“I can’t come to your house any more, Sir,” said Harry, “that’s what I wanted to tell you. I’ve enjoyed it very much, and it has done me more good than anything else in my life—but I ought not to do it, and I can’t do it any longer. I hope you won’t think I am an ungrateful cur; I don’t think I am that. But I must give it up, Sir, and I hope you’ll excuse me for it. I’d rather not say any more.”
“Oliver,” said the Vice-Consul, greatly disturbed, “what is the meaning of this? Do you mean there is something in your past—something in your character and actions that makes you unfit to be my visitor? I have always trusted in your honour. If it’s that, and your conscience has been quickened to find it out, of course I have nothing more to say.”
“It’s not that,” said Harry, bluntly. “I am not afraid of my conscience. It says as much to me, I suppose, as to other people; but you might hear all it says and welcome. There is nothing against my character here or elsewhere. You know as much harm of me as there is to know.”
“I know no harm of you,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, don’t alarm me. If you find we don’t suit you—though by your manner I should never have guessed it—why, then, give us up, my fine fellow, and there’s no more to be said.”
Harry laughed a somewhat tremulous laugh.
“I should think you did suit me,” he said. “I don’t believe I was ever half so happy before.”
“Then, in the name of wonder, what does this mean?” the Vice-Consul cried.
Harry cleared his throat; his lips were beginning to get parched and his throat was dry.
“Did you never hear, Sir,” he said, abruptly, “of a fellow falling in love—with a girl he’d no business to fall in love with?”
Mr. Bonamy half rose out of his chair, then changed his mind and dropped back again. His own face became suffused with colour. A sudden exclamation came from his lips it spite of himself.