"You shall never feel that. How you do torture yourself over shadows, Guy! I always think it must be the greatest bore on earth to be conscientious,—that is, over-scrupulous, like you. It is a mistake, dear boy, take my word for it,—will wear you out before your time."
"I am thinking of you, Cyril. Forgive me if I seem impertinent. Mrs. Arlington is lovely, graceful, everything of the most desirable in appearance, but——" A pause.
"Après?" murmurs Cyril, lazily.
"But," earnestly, "I should not like you to lose your heart to her, as you force me to say it. Musgrave says he saw Trant in the lane to-day. Of course he may have been mistaken; but was he? I have my own doubts, Cyril," rising in some agitation,—"doubts that may be unjust, but I cannot conquer them. If you allow yourself to love that woman, she will bring you misfortune. Why is she so secret about her former life? Why does she shun society? Cyril, be warned in time; she may be a——, she may be anything," checking himself slowly.
"She may," says Cyril, rising with a passionate irrepressible movement to his feet, under pretense of lighting the cigar that has died out between his fingers. Then, with a sudden change of tone and a soft laugh, "The skies may fall, of course, but we scarcely anticipate it. My good Guy, what a visionary you are! Do be rational, if you can. As for Mrs. Arlington, why should she create dissension between you and me?"
"Why, indeed?" returns Guy, gravely. "I have to ask your pardon for my interference. But you know I only speak when I feel compelled, and always for your good."
"You are about the best fellow going, I know that," replies Cyril, deliberately, knocking the ash off his cigar; "but at times you are wont to lose your head,—to wander,—like the best of us. I am safe enough, trust me. 'What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?' Come, don't let us spoil this glorious night by a dissertation on what we neither of us know anything about. What a starlight!" standing at the open casement, and regarding with quick admiration the glistening dome above him. "I wonder how any one looking on it can disbelieve in a heaven beyond!"
Here Musgrave's fair head makes a blot in the perfect calm of the night scene.
"Is that you, Taffy? Where have you been all this time?—mooning?—you have had ample opportunity. But you are too young for Melancholy to mark you as her own. It is only old folk like Guy," with a laughing though affectionate glance backward to where his brother stands, somewhat perplexed, beside the lamp, "should fall victims to the blues."
"A fig for melancholy!" says Taffy, vaulting lightly into the room, and by his presence putting an end to all private conversation between the brothers.