While this conversation was going on, a reminiscence had been waking in my mind.
"Did you ever take a journey with Frederic Harvey?" I asked Harry.
"Yes, into Brittany."
"Were you at a Trappist monastery with him?"
"At La Meilleraie. We passed a night there."
It was clear. I had been present once at a conversation between Frederic and his sister, in which he spoke of his companion on this journey into Brittany more warmly than I had ever heard him speak of any other man, and yet with a discrimination that individualized the praise, and made it seem not only sincere, but accurate. This conversation interested me very much at the time; but, as I had no expectation of seeing the person who was the subject of it, his name passed from me.
I was glad to hear Harry say he liked Frederic Harvey. It would have been hard, if he had not. And yet I am not sure that I like him very much myself. I am grateful for the preference he shows for my society; but I cannot meet as I would his evident desire for intimacy. How true is what South says:—"That heart shall surrender itself and its friendship to one man, at first view, which another has long been laying siege to in vain"!