CHAPTER XX.
The wise ancient who asserted that “Time flies,” must have made that remarkable discovery while he was in a state of preparation for a journey. When are we most acutely sensible of the shortness of life? When do we consult our watches in perpetual dread of the result? When does the night steal on us unawares, and the morning take us by surprise? When we are going on a journey.
The remaining days of the week went by with a rush. Ovid had hardly time to ask himself if Friday had really come, before the hours of his life at home were already numbered.
He had still a little time to spare when he presented himself at Fairfield Gardens late in the afternoon. Finding no one in the library, he went up to the drawing-room. His mother was alone, reading.
“Have you anything to say to me, before I tell Carmina that you are here?” Mrs. Gallilee put that question quietly, so far as her voice was concerned. But she still kept her eyes on her book. Ovid knew that she was offering him his first and last chance of speaking plainly, before he went away. In Carmina’s interests he spoke.
“Mother,” he said, “I am leaving the one person in the world who is most precious to me, under your care.”
“Do you mean,” Mrs. Gallilee asked, “that you and Carmina are engaged to be married?”
“I mean that; and I am not sure that you approve of the engagement. Will you be plainer with me than you were on the last occasion when we spoke on this subject?”
“When was that?” Mrs. Gallilee inquired.