There was a smile, a little sad, on his lips, as he said the last words, but it passed at once as he added:
“Do your hear me? will you go?”
“If you want me—yes.”
“On your word, now?”
“On my word.”
There was an impatience in the answer, a feverish eagerness in the way he assented that might have made the consent rather a means to evade the pressure than a genuine pledge to follow the advice; that darker, more evil, more defiant look was still upon his face, sweeping its youth away and leaving in its stead a wavering shadow. He rose with a sudden movement; his tumbled hair, his disordered attire, his bloodshot eyes, his haggard look of sleeplessness and excitement in strange contrast with the easy perfection of Cecil's dress and the calm languor of his attitude. The boy was very young, and was not seasoned to his life and acclimatized to his ruin, like his elder brother. He looked at him with a certain petulant envy; the envy of every young fellow for a man of the world. “I beg your pardon for keeping you up, Bertie,” he said huskily. “Good-night.”
Cecil gave a little yawn.
“Dear boy, it would have been better if you could have come in with the coffee. Never be impulsive; don't do a bit of good, and is such bad form!”
He spoke lightly, serenely; both because such was as much his nature as it was to breathe, and because his heart was heavy that he had to send away the young one without help, though he knew that the course he had made him adopt would serve him more permanently in the end. But he leaned his hand a second on Berk's shoulder, while for one single moment in his life he grew serious.
“You must know I could not do what you asked; I could not meet any man in the Guards face to face if I sunk myself and sunk them so low. Can't you see that, little one?”