She wondered whether he was staying at Hale; and then it flashed upon her that there had been a reconciliation between him and Lady Geraldine.
"I have not been long in Yorkshire. I am merely here en passant, in short. My only excuse for approaching you lies in the fact that I have come to talk to you about your brother."
"About Austin!" exclaimed Clarissa, with a look of alarm. "There is nothing wrong—he is well, I hope?"
"Pray don't alarm yourself. Yes, he is tolerably well, I believe; and there is nothing wrong—nothing that need cause you any immediate concern at least. I am going to Paris, and I thought you might be glad to send some message."
"You are very kind to think of that; yes, I shall be glad to send to him.
He is not a good correspondent, and I get very anxious about him sometimes.
What you said just now seemed to imply that there was something wrong. Pray
be candid with me, Mr. Fairfax."
He did not answer her immediately; in fact, for the moment he scarcely was conscious of her words. He was looking at the beautiful face—looking at it with a repressed passion that was deeper and more real than any he had ever felt in his life. His thoughts wandered away from Austin Lovel. He was thinking what he would have given, what peril he would have dared, to call this woman his own. All this lower world seemed nothing to him when weighed against her; and in such a moment a man of his stamp rarely remembers any other world.
"There is something wrong," repeated Clarissa with increasing anxiety. "I entreat you to tell me the truth!"
"Yes, there is something wrong," he answered vaguely; and then, wrenching his mind away from those wild speculations as to what he would or would not do to win Daniel Granger's wife, he went on in another tone: "The truth is, my dear Mrs. Granger, I was in Paris last winter, and saw something of your brother's mode of life; and I cannot say that I consider it a satisfactory one. You have sent him a good deal of money since I saw you last, I daresay? Pray understand that there is nothing intrusive or impertinent in my question. I only wish to be some use to you, if I can."
"I am sure of that. Yes; I have sent him what I could—about four hundred pounds—since last June; and he has been very grateful, poor fellow! He ought to know that he is welcome to every shilling I have. I could send him much more, of course, if I cared to ask my husband for money."
"It is wiser to trust to your own resources. And I doubt if the command of much money would be a positive benefit to your brother. You have asked me to be candid; and I shall obey you, even at the hazard of giving you pain. There is a kind of constitutional weakness in your brother's nature. He is a man open to every influence, and not always governed by the best influences. I saw a good deal of him when I was last in Paris, and I saw him most in the fastest society, amongst people who petted him for the sake of his genius and vivacity, but who would turn their backs upon him to-morrow if he were no longer able to amuse them; the set into which an artist is so apt to fall when his home influences are not strong enough to keep him steady, and when he has that lurking disposition to Bohemianism which has been the bane of your brother's life. I speak entirely without reserve, you see."