"No, dear, I kept that for a surprise. And are you really glad to see me,
Austin?"
"Really glad! Is there any one in the world could make me gladder?"
"I am so happy to hear that. I was almost afraid you had half forgotten me.
Your letters were so few, and so short."
"Letters!" cried Austin Lovel, with a laugh; "I never was much of a hand at letter-writing; and then I hadn't anything particularly pleasant to write about. You mustn't gauge my affection by the length of my letters, Clary. And then I have to work deucedly hard when I am at home, and have very little time for scribbling."
Clarissa glanced round the room while he was speaking. Every detail in her brother's surroundings had an interest for her. Here, as in the drawing-room, there was an untidy air about everything—a want of harmony in all the arrangements. There were Flemish carved-oak cabinets, and big Japan vases; a mantelpiece draped with dusty crimson velvet, a broken Venetian glass above it, and a group of rusty-looking arms on each side; long limp amber curtains to the three tall windows, with festooned valances in an advanced state of disarrangement and dilapidation. There were some logs burning on the hearth, a pot of chocolate simmering among the ashes, and breakfast laid for one person upon a little table by the fire—the remnant of a perigord pie, flanked by a stone bottle of curaçoa.
She looked at her brother with anxious scrutinising eyes. No, George Fairfax had not deceived her. He had the look of a man who was going the wrong way. There were premature lines across the forehead, and about the dark brilliant eyes; a nervous expression in the contracted lips. It was the face of a man who burns the candle of life at both ends. Late hours, anxiety, dissipation of all kinds, had set their fatal seal upon his countenance.
"Dear Austin, you are as handsome as ever; but I don't think you are looking well," she said tenderly.
"Don't look so alarmed, my dear girl," he answered lightly; "I am well enough; that is to say, I am never ill, never knock under, or strike work. There are men who go through life like that—never ill, and never exactly well. I rarely get up in the morning without a headache; but I generally brighten considerably as the sun goes down. We move with a contrary motion, Helios and I."
"I am afraid you work too hard, and sit up too late."
"As to working hard, my dear, that is a necessity; and going out every night is another necessity. I get my commissions in society."