When the cloth was removed and the wine and fruit placed upon the dark and lustrous board, he filled a glass and made a kind little speech.
'My Partner,'he said, 'I drink to you. May your connection with the House be prosperous! It is a very great good fortune for me to have found such a Partner.—Elsie, I join you with my Partner. I wish you both every happiness.'
He drained the bumper and sent round the decanters.
Then he began to talk, and his discourse was most strange. 'Had it been,' said his brother afterwards, 'the idle fancies of some crackbrained writing fellow, I could have understood it; but from him—from a steady old solicitor—a man who has never countenanced any kind of nonsense—to be sure he said it was only an illusion. I hope it isn't a softening. Who ever heard of such a man as that having dreams and illusions?'
Certainly no one had ever before heard Mr. Dering talk in this new manner. As a rule, he was silent and grave even at the head of his own table. He spoke little and then gravely. To-night his talk as well as his face was changed. Who would have thought that Mr. Dering should confess to illusions, and should relate dreams, and should be visited by such dreams? Remember that the speaker was seventy-five years of age, and that he had never before been known so much as to speak of benevolence. Then you will understand something of the bewilderment which fell upon the whole company.
He began by raising his head and smiling with a strange and new benignity—but Elsie thought of her portrait. 'We are all one family here,' he said; 'and I may talk. I want to tell you of a very remarkable thing that has recently happened to me. It has been growing, I now perceive, for some years. But it now holds me strongly, and it is one reason why I am anxious to have the affairs of the House in the hands of a younger man. For it may be a sign of the end. At seventy-five anything uncommon may be a sign.'
'You look well, Mr. Dering, and as strong as most men of sixty,' said Mrs. Arundel.
'Perhaps. I feel well and strong. The fact is that I am troubled—or pleased—or possessed—by an Illusion.'
'You with an Illusion?' said his brother.
'I myself. An Illusion possesses me. It whispers me from time to time that my life is wholly spent in promoting the happiness of other people.'