Queeker was gazing at one of the sketches with an aspect so haggard and savage that Mr Durant could not refrain from remarking it.
“Why, Queeker, you seem to be displeased with that drawing, eh? What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, ah!” exclaimed the youth, starting, and becoming very red in the face—“no, not with the drawing, it is beautiful—most beautiful, but I—in—fact I was thinking, sir, that thought sometimes leads us into regions of gloom in which—where—one can’t see one’s way, and ignes fatui mislead or—or—”
“Very true, Queeker,” interrupted the old gentleman, good-humouredly; “thought is a wonderful quality of the mind—transports us in a moment from the Indies to the poles; fastens with equal facility on the substantial and the impalpable; gropes among the vague generalities of the abstract, and wriggles with ease through the thick obscurities of the concrete—eh, Queeker? Come, give us a song, like a good fellow.”
“I never sing—I cannot sing, sir,” said the youth, hurriedly.
“No! why, I thought Katie said you were attending the singing-class.”
The fat cousin was observed here to put her handkerchief to her mouth and bend convulsively over a drawing.
Queeker explained that he had just begun to attend, but had not yet attained sufficient confidence to sing in public. Then, starting up he suddenly pulled out his watch, exclaimed that he was quite ashamed of having remained so late, shook hands nervously all round, and, rushing from the house, left Stanley Hall in possession of the field!
Now, the poor youth’s state of mind is not easily accounted for. Stanley, being a close observer, had at an early part of the evening detected the cause of Queeker’s jealousy, and, being a kindly fellow, sought, by devoting himself to Fanny Hennings, to relieve his young friend; but, strange to say, Queeker was not relieved! This fact was a matter of profound astonishment even to Queeker himself, who went home that night in a state of mind which cannot be adequately described, sat down before his desk, and, with his head buried in his hands, thought intensely.
“Can it be,” he murmured in a sepulchral voice, looking up with an expression of horror, “that I love them both? Impossible. Horrible! Perish the thought—yes.” Seizing a pen:—