“May I ask what, sir?”
“No, my boy, you may not,” said Mr Deering, sadly. “Perhaps I am going straightway on the road to disappointment and failure; but I must go on now. Some day you will hear. Now take me where I can breathe. Oh, you happy young dog!” he cried merrily. “What a thing it is to be a boy!”
“Is it?” said Vane, quietly.
“Yes, it is. And you, sir, think to yourself, like the blind young mole you are, what a great thing it is to be a man. There, come out into the open air, and let’s look at nature; I get very weary sometimes of art.”
Vane looked wonderingly at his new friend and did not feel so warmly toward him as he had a short time before, but this passed off when they were in the garden, where he admired the doctor’s fruit, waxed eloquent over the apples and pears, and ate one of the former with as much enjoyment as a boy.
He was as merry as could be, too, and full of remarks as the doctor’s Jersey cow and French poultry were inspected, but at his best in the woods amongst the gnarled old oaks and great beeches, seeming never disposed to tire.
That night Mr Deering had a very long consultation with the doctor; and Vane noted that his aunt looked very serious indeed, but she said nothing till after breakfast the next morning, when their visitor had left them for town, and evidently in the highest spirits.
“Let that boy go on with his whims, doctor,” he said aloud, in Vane’s hearing. “He had better waste a little money in cranks and eccentrics than in toffee and hard-bake. Good-bye.”
And he was gone as suddenly, so it seemed to Vane, as he had come.
It was then that Vane heard his aunt say: