Such a conversation as this would, in ordinary circumstances, have been one of no importance and certainly not worth recording, had it not--short as it was--furnished Julian with some further food for reflections. And among other shapes which those reflections took, one was that he did not believe that all the money which Mr. Ritherdon was stated to have died possessed of had been sunk in the estate. He, the late Mr. Ritherdon, had been able to put by money out of the products of that estate--it scarcely stood to reason, therefore, that his successor would have instantly invested all that money in it. Wherefore Julian at once came to the conclusion that if it was really gone--vanished--it had done so in Sebastian's gambling transactions.
Then, as to their being each other's heirs! Well, that view had never occurred to him--certainly it had never occurred to him that by any chance Sebastian could be his heir. Yet, if Sebastian was in truth Charles Ritherdon's son and he, Julian, was absolutely George Ritherdon's son, such was the case. And, if anything should happen to him while staying here at Desolada, where he had announced himself plainly as the son of George Ritherdon, he could scarcely doubt that Sebastian would put in a claim as that heir. If anything should happen to him!
Well! it might! One could never tell. It might! Especially as, when Sebastian had uttered those words, he had seen a flash from Madame Carmaux's eyes and had observed a light spring into them which told plainly enough that she had never regarded matters in that aspect before; that this new view of the state of things had startled her.
If anything should happen to him! Well, to prevent anything doing so he must be doubly careful of himself. That was all.
The evening--like most evenings spent in the tropics and away from the garish amusements and gaieties of tropical towns--was passed more or less monotonously, it being got through by scraps of conversation, by two or three cooling drinks being partaken of by Julian and Sebastian, and by Madame Carmaux in falling asleep in her chair. Though, Julian thought, her slumbers could neither have been very sound nor refreshing, seeing that, whenever he chanced to turn his eyes towards her, he observed how hers were open and fixed on him, though shut immediately that she perceived he had noticed that they were unclosed.
"Come," exclaimed Sebastian now, springing from out of his chair with as much alacrity as is ever testified in the tropics, while as he did so Madame Carmaux became wide-awake in the most perfect manner. "Come, this won't do. Early to bed you know--and all the rest of it. We practise that good old motto here."
"I thought you practised stopping up rather late when I was here last," Julian remarked quietly. "As I told you, I heard your voices and saw you sitting in the balcony long after I had turned in."
"But to-night we must be off to bed early," Sebastian replied. "I have to start for Belize to-morrow in good time, as I remarked to you at supper, and you are going to take a gun and try for some shooting in the Cockscomb mountains. Early to bed, my boy, early, and, also, an early breakfast."
After which Julian and Madame Carmaux made their adieux to each other for the night, while Sebastian, as he had done before, escorted his cousin up the vast stairs to his room. This room was, however, a different one from that occupied previously by Julian, it being on the other side of the house and looking towards those Cockscomb mountains which, gun in hand, he was to explore on the morrow.
"It is a better room," said Sebastian, "than the other, as you see; although not so large. And the sun will not bother you here in the morning, nor will our chatter on the balcony beneath or inside the room do so either. Good night, sleep well. To-morrow, breakfast at six."