And he slowly rolled up his most treasured possession, which John Turner tucked under his arm. On the Pont Royal they parted company.
“By the way,” said John Turner, after they had shaken hands, “You never told me what sort of a man this young fellow is—this Loo Barebone?”
“The dearest fellow in the world,” answered Marvin, with eyes aglow behind his spectacles. “To me he has been as a son—an elder brother, as it were, to little Sep. I was already an elderly man, you know, when Sep was born. Too old, perhaps. Who knows? Heaven’s way is not always marked very clearly.”
He nodded vaguely and went away a few paces. Then he remembered something and came back.
“I don’t know if I ought to speak of such a thing. But I quite hoped, at one time, that Miriam might one day recognise his goodness of heart.”
“What?” interrupted Turner. “The mate of a coasting schooner!”
“He is more than that, my friend,” answered Septimus Marvin, nodding his head slowly, so that the sun flashed on his spectacles in such a manner as to make Turner blink. Then he turned away again and crossed the bridge, leaving the English banker at the corner of it, still blinking.