CHAPTER XVI.
A LETTER.
Black night lay over the city, and silence; the river flowed unseen through the darkness; but a thousand golden points of fire mapped out the lines of the Embankment and the long curves of the distant bridges. The infrequent sounds that could be heard were strangely distinct, even when they were faint and remote. There was a slight rustling of wind in the trees below the window.
But the night and the silence brought him neither repose nor counsel. A multitude of bewildering, audacious hopes and distracting fears strove for mastery in his mind, upsetting altogether the calm and cool judgment on which he prided himself. His was not a nature to harbor illusions; he had a hard way of looking at things; and yet—and yet—might not this chance speech of Lord Evelyn have been something more than a bit of good-humored raillery? Lord Evelyn was Natalie's intimate friend; he knew all her surroundings; he was a quick observer; he was likely to know if this thing was possible. But, on the other hand, how was it possible that so beautiful a creature, in the perfect flower of her youth, should be without a lover? He forced himself to remember that she and her father seemed to see no society at all. Perhaps she was too useful to him, and he would not have her entangle herself with many friends. Perhaps they had led too nomadic a life. But even in hotels abroad, how could she have avoided the admiration she was sure to evoke? And in Florence, mayhap, or Mentone, or Madrid; and here he began to conjure up a host of possible rivals, all foreigners, of course, and all equally detestable, and to draw pictures for him of tables d'hote, with always the one beautiful figure there, unconscious, gentle, silent, but drawing to her all men's eyes.
There was but the one way of putting an end to this maddening uncertainty. He dared not claim an interview with her; she might be afraid of implying too much by granting it; various considerations might dictate a refusal. But he could write; and, in point of fact, writing-materials were on the table. Again and again he had sat down and taken the pen in his hand, only to get up as often and go and stare out into the yellow glare of the night. For an instant his shadow would fall on the foliage of the trees below, and then pass away again like a ghost.
At two-and-twenty love is reckless, and glib of speech; it takes little heed of the future; the light straw-flame, for however short a period, leaps up merrily enough. But at two-and-thirty it is more alive to consequences; it is not the present moment, but the duration of life, that it regards; it seeks to proceed with a sure foot. And at this crisis, in the midst of all this irresolution, that was unspeakably vexatious to a man of his firm nature, Brand demanded of himself his utmost power of self-control. He would not imperil the happiness of his life by a hasty, importunate appeal. When at length he sat down, determined not to rise until he had sent her this message, he forced himself to write—at the beginning, at least—in a roundabout and indifferent fashion, so that she should not be alarmed. He began by excusing his writing to her, saying he had scarcely ever had a chance of talking to her, and that he wished to tell her something of what had happened to him since the memorable evening on which he had first met her at her father's house. And he went on to speak to her of a friend of his, who used to amuse himself with the notion that he would like to enter himself at a public school and go through his school life all over again. There he had spent the happiest of his days; why should he not repeat them? If only the boys would agree to treat him as one of themselves, why should he not be hail-fellow-well-met with them, and once more enjoy the fun of uproarious pillow-battles and have smuggled tarts and lemonade at night, and tame rabbits where no rabbits should be, and a profound hero-worship for the captain of the school Eleven, and excursions out of bounds, when his excess of pocket-money would enable him to stand treat all round? "Why not?" this friend of his used to say. "Was it so very impossible for one to get back the cares and interests, the ambitions, the amusements, the high spirits of one's boyhood?" And if he now were to tell her that a far greater miracle had happened to himself? That at an age when he had fancied he had done and seen
most things worth doing and seeing, when the past seemed to contain everything worth having, and there was nothing left but to try how the tedious hours could be got over; when a listless ennui was eating his very heart out—that he should be presented, as it were, with a new lease of life, with stirring hopes and interests, with a new and beautiful faith, with a work that was a joy in itself, whether any reward was to be or no? And surely he could not fail to express to Lord Evelyn and to herself his gratitude for this strange thing.
These are but the harsh outlines of what, so far, he wrote; but there was a feeling in it—a touch of gladness and of pathos here and there—that had never before been in any of his writing, and of which he was himself unconscious.
But at this point he paused, and his breathing grew quick. It was so difficult to write in these measured terms. When he resumed, he wrote more rapidly.