“No fear of that!” exclaimed the other, with the artless arrogance of youth.
“If I thought you would survive the experiment, I would leave you to discover what a fickle mistress you serve. But frost would soon blight your budding talent, so we will keep on the world’s sunny side, and tempt the Muse, not terrify her.”
Nothing could be smoother than the voice in which these words were said; but a keen ear would have detected an accent of delicate irony in it, and a quick eye have seen that Canaris winced, as if a sore spot had been touched.
“I should think marriage would do that last, most effectually,” he answered, with a scornful shrug, and an air of great distaste.
“Not always: some geniuses are the better for such bondage. I fancy you are one of them, and wish to try the experiment. If it fails, you can play Byron, to your heart’s content.”
“A costly experiment for some one.” Canaris paused in his impatient march, to look down with a glance of pity at the dead lily still knotted in his button-hole.
Helwyze laughed at the touch of sentiment,—a low, quiet laugh; but it made the young man flush, and hastily fling away the faded flower, whose pure loveliness had been a joy to him an hour ago. With a half docile, half defiant look, he asked coldly,—
“What next, sir?”
“Only this: you have done well. Now, you must do better, and let the second book be free from the chief fault which critics found,—that, though the poet wrote of love, it was evident he had never felt it.”
“Who shall say that?” with sudden warmth.