Whether his characteristic ejaculation referred to Hearn or the studio I cannot determine. His interest was obvious, but it was interest, not of a connoisseur, but of a man looking round another man's workshop. Von Roon used to say in Chelsea, "There is hope for him who looks with attention upon his neighbour's tools." Mr. Carville sank slowly into a chair, his eyes fixed upon a recent nude study.
"We haven't any Scotch, but if you care for Rye——" said Mac, reaching for a tray on the throne.
Mr. Carville's eye lost its vague, reflective expression as it fell upon the tray.
"Ah?" he said, "I'd rather have good Rye than—than—well, you know what most of the Scotch is here. No—no water, thanks. I take it as I find it."
It was a new facet of his character, this. We watched him swallow the neat spirit at a gulp and place the empty glass on the tray without emotion. Mac and I sipped gently and waited for Mr. Carville to begin.
"I've been rather worried just lately, with one thing and another," he observed, putting away his little brass tobacco-box. "Second went home to get married last trip, and the Third, promoted, you understand, needs an eye. Very willing and all that, but he's been in these big hotel-ships, Western ocean all his life, and as I say, he needs an eye. I was telling you about my brother, if I remember."
We murmured that he had, and watched Mr. Carville's obvious enjoyment of his pipe.
"Ah!" he said, "the Brignole station in Genoa. Humph!"
"You see, my brother has something in his make-up that appeals to a woman. I was going to say, all women. There's something spectacular, you might say, in the way he carries on. I've never been able to decide whether it's intentional or just fate. Anyhow, there it is; and if you look at it in that light, it isn't so very wonderful after all that a girl like Rosa was then should have been dazzled and carried away. When she jumped up and stood staring at me, I hardly knew what to do. 'Rosa!' I said, and we stood facing each other for a while. I don't know; but I think we got to know each other better just then. For me, at any rate, it was a revelation. They say a drowning man sees all his past life while the water is pressing on his ear-drums. Something like that happened to me then in that dismal, badly-lighted booking-hall. It wasn't love, in the sugary sentimental sense, that I felt for Rosa; but a blind, helpless sort of an emotion, a feeling that if I didn't get her I was lost—lost! I put out my hands as though I was catching hold of something to hold me up ... I felt her hands.
"I can hardly remember how we went away from there. I know the driver shouted to me as we came out and I went up and paid him. And then we were in the Piazza Corvetto, sitting on a seat, near where the trolley-cars stop. How long we sat there I don't know either. I knew I'd got her again. She was there, alongside, and we were talking, like two children. I was very glad ... you know."