Christian was pursuing thoughts of his own. The wine was admirable—as indeed it should have been considering the pains Dicky had been at, with pursed lips and lifted eyebrows, in the selection of it—and Christian had found an unaccustomed pleasure in its aromatic, sub-acid taste. He had drunk rather freely of it, and was satisfied with himself for having done so. He leaned back in his chair now, and watching the golden fountain of bubbles forever streaming upward in his glass, mused upon welcome new impulses within him toward the life of a free man.
“None the less,” he remarked, indifferent to the irrelevancy of his theme, “I should have liked to go to Caermere during the winter. I am annoyed with myself now that I did not go—whether it was arranged for me or not. There is a lady there for whom I felt great sympathy. I had expected to be of service to her long before this—but I am of service to no one. She is a cousin—no doubt you know her—Lady Cressage.”
“But she is in London,” put in Westland. “I only know her a little, but Lady Selton used to be by way of seeing a good deal of her. She told me last week that she was in town—taken a little flat somewhere—Victoria Street way, I think. She doesn’t go in for being very smart, you know. Why—yes—of course she’s your cousin by marriage. Awfully pretty woman she was. Gad! how well I remember her season! All the fellows went quite off their heads. How funny—that she should be your cousin!”
Christian took no note of his companion’s closing words, or of the tone in which they had been uttered. He scowled at the playful bubbles in his glass, as he reflected that the news of her arrival in London ought not to have come to him in this roundabout, accidental way. Why did none of his own people tell him? Or still more to the point, why had not she herself told him? He really had given her only an occasional and sporadic thought, during these past four or five months. Now, as he frowned at his wine, it seemed to him that his whole winter had been burdened with solicitude for her. Or no, “burdened” was an ungracious word, and false to boot. He would say “mellowed” or “enriched” instead.
“You must find out for me”—he began, and then, upon a second thought born of pique, checked himself. “Or do not mind—it is of no consequence. I shall hear as a matter of course.” He called for the bill with a decision in his voice which seemed full of warning that the topic was exhausted.
Westland could not help observing the fat roll of crackling white notes which the other drew from his pocket. If they were all of the smallest denomination, they must still represent something like his whole year’s allowance. The general understanding that Christian’s unfamiliarity with English ways excused, and even invited, wise admonition from his friends, prompted him to speak.
“That’s rather a lot to carry about with you, old man,” he said, in gentle expostulation.
“Oh, I like it!” Christian declared, with shining eyes. He snapped the elastic band about the roll, with an air of boyish delight in the sound, as he returned it to his pocket. “If you knew the years in which I counted my sous!”.
It was nearly ten o’clock when they left. Beginning with the Pavilion, they went to four or five music halls, only to find that there were no seats to be had. “Why, of course it’s the boat-race,” exclaimed Dicky at last. “Stupid of me to have forgotten it. I say, I ought to have come for you this morning, and taken you up the river to see it. It’s worth seeing—for once. I wonder Lingfield did not arrange it for you.”
“Oh, several people asked me to join their parties,” Christian replied. “But it did not attract me. The athletics here—they rather annoy me. It is as if people thought of nothing else. And to have students at the universities consumed with the idea—that is specially unpleasant to my mind. You must remember—I am a teacher by profession.”