“So do I—if he keeps up this attitude.”
“There is something beneath,” said Irene, moving to the stool by the fire, near his feet, and putting her hand on his knee. “We had a talk on the day before. I wrote to you at Edinburgh about it. He was on the point of committing some folly—hoped we would not think him a scoundrel. What does it mean?”
Gerard stretched out his arms and clasped his hands behind his head.
“I’m sure I don’t know. The man was always like that. One never could tell his next escapade. What’s the matter? You’re shivering.”
“Oh, I am frightened, Gerard, dear. I have a foreboding that ill will come of it—for all of us.”
“What the dickens has it got to do with you and me?” said Gerard.
She sat silent for awhile, looking into the flaming abysses and fantastic crags of the fire. Then suddenly she turned, excited, clasped his knees and looked passionately into his face.
“We must move heaven and earth, Gerard. He is your second self. If he should—if anything should happen to him—he would be with us always, reproaching us with his dead eyes for not saving him. I owe him your life, my beloved—and mine—for without you I should die—Gerard, dear.”
She was a little excited, spoke a trifle shrilly. Gerard unclasped his hands and bent forward. Interpreting the gesture according to her heart, she knelt and swiftly closed his arms around her, and nestled close to him.
“You may be sure I shall do all I can,” he said.