“I daresay you are right,” Claude had answered, after a pause. “Yes, I daresay—only—ah!—Agnes is very different from all the other girls in the world.”
“You recollect Calverley's lines:
“'I did not love as others do—
None ever did that I've heard tell of?
Ah! you lovers are all cast in the same mould. But how about your projected exploration—you can scarcely expect her to rough it with you at the upper reaches of the Zambesi?”
Claude Westwood looked grave. For some weeks he had talked about nothing else except the splendid possibilities of the Upper Zambesi to explorers; and his brother had offered to share the expenses of an expedition thoroughly well-equipped to do all that Livingstone and Baines left undone in that fascinating quarter of Africa.
“Perhaps she will refuse me,” said Claude.
“Ah! perhaps; but if she does not refuse you?”
There was a long pause. Claude rose from his chair and walked to the window. He looked out over the sloping lawns and the terraced Italian garden; the blue swallows were skimming the surface of the huge marble basin where the water-lilies floated. He seemed greatly interested in the movements of the birds.
At last he turned suddenly round to his brother, and laid his hand on his shoulder, saying: