“So this is the way she treats you,” said Brian, looking round at the boy with a smile. “Fifty pounds at one fell swoop! Why, ye gods! it’d keep me for a year. Not that I envy you—envy isn’t in my nature—only it’s a queer, topsy-turvy world when one man, who doesn’t mean to do anything in particular, has more than he wants, and another, who wants to set the world ringing, can scarcely get a crust. There, that’s sheer green envy, isn’t it? But what are you going to do? Or have you made up your mind to live at ease and do nothing?”
“Well, in a couple of days I’m going abroad with my aunt—for three years, I believe. We’re going to travel about.”
Brian Carlaw’s face grew grave, and, without making any reply, he sat for some time almost in moody silence. Poor Comethup began to feel guilty; drew a mental picture, as he was in the habit of doing, of himself travelling in state and luxury through all the fair places of the earth, while this clever cousin, who was bound to become a great man and who craved only fifty pounds for a whole year, struggled along, in hungry fashion, alone in London. He counted himself the usurper; wondered, in all modesty, what his aunt could have found in him to like so much better than this brilliant youth, who would surely some day shed glory on her name. In a cumbrous, boyish, ineffectual way, he strove to think how he might help this cousin, who was himself so helpless.
The cabman knew his London, and drove them to a place noted for its cookery and its cellar. Brian quite naturally led the way, and they found a table in a corner and seated themselves. “Perhaps you’d better leave the ordering of things to me,” he said to Comethup; and the boy willingly did so.
At the finish of the meal, when Brian had lighted a cigarette, he leaned across the table to Comethup and spoke confidentially. The eyes that Comethup thought were always so beautiful looked with the friendliest, frankest expression into those of the boy, and his voice had in it that soft ring of tenderness which made it almost like the voice—except that it was deeper and stronger—of a woman.
“Dear old chap,” he began, “I talked like a blackguard to you just now; you’re a dear, fine fellow, and I had no right—no earthly right—to envy you your good luck. We’ve always been good friends ever since we were little fellows, and we sha’n’t be the worse friends because one is rich and the other poor. You and I don’t count friendship in that way, do we?”
For answer Comethup, unwilling to trust his voice, stretched his hand across the table; it was immediately gripped by the hand of the other.
“I knew what your answer would be,” said Brian. “I don’t want you to think—oh, I don’t know quite how to express it—but I don’t want you to think that I’m afraid of the future; I’ll make as good a fight of it as any one, perhaps better. Only there’s an element in me that isn’t quite—well, not quite a manly one—something of the feminine, I mean; it makes me long for sympathy and a friend’s face and what-not. And that was why, although you’re only a boy, I was somehow rather looking forward to your being in London; we might have seen something of each other occasionally; at all events, it would have been good to know that you were near at hand. However, you’ve got your own life to live, and you’re going to have a good time—and so am I, for the matter of that.” He threw back his head, crossed his hands behind it, and laughed softly. “It’s only this cursed want of money——There, I’m behaving like a blackguard again, so we’ll change the subject. Let’s talk—oh, of anything else.”
The flimsy banknotes in Comethup’s pocket seemed to weigh heavier than lead; he thought miserably of all the luxury with which he was surrounded, of the bowing servants, the costly furniture, the carriages, everything that was his for the raising of a finger. And it seemed harder than ever that Brian—so gentle, so cheerful, so willing to take the rough with the smooth—should have presently to go out into the world and fight desperately for actual food. He plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out the bundle of notes, and spoke in a choking voice, “Brian—I—I say—Brian——”
Brian, who had been gazing meditatively at the ceiling, looked across at him, suddenly leaned forward, with his elbows on the table and his chin on his palms, and spoke in a surprised tone. “Why, Comethup, what’s the matter, boy?”