"Now and then. He's a busy man, with a great many friends—like most men who succeed."
"But you don't mean, I hope, that he cares less for his friends of the old time, before he succeeded?"
"Not at all," exclaimed Will, rolling upon his chair, and gazing at the distance. "He's the same as ever. It's my fault that we don't meet oftener. I was always a good deal of a solitary, you know, and my temper hasn't been improved by ill-luck."
"Ill-luck?"
Again there was sympathy in Rosamund's knitted brow; her voice touched a note of melodious surprise and pain.
"That's neither here nor there. We were talking of Franks. If anything, he's improved, I should say. I can't imagine any one bearing success better—just the same bright, good-natured, sincere fellow. Of course, he enjoys his good fortune—he's been through hard times."
"Which would have been harder still, but for a friend of his," said Rosamund, with eyes thoughtfully drooped.
Warburton watched her as she spoke. Her look and her voice carried him back to the Valley of Trient; he heard the foaming torrent; saw the dark fir-woods, felt a cool breath from the glacier. Thus had Rosamund been wont to talk; then, as now, touching his elementary emotions, but moving his reflective self to a smile.
"Have you seen Miss Cross since you came back?" he asked, as if casually.
"Oh, yes. If I stay in England, I hope to live somewhere near her. Perhaps I shall take rooms in London, and work at water-colours and black-and-white. Unless I go to the Basque country, where my sister is. Don't you think, Mr. Warburton, one might make a lot of drawings in the Pyrenees, and then have an exhibition of them in London? I have to earn my living, and I must do something of that kind."