"I know she is fond of gardening."
"Ay, and has been amidst it for years, you see. Well--I led Moore on, saying this, and asking the other, and he opened his mind a bit. The disease was in me always, he thinks, Karl, and must have come out, sooner or later. It was only a question of time. I have said so myself of late. But I did not look to follow the little olive branch quite so quickly."
"We may keep you here a long while yet, Adam. It is still possible, I hope, we may keep you for good. Moore has not said to the contrary."
"You think he knows it, though?"
Karl was really not sure. His own opinion was this--that Adam had less chance of getting well where he was than he would have had under those of the London faculty, whose specialty embraced that class of disease.
"Shall you put on mourning for me, old fellow? It will be a risk, won't it? I shan't care to be held up to the world as Adam Andinnian, dead, any more than I do, alive. You'll not care to say, either, 'This black coat is worn for that brother of mine: the mauvais sujet who set the world all agog with his scandal.'"
What kind of a mood was Sir Adam in this morning? Karl's grave eyes questioned it. One of real, light, careless mockery?--or was it an underlying current of sadness and regret making itself too uneasily felt in his heart?
"Don't, Adam. It jars on every chord and pulse. You and I have cause to be at least more sober than other men."
"What have I said?" cried Sir Adam, half laughing. "That you may have to put on mourning for me. It is in the nature of things that the elder should go before the younger. You look well in black, too, Karl; men with such faces as yours always do."
"I hope it will be a long while before I have to wear it," sighed Karl, perceiving how hopeless it was to change his brother's humour.