Volume I Part 39 (1/2)
He reached his room, put the flower in a gla.s.s on the table, and walked up and down before it. It had come to a struggle between the sense of what was and the pa.s.sionate wish for what might have been.
”It is late, Sir,” said his servant, opening the door ? ”and you were ?”
”I am not going out.”
”This evening, Sir?”
”No ? not at all to-day. Spenser, I don't wish to see anybody ? let no one come near me.”
The servant retired, and Guy went on with his walk and his meditations ? looking back over his life, and reviewing, with a wiser ken now, the steps by which he had come. He compared the selfish disgust with which he had cast off the world with the very different spirit of little Fleda's look upon it that morning; the useless, self-pleasing, vain life he was leading, with her wish to be like the beloved disciple, and do something to heal the troubles of those less happy than herself. He did not very well comprehend the grounds of her feeling or reasoning, but he began to see, mistily, that his own had been mistaken and wild.
His step grew slower, his eye more intent, his brow quiet.
”She is right, and I am wrong,” he thought. ”She is by far the n.o.bler creature ? worth many such as I. Like her I cannot be ?
I cannot regain what I have lost ? I cannot undo what years have done. But I can be something other than I am! If there be a system of remedy, as there well may, it may as well take effect on myself first. She says everybody has his work; I believe her. It must, in the nature of things, be so. I will make it my business to find out what mine is; and when I have made that sure, I will give myself to the doing of it. An All- wise Governor must look for service of me. He shall have it.
Whatever my life be, it shall be to some end. If not what I would, what I can. If not the purity of the rose, that of tempered steel!”
Mr. Carleton walked his room for three hours; then rung for his servant, and ordered him to prepare everything for leaving Paris the second day thereafter.
The next morning over theirs coffee he told his mother of his purpose.
”Leave Paris! To-morrow! My dear Guy, that is rather a sudden notice.”
”No, mother; for I am going alone.”
His mother immediately bent an anxious and somewhat terrified look upon him. The frank smile she met put half her suspicions out of her head at once.
”What is the matter?”
”Nothing at all ? if by 'matter' you mean mischief.”
”You are not in difficulty with those young men again?”
”No, mother,” said he, coolly. ”I am in difficulty with no one but myself.”
”With yourself! But why will you not let me go with you?”
”My business will go on better if I am quite alone.”
”What business?''
”Only to settle this question with myself,” said he, smiling.
”But, Guy! you are enigmatical this morning. Is it the question that of all others I wish to see settled?”
”No, mother,” said he, laughing, and colouring a little; ”I don't want another half to take care of till I have this one under management.”
”I don't understand you,” said Mrs. Carleton. ”There is no hidden reason under all this that you are keeping from me?”
”I wont say that. But there is none that need give you the least uneasiness. There are one or two matters I want to study out; I cannot do it here, so I am going where I shall be free.”