"Even between friends," he said, slowly, "there are some things it is difficult to talk about with safety. Of course you know what an outsider would say: that you had got into a devil of a mess; that you had blundered into an engagement with a woman whom you find you don't want to marry."
"Well, is there anything uncommon in that?" Lionel demanded.
"Is that an unusual experience in human life? But I don't admit as much, in my case. I am quite willing to marry her, so long as she keeps her temper, and doesn't expect me to play the fool. I dare say we shall get on well enough, like other people, after the fateful deed is done. In the meantime," he added, with a forced laugh—"in the meantime, I find myself now and again wishing I was a sailor brave and bold, careering round the Cape of Good Hope in a gale of wind, and with no loftier aspiration in my mind than a pint of rum and a well-filled pipe."
"Faith, I think that's just where you ought to be," said Mangan, dryly, "instead of in this town of London, at the present moment. I declare you've quite bewildered me. If you had told me you were engaged to that tall salmon-fishing girl—you used to talk about her a good deal, you know—or to that fascinating young Italian creature—and I've seen before now how easily the gentle friend and companion can be transformed into a sweetheart—I should have been ready with all kinds of pretty speeches and good wishes. But Miss Burgoyne of the New Theatre? Linn, my boy, I've discovered what's the matter with you, and I can prescribe an absolutely certain cure."
"What is it?"
"The cure? You have partly suggested it yourself. You must go at once and take your passage in a sailing ship for Australia. You can stay there for a time and examine the colony; of course you'll write a book about it, like everybody else. Then you make your way to San Francisco, and accept a three-months' engagement there. You come on to New York, and accept a three-months' engagement there. And when you return to England you will find that all your troubles have vanished, and that you are once again the Linn Moore we all of us used to know."
A wild fancy flashed through Lionel's brain; what if in these far wanderings he were suddenly to encounter Nina? In vain—in vain; Nina had become for him but a shadow, a ghost, with no voice to call to him from any sphere.
"You would have me run away?—I don't see how I can do that," he said, quietly; and then he abruptly changed the subject. "What did you think of Lady Adela?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I've been wondering whether she
were at the same time a smart and clever woman and an abject fool, or whether she were simply smart and clever and thought me an abject fool. It must be either one or the other. She played the literary ingénue very well—a little too openly, perhaps. I'm curious about her book—"