‘No, perhaps I do not. I had always the hope that I might have been of some use, of some service to you, something more both in importance and use than a mere friend.’
‘Is there anything more than a true friend?’ said Lady William, holding out her hand.
He took her hand, which was so cool and soft and white—and kind—and indifferent. As kind as could be, ready to soothe him, help him, do anything for him that he needed; and perfectly indifferent, as if he had been the little boy of ten whom Emily Plowden had been so fond of in his ingenuous childish days.
‘Yes,’ said Leo, ‘there is something more——’
‘Not according to my understanding of life. Perhaps my experience has not been a very favourable one. I like a friend—one who understands me and whom I understand—who would stand by me in any need as I would stand by him—with a nice wife and children whom I could love.’
‘Ah!’ said Leo, dropping the hand he had held. After a moment he said, in a different tone: ‘My mother has finally made up her mind that she can endure this hermitage no more.’
‘And you are going to town? It will be better for you in every way.’
‘She is going back to Paris. I have done all I could to persuade her to gather friends about her here—or in London better still. But she will not hear me. Her opinion is that Paris, even out of season, is better than London at its gayest. She will go, perhaps, to some ville de mer, and then back in October to her old apartment and her old friends.’
‘And you, Leo?’
‘I am an Englishman,’ he said, with a little air half of pride, half of self-abnegation, which created in his friend a profane inclination to laugh.