Armand gazed regretfully round his little studio. He picked out each familiar object with a sudden sense of separation and a wish to bear them ever with him in that long farewell glance. But the sadness was a pleasant sadness, for was not happy love the beacon that lured him forth, and when the heart is young what lamp shines so radiantly and invites so winningly? Still, it was a sacrifice, though beyond lay the prospect of a lover’s meeting, in which the thought of stuff so common as gold would lie buried in the first pressure of a girl’s lips.
‘You are not decided, I daresay?’ sneered his uncle.
Armand met his eyes unflinchingly, and held out his hand. ‘A man who is worth the name can’t regret love and happiness. For Marguerite’s sake I will do my best in the new life you offer, and I thank you, uncle, for the gift.’
‘That young fop from Vienna will feel mighty crestfallen,’ was the reflection of the head of the Ulrich Bank, as he hobbled downstairs. He disliked the elegant Bernard, and was himself glad to have back his favourite nephew, though the means he had employed to secure that result might not be of unimpeachable honesty.
The banker’s departure was the signal for Maurice, on the look-out upstairs. He bounded down the stairs, three steps at a time, and shot in upon the meditative youth. Armand glanced up, and smiled luminously. ‘The besieged has capitulated, Maurice.’
‘So I should think. For some time back you have worn the air of a man on the road to bondage.’
Brodeau had never for an instant doubted that this would be the end of it. He mildly approved the conventional conclusion, though not without private regrets of his own.
‘A girl’s eyes have done it,’ sighed Armand sentimentally.
‘Of course, of course, the old temptation. But she would have inveigled Anthony out of his hermitage. A sorry time you’ll have of it, I foresee, though I honestly congratulate you. It is a thing we must come to sooner or later, and the escapades of youth have their natural end, like all things else. Only lovers believe in eternity, until they have realised the fragility of love itself. It was absurd to imagine you could go on flouting fortune for ever, and living in a shanty like this, with a palace ready for you on the other side of the river. But there is consolation for me in the thought that you will give me a big order in commemoration of your marriage—eh, old man?’
When it came to parting the young men wrung hands with a sense of more than ordinary separation. For two years had they shared fair and foul weather, and camped together out of doors and under this shabby roof, upon which one was now about to turn his back. The days of merry vagabondage were at an end for Armand, and his face was now towards civilisation and respectable responsibilities. He might revisit this scene of pleasant Bohemia, and find things unchanged, but the old spirit would not be with him, and the zest of old enjoyments would be his no more.