“That you would not tell me—your own brother? Your mother then?”
“No, not now,” she said, shaking her head. “After a time I will.”
Without another word she turned and ran from the room, leaving Hallett gazing vacantly before him, as if suffering from some shock.
I went up to him at last. “Can I help you, Hallett?” I said; and he turned and gazed at me as if he had not understood my words.
“Antony,” he said at length, “a time back I should have thought it folly to make a friend and confidant of such a boy as you; but I have no man friend: I have shut myself up with those two below there, and when I have not been with them my hours have been spent here—here,” he said, pointing mockingly at the model, “with my love, and a strange, coquettish jade she is—is she not? But somehow, my boy, we two have drifted together, and we are friends, badly coupled as we may seem. You have heard what Linny said. Poor child, she must be saved at any cost, though I hardly know what course to pursue. There,” he said wearily, “let it rest for to-night; sometimes, in the thickest wilderness of our lives, a little path opens out where least expected, and something may offer itself even here.”
“I am very, very sorry, Hallett,” I said.
“I know it, my boy, I know it,” he said hurriedly; “but forget what you heard me say to-night. I was betrayed into speaking as I did by a fit of passion. Forget it, Antony, forget it.”
I did not answer, and he turned to me.
“I meant to have had a good work at the model to-night, but that little scene stopped it. Now about yourself. You are getting a sad truant from the office.”
He said it in a hesitating manner, and turned his face away directly after, but only to dart round in surprise at my next words.