"You seem to have some secret fear of your brother, Mr. Carville——" I began.
"Secret? There's nothing secret about it, sir. I'm scared of him. You don't know him, so you can't understand how you'd feel about it. I tell you the mere presence of that chap in the room unsettles people. He's a disturbing influence. Even strangers notice it. Suppose he was over here, and me away in the Mediterranean? You've no idea how he can talk and wheedle and explain everything to suit his own ends. I do."
I did not say so, but I understood Mr. Carville's feelings. Cecil's letters bore him out very completely.
"There's another thing you may not appreciate. When you're married you will, no doubt. A man and his wife aren't always on the same dead level terms with each other. Little differences, lasting perhaps an hour or a minute, sometimes till breakfast, crop up. Even in a case like mine, here to-day and gone to-morrow, we can get on each other's nerves. There's friction in every machine ... unavoidable. You understand me, sir?"
"Yes," I said. "As well as a bachelor can, I think I appreciate your point. You mean that since you can't foresee these minor affairs and since you may leave home before the clouds roll by...."
"That's just it! Imagine a man like Frank living next door say, a man who has known Rosa, as I told you ... See?"
As we stepped upon the ferry I noticed that his features were sharp and bore the impress of a quite unusual secret care, I felt guiltily that we had been unwise to tell so much to the painter-cousin. Who could tell what it might not lead to, even after so long an interval, with so incalculable a man as this brother?
With the bellow of the whistle Mr. Carville's face cleared and assumed its wonted placidity. The deck trembled as the screw began to revolve, and imperceptibly we moved out towards Governor's Island. It was just here, I think, as we began our little six-mile journey to St. George, that a sudden illumination came to me. I understood Mr. Carville's reason for waiting instead of explaining his impression of New York. He gave me credit, apparently, for the ability to find it out for myself.
The vessel was going swiftly now over the shining waters of New York Bay. To the left lay the low and sombre buildings of Governor's Island; to the right the prison-like pile of Ellis Island showed red in the sunlight. On either side the shores fell away from us, leaving Bartholdi's statue, for a brief moment, the dominant note in the scene. Quickly we hurried by, and Black Tom, with his fringe of cranes and stacks, his dark panoply of low-lying smoke, was revealed. Before us uprose the wooded heights of Staten Island, and far down the Narrows a glimpse of the blue Atlantic. A couple of tramp steamers, one with much red paint on her bows, were coming up past us, and I noticed the Red Ensign was flying from the poop. With large gestures Mr. Carville's arm swept the horizon, indicating the salient points. Almost before I was aware of it we were entering the ferry station and he was calling my attention to the chimneys and buildings on the Communipaw shore.
"Now," said he, as we emerged upon the street, "your road lies down the coast, but if you have an hour to spare, you might come over and look at the ship. We'll take the trolley to New Brighton and ferry across from there. But of course——"