“Hah! That will not do. Now you’ve gone back to the old style. Let that be, and wait for the future to unroll itself. The man does not trouble us, and seems hardly likely to, and we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are working for someone else’s peace of mind. You must not destroy what it is that has given you the rest you enjoy.”
Stratton was silent for a few moments, and sat gazing out to sea, where the lanterns of the passing boat and yacht slowly rose and fell on the gently heaving sea.
“And who could help feeling restful in such a place as this? Even I, old and worn-out as I am, enjoy the calm, languorous, peaceful sensation which steals over me. Very disloyal, my dear boy—un-English to a degree—but there is something in these places that one cannot get at home.”
“Yes, I own to it,” said Stratton after a pause; “one feels safe ashore after the perils of a mental wreck; but there are moments, old fellow, when I shrink and shiver, for it is as if a wave were noiselessly approaching to curl over and sweep one back into the dark waters.”
“Stuff! that’s all past,” said Brettison, lighting a fresh cigar. “Here we are in a lovely place, and with only one care—which we depute to a nurse. Let’s eat and drink our fill of the peace that has come to us.”
“But it cannot go on, Brettison,” said Stratton solemnly. “It must have an end.”
“Yes; an end comes to all things, boy. I shall die before long, but why should I sit and brood upon that? Let’s thankfully accept the good with the ill—no, not the ill,” he said solemnly: “death is not an evil. It is only made so by man.”
“But we cannot go on staying here,” said Stratton with energy.
“Why not?”
“Oh, there are a dozen reasons. My work, for one.”