"On my soul, Princess, that's all. I explained it all right, and he was commencing to berate me for not preparing him to meet you as well as the others, when we suddenly came on you, and you struck him deaf and dumb and blind. He swore at me under his breath just before I introduced him." Here my feelings overcame me again.
"Well, there's no harm done. But you really must be more careful, Bob. Try and make your poor mind work better while it lasts; don't forget my instructions again, and when you have made a blunder, tell me at once. You are so light, so devoted to your frivolous amusements; you seem to be drifting into second childhood, thirty years too soon. If you had an object, now, a serious purpose in life: if you really cared for anything—even for me!"
She cuts me when she talks like that. "Clarice, my regard for you is so undemonstrative that you fail to appreciate its depth. If I were to make a fuss over it, now, and use a lot of endearing epithets and big professions, perhaps you would believe me. Some time you will know whether I care for you or not; whether I've got anything in me, and am capable of acting like a man. You wait and see. But I wish I knew what you are going to do with poor Jim."
"Some time you will know: you wait and see. You can go and comfort him now. Good night, poor Bob."
XI.
EXPLANATIONS.
I went and comforted him. "Well, old man," I said with a cheerful air, "how do you get on?"
"Robert," said he, "do you suppose I would have come here if I had known what an atrocious humbug you are? Do you imagine for a moment that my relatives, if I had any, would have subjected my innocence to such insidious guardianship? Have you brought me here to destroy my faith, and pollute my morals, and poison my young life with the spectacle of your turpitude?"