Comethup awoke with a lighter heart the next morning—lighter, perhaps, because Paris was to be left behind. He was glad to think that he had got well over his difficulties; almost glad, too, to think that he had seen the last of Mr. Robert Carlaw. Of his feelings toward Brian he was not quite so certain; he pitied him very much, and hoped earnestly that Fortune and Fame were indeed holding out their hands to him. But he was but a boy, who had lived his simple life hitherto simply and straightforwardly and well, with nothing to conceal. Now, for the first time, with however good a purpose, he was deceiving one whom he knew to be his greatest and most loyal friend—one but for whose loyal assistance life could never have been to him the full and splendid thing it had been.
But he had not seen the last of his uncle by any means. As he went down the steps of the hotel, with his aunt leaning on his arm, toward the vehicle which waited to take them to the station, a figure suddenly sprang forward and thrust aside the servant who held the door. As the unconscious Miss Carlaw stepped into the carriage her brother bent his head reverently, appeared almost to be silently blessing her. The wonderful Robert was evidently possessed with a deep gratitude for which Comethup would scarcely have given him credit. It was, of course, impossible for the boy to speak; he could only look entreatingly at the man and beg him by signs to go away.
But Uncle Robert knew better than that. While the luggage was being piled upon the vehicle he flung himself eagerly into the most menial offices—the lifting of boxes and the final closing of the carriage door; then, when all was completed, he actually climbed upon the box seat beside the driver, folded his arms, and accompanied them to the station.
At the station it was just as bad. Poor Comethup lived in torments until the train actually steamed away, for Mr. Robert Carlaw got in the way of porters and assisted them, to their astonishment, in disposing of the luggage, and was altogether a very elegant and ridiculous millstone round the boy’s neck. Finally, as the train departed, he stood in an attitude of deep dejection, with his hat in his hand, watching them as they moved out of his sight.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BEGINNINGS OF A GENIUS.
The three years of wandering had stretched into four, and thence into five. It would have been under ordinary circumstances a happy, irresponsible time enough, for they took their journeyings haphazard, staying in a place for months at a time if it pleased them, or but a few days if they did not like it; they had every luxury and comfort and convenience that money could purchase; they stayed always in the best places and travelled in the best manner. Yet throughout it all there had hung, floating before him wherever he went, an ever-growing cloud of deceit and trickery about Comethup. Dread seemed to mark the most cloudless day, and he never entered a strange city or village without looking with anxious eyes at every passing tourist.
Throughout those five years it is safe to say that Comethup had never been wholly free from the presence of Robert Carlaw and his son. First the one and then the other; then both together; then the one, with a piteous tale of the other’s deceit; and the other, with a story of how badly the one had treated him. Comethup never quite knew whether they travelled in company or whether they merely kept touch with each other’s movements and met at intervals; at all events, they seemed to know pretty clearly the route taken by Comethup and his aunt, and the dates of their departure from various places. Indeed, Miss Carlaw and her nephew were easy of identification, for they travelled in state; and each was a noticeable figure and attracted attention in different ways. The blind old woman, travelling through beautiful places for pleasure, was a subject for sympathy; the handsome youth who was her constant attendant, and who carried his grave face through so many different scenes, and who appeared always so devoted to her, won the admiration of many people whose names he never knew and to whom he scarcely spoke.
Once or twice Comethup had felt with growing relief that the Carlaws, father and son, were gone; a month or two would pass and nothing be seen of them. And then one morning, in a strange city, the horizon would be darkened to him by the swing of Uncle Robert’s coat-tails; or his day would be changed and troubled by the sudden appearance of Brian, alert and eager and full of wild hopes as ever. The daring and resource of Mr. Robert Carlaw knew no bounds. On more than one occasion, in crowded streets, he actually walked on the farther side of his sister, bending forward to glance at Comethup and to smile and nod to him as though to assure the boy of his protection. On such occasions Miss Carlaw would embarrassingly let fall some remark, perhaps even touching Robert himself, all unconscious of the figure that stalked beside her. With that air of protection large upon him, he turned up in the most unexpected places, and his errand was always the same.