I looked up at him, feeling that anxiety for his decision was imprinted on every feature of my face.
“I must think it over,” he replied slowly. “I can scarcely feel that I am disinterested in the matter. It has engrossed me so much of late. Professionally of course, and beyond that from my strong personal friendship for this family. I must think it over,” he repeated.
“But is there time for that?” I asked, with a sort of disappointment that he had not at once authorised me, as it were, to tell all. “Is not the younger brother in a very critical state? If anything can be done for him, should it not be done at once?”
“In the way of easing his mind, you mean, I suppose?” Clarence asked. “It is difficult for me to reply, being so much in the dark as I am. Any sort of excitement would have to be avoided, and after all what you could tell me might be useless.”
“I don’t think so,” I said breathlessly, and at the words I saw his face redden a little, as if sharing my feelings. But he shook his head, evidently repressing his eagerness with a strong hand.
“No,” he said, “honestly I can’t say that there is any very pressing need for deciding what you have put before me. For the moment the poor fellow must be kept quiet. He is gaining ground a little, I think, physically, from what I learned by the last accounts. And the rest of them are really wonderful, admirable, in their calm and courage,” and here again he smiled. “You could scarcely associate the elder brother with the word ‘cheerful,’ could you?” he said. “But really, since Caryll’s illness he has nearly approached seeming so, all out of devotion.”
What a picture his words brought before me! How I longed to feel free to begin to cut the knot! For that I held in my hands the possibility of doing so was becoming more and more impressed upon me; not that I could have given any practical or conclusive grounds for this feeling! But then, all through the strange affair with which I had become associated, I had been conscious of a conviction that somehow or other I was, to put it in commonplace words, intended to “see it through?”
Time had passed more rapidly than we realised in the interest of our talk. Something, the striking of a clock probably, made Clarence start and look at his watch.
“Yes,” he said, “we had better be looking out for the others. First let us make a tour of the place, the exhibition, I mean; we have only seen one house, and we must not be in utter ignorance of the rest.”
I got up almost before he had finished speaking. I had a wholesome fear of any cross-questioning on Mrs Payne’s part, though it had not occurred to me, as it might perhaps have done to a more experienced young woman, that she might be annoyed by my unduly monopolising her son. But I felt too excited and eager to have replied in a commonplace way, and as we strolled round the tents, vaguely admiring the beautiful groups of flowers and plants they contained, and glancing from side to side in quest of our seniors, I made no pretence of conversation with my companion, and he too was very silent. It was only at the last moment of our solitude, just when we caught sight at last of his father and mother coming towards us, that Clarence slackened his pace a little, and said gently—