“You are sure then, entirely sure, that it is your happiness, Arthur?” Durant rose, and put his hands on his friend’s shoulders, looking down upon him with a face full of emotion. “You have been the nearest a brother of anything I ever knew—brother, or sister, or both together. Are you sure, boy, are you sure? Happiness is a sacred thing. I would not touch it, I would not harm it. Are you sure?”
“As sure as that I love her, Durant.”
The elder man dropped his hands from the other’s shoulder, and turned away with a sigh. Whether it was the half-inspired look which at that moment came into Arthur’s face, or the resemblance of that face to another, or the superiority over himself of this boy whom he had been lecturing, and whom he had lectured so often—whatever it was, he turned away, with something that made his sight more uncertain than ever, rising in his eyes.
“Then I can’t say anything to you,” he said, in a voice tremulous with feeling. “I can say nothing to you! I would not meddle with that, right or wrong, were it to cost me mine.”
“Yours, old fellow?” cried Arthur, in the effusiveness of victory. “Hurrah for love! It’s the thing worth living for. Are you in Arcadia too?”
Durant did not make any answer. He went to the window, and looked out upon the dark night and the lamps flaring; and then returned to his chair. Whatever commotion there had been in his countenance, he had got rid of it. Neither blush nor smile was on his serious face, nor any further manifestation of sympathy. Arthur looked at him, and burst into excited laughter.
“You don’t look much like a fortunate shepherd,” he said. “Love! that was a bad guess; it was law I should have said—briefs and fees, and a silk gown at the end; that’s what moves you.”
“Ay, ay,” said the other, vaguely; “that’s what it is. Mine is not a corresponding case. You were always luckier, brighter than I, and I don’t grudge it you, Arthur. Your happiness (if you are happy) will be almost as good for me as my own. But I don’t think either of them very probable just now,” he went on, suddenly changing his tone; “that is the fact. I am not in a good way, and, my boy, you are in a bad way. I’ll say it once for all. You are deceiving yourself. You are the last man in the world to do this sort of thing. You will repent it, sooner or later. Don’t look at me as if you thought me a fool, with that supercilious face. It is you who are the fool. You are going to do what you will wish undone all the days of your life.”
“Durant!” cried Arthur, furious, springing from his seat, and lifting his arm as if for a blow.
His friend stood up facing him, folding his arms. His face had flushed with a momentary gleam of passion while he spoke. Now it stilled and paled again, and he stood in his superior strength, looking calmly at the slighter being whom he had roused to momentary fury. The young man’s clenched fist fell by his side. He turned away angry, but subdued.