Then the review, to which he had alluded in his conversation with Barry, had perforce to be shelved; and although there was plenty of time for the production of such a literary newcomer, he had felt, at the moment, as though called upon to abandon altogether a beloved ideal.
But the fiat had gone forth; and indeed he had agreed entirely with the medical verdict which pronounced him unfit to shoulder fresh tasks until his old strength should be regained. Therefore, unwillingly, but none the less unflinchingly, he had made preparations to leave England for a year's leisurely travel in the East, starting, as it were, from Bombay and journeying onwards wherever the fancy took him.
It happened that during his travels he fell in with a couple of old schoolfellows who were on the verge of a sporting expedition; and Owen, who by that time was tired of his loafing method of travel, jumped with alacrity at an invitation to join the party.
They had glorious sport; and in the excitement and vigour of the chase Owen regained all his old bodily strength and added thereto a quite fresh store of health and spirits. When at length he turned his face homewards he knew himself to be in such condition as he had never before experienced; and as he sat opposite his host to-night, eating and drinking gaily in this quiet room, he presented to Barry a picture of such perfect health as is rarely met with in the streets of London.
"Yes." Barry brought his leisurely survey to a close. "You do look uncommonly fit, I suppose you've had a gorgeous time."
Thus invited, Owen launched forth into an account of some of his most thrilling adventures, and the time flew as he recounted the tale of the glorious nights and days he had lived through, or made his hearer laugh with his stories of the various attendants and their humours.
The clock had chimed the hour of midnight before the friends left the table; and then, sitting by the rosy fire, with pipes alight, each one felt that the moment had come in which a deeper subject might well be introduced.
Yet Barry, at least, would cheerfully have ignored that subject; for he foresaw, with friendship's intuition, that the thing he had to say would effectually mar and break the midnight peace; and as the moment drew near in which he must strike a fatal blow at his friend's serenity he fell into an embarrassed silence very unlike his recent cordiality.
At last it came—the question he had dreaded.
"I say, Barry, have you seen much of Vivian lately?" Although the subject affected the speaker so vitally, he was so calmly, confidently sure of the reply that his tone was quiet and unagitated. Even though Barry paused for a quite perceptible fraction of time before he replied, the other man was too certain of the answer to notice the pause.