"Better come on with me. I shall be glad of your company."
It was said with decision, but scarcely with heartiness. Elgar looked about him vaguely.
"To tell you the truth," he said at last, "I don't care to incur much expense."
"The expenses of what I propose are trivial."
"My traps are at Naples, and I have kept the room there. No, I don't see my way to it, Mallard."
"All right."
The artist turned away. He walked about the road for ten minutes.— Very well; then he too would return to Naples. Why? What was altered? Even if Elgar accompanied him to Amalfi, it would only be for a few days; there was no preventing the fellow's eventual return—his visits to the villa, perhaps to Mrs. Gluck's. Again imbecile and insensate What did it all matter?
He stopped short. He would sit down and write a letter to Mrs. Baske.—A pretty complication, that! What grounds for such a letter as he meditated?
The devil! Had he not a stronger will than Reuben Elgar? If he wished to carry a point with such a weakling, was he going to let himself be thwarted? Grant it was help only for a few days, no matter; Elgar should go with him.
He walked back to the garden. Good; there the fellow loitered, obviously irresolute.