"Aunt," said he, interrupting her—and yet with something of a tired air, "do you think there is any use in talking, and inquiring, and suggesting? What has happened, has happened. It is something you don't understand; and something you couldn't put right—with all your good wishes."
"Yes, yes," she said eagerly, for she was rejoiced to find that he took her interference so amiably: "that is quite right; and mind you, I don't forget the agreement we came to at Brighton, that a certain subject should never be referred to by either of us. I quite remember that; and you know I have never sought to return to it again in any way whatever. But your looks yesterday, Vin, frightened me; and at this moment—why, you are not like my dear boy at all. I wish in all seriousness you had come over to Paris with us—you and Louie—and gone with us to the Mediterranean; we should not have allowed you to fall into this condition—"
"Oh, I'm well enough, aunt!" said he.
"You are not well!" she insisted. "And why? Because your mind is ill at ease—"
"And very little comfort I have to hope for from you," said he, remembering former conversations: but there was no bitterness in his tone—only a sort of resigned hopelessness.
"Now, that is not fair, Vin!" she protested. "If I said things to you you did not like, what motive had I but your happiness? And now at this moment, if I re-open that subject, it is not the kind of comfort you apparently hope for that I am prepared to bring you, but something quite different. I should like to heal your mental ailment, once and for all, by convincing you of the truth."
"Yes, I think we have heard something of that sort on previous occasions," he said, rather scornfully. "The truth as it is in George Morris! Well, I will tell you what would be more useful, more to the point, and more becoming. Before saying anything further about that old man and his granddaughter, I think you ought to go and seek them out, and go down on your knees to them, and ask their pardon—"
"For what?"
"For what you have already said of them—and suspected."
"Really you try my patience too much!" she exclaimed, with some show of temper. "What have I said or suspected of them that was not amply justified by the account of them that your father offered to show you? Of course you wouldn't look at it. Certainly not! Facts are inconvenient things, most uncomfortable things, where one's prepossessions are involved. But I had no objection to looking at it—"