“I only wish I had my will of him, sir,” cried Burgess, grinding his teeth; “I’d serve him out.”
“Would you?” said Artingale, smiling. “What would you do?”
“I’d make him stand for the old man in the Laocöon sixteen hours a day for stoodents. He wouldn’t want anything worse. But please go in gently, sir, and don’t wake master if he’s asleep.”
“All right,” was the reply; and the young man made his way carefully amongst the artistic lumber, and through the studio into the dining-room, at one corner of which was the artist’s chamber.
Artingale sighed as he went silently across the thick carpet, for that room was full of memories of numberless merry evenings, and as he paused for a moment beside his friend’s empty chair, a dull sense of pain oppressed him, and he found himself wondering whether he was not taking too sanguine a view of his old companion’s state.
“Poor old chap!” he said. “How nice it would be if that could come off. Cynthy says it shall, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t. Let’s see; I’m to give him Cynthy’s love and this rosebud. She said he would be sure to find out that it was one that Julie had worn. I wonder whether old Mag does care for her; he’s such a close old oyster, and never did make up to women. Well, for the matter of that, no more did I till I met Cynthia—not much.”
He went gently on to the door in the corner, and listened, but all was very still, and he paused for a few minutes in a state of hesitation, for which he could not account, and with one hand raised to open the door.
“He must be asleep,” he said to himself.
“Poor old boy, only to think of it. One moment bright and happy and full of life, and the next moment a helpless mass, with hardly the strength to move. Well, poor fellow, Cynthy is right. If he does care for Julie he has just gone the way to find a tender spot in her heart.”
He took hold of the handle and turned it, to find that Burgess had been so busy with a feather and the salad oil flask, that the door yielded without a sound, and he glided into the darkened room.