such a bad business of it. Perhaps, I ought to get away somewhere, and not make you all miserable.”
“It is not that,” said Hugh; “but Jem is always cheerful; you and he have tastes in common, and sometimes you do seem brighter for a little amusement.”
“That’s only because I’m such a fool, Hugh, you are so wonderfully good to me. Don’t you think I know how I put you out? I take up with things—sometimes I forget how I’ve changed—then I get deadly sick of it all and tired out. Or else a word—a look! Oh, I know well enough what I ought to do; but it’s making bricks without straw—I’ve no pluck left.”
Perhaps because he had, with whatever shortcomings, tried very hard to be “good” to Arthur, perhaps because the confidence was made to himself, Hugh was able to conceal the personal pain which these passionate words caused him; and it was with real tenderness that he answered:
“I think you have shown no want of pluck; but when you first talked of coming back I was afraid you would not be able to bear it; this place is full of sword-pricks for you. Aren’t you straining your nerves too far by staying here?”
Arthur did not answer, and Hugh, watching him as he stood leaning against the shutter and staring fixedly out into the sunshine, said, with more hesitation:
“Or is it that the want of an aim, of an object is worse than anything else, and that you feel less at sea when you are obliged to do something?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, quickly. “Yes. Ah, you understand! I want something to hold by.”
“But then,” said Hugh, “you mustn’t be too hard on yourself. You look ill, and sometimes you feel so; you don’t sleep, and then you are not fit for these efforts.”