Part 11 (1/2)

I rose to leave. It was nearly three o'clock.

”Give me a few moments longer. I have a favor to ask.”

After speaking these words he closed his eyes, as though to recall the opening sentences of a carefully prepared speech.

”I am entirely at your service,” I murmured.

”Mr. Foster,” he began, ”you are a young man of brilliant accomplishments, at the commencement of your career. Doubtless you have made your plans for the immediate future, and I feel quite sure that those plans do not include any special attendance upon myself, whom until the other day you had never met. I am a stranger to you, and on the part of a stranger it would be presumptuous to ask you to alter your plans. Nevertheless, I am at this moment capable of that presumption. In my life I have not often made requests, but such requests as I have made have never been refused. I hope that my good fortune in this respect may continue. Mr. Foster, I wish to leave England. I wish to die in my own place--”

I shrugged my shoulders in protest against the word ”die.”

”If you prefer it, I wish to live in my own place. Will you accompany me as companion? I am convinced that we should suit each other--that I should derive benefit from your skill and pleasure from your society, while you--you would tolerate the whims and eccentricities of my middle age. We need not discuss terms; you would merely name your fee.”

There was, as a matter of fact, no reason in the world why I should have agreed to this suggestion of Alresca's. As he himself had said, we were strangers, and I was under no obligation to him of any kind.

Yet at once I felt an impulse to accept his proposal. Whence that impulse sprang I cannot say. Perhaps from the aspect of an adventure that the affair had. Perhaps from the vague idea that by attaching myself to Alresca I should be brought again into contact with Rosetta Rosa. Certainly I admired him immensely. None who knew him could avoid doing so. Already, indeed, I had for him a feeling akin to affection.

”I see by your face,” he said, ”that you are not altogether unwilling.

You accept?”

”With pleasure;” and I smiled with the pleasure I felt.

But it seemed to me that I gave the answer independently of my own volition. The words were uttered almost before I knew.

”It is very good of you.”

”Not at all,” I said. ”I have made no plans, and therefore nothing will be disarranged. Further, I count it an honor; and, moreover, your 'case'--pardon the word--interests me deeply. Where do you wish to go?”

”To Bruges, of course.”

He seemed a little surprised that I should ask the question.

”Bruges,” he went on, ”that dear and wonderful old city of Flanders, is the place of my birth. You have visited it?”

”No,” I said, ”but I have often heard that it is the most picturesque city in Europe, and I should like to see it awfully.”

”There is nothing in the world like Bruges,” he said. ”Bruges the Dead they call it; a fit spot in which to die.”

”If you talk like that I shall reconsider my decision.”

”Pardon, pardon!” he laughed, suddenly wearing an appearance of gaiety. ”I am happier now. When can we go? To-morrow? Let it be to-morrow.”

”Impossible,” I said. ”The idea of a man whose thigh was broken less than a fortnight since taking a sea voyage to-morrow! Do you know that under the most favorable circ.u.mstances it will be another five or six weeks before the bone unites, and that even then the greatest care will be necessary?”

His gaiety pa.s.sed.

”Five more weeks here?”

”I fear so.”