Part 10 (1/2)
”Your money gone, Reuben?” murmured his sister, in consternation.
”You might have foreseen that. Come and sit down by me, Miriam. I am tired and wretched. Where is the sun? Surely one may have suns.h.i.+ne at Naples!”
He was now idly fretful. Miriam seated herself at his side, and he took her hand.
”I thought you might perhaps receive me like this at first. I came only with that hope. I wish you looked better, Miriam. How do you employ yourself here?”
”I am much out of doors. I get stronger.”
”You spoke of old Mallard. I'm glad he is here, really glad. You know, Mallard's a fellow of no slight account; I should think you might even like him.”
”But yourself, Reuben?”
”No, no; let me rest a little. I'm sick and tired of myself. Let's talk of old Mallard. And what's become of little Cecily Doran?”
”She is here--with her aunt.”
”She here too! By Jove! Well, of course, I shall have nothing to do with them. Mallard still acting as her guardian, I suppose. Rather a joke, that. I never could get him to speak on the subject. But I feel glad you know him. He's a solid fellow, tremendously conscientious; just the things you would like in a man, no doubt. Have you seen any of his paintings?”
Miriam shook her head absently, unable to find voice for the topic, which was remote from her thoughts.
”He's done fine things, great things. I shall look him up, and we'll drink a bottle of wine together.”
He kept stroking Miriam's hand, a white hand with blue veins--a strong hand, though so delicately fas.h.i.+oned. The touch of the wedding-ring again gave a new direction to his discursive thoughts.
”After this, shall you go back to that horrible hole in Lancas.h.i.+re?”
”I hope to go back home, certainly.”
”Home, home!” he muttered, impatiently. ”It has made you ill, poor girl. Stay in Italy a long time, now you are once here. For you to be here at all seems a miracle; it gives me hopes.”
Miriam did not resent this, in word at all events. She was submitting again to physical oppression; her head drooped, and her abstracted gaze was veiled with despondent la.s.situde. Reuben talked idly, in loose sentences.
”Do you think of me as old or young, Miriam?” he asked, when both had kept silence for a while.
”I no longer think of you as older than myself.”
”That is natural. I imagined that. In one way I am old enough, but in another I am only just beginning my life, and have all my energies fresh. I shall do something yet; can you believe it?”
”Do what?” she asked, wearily.
”Oh, I have plans; all sorts of plans.”
He joined his hands together behind his head, and began to stir with a revival of mental energy.
”But plans of what sort?”
”There is only one direction open to me. My law has of course gone to--to limbo; it was always an absurdity. Most of my money has gone the same way, and I'm not sorry for it. If I had never had anything, I should have set desperately to work long ago. Now I am bound to work, and you will see the results. Of course, in our days, there's only one road for a man like me. I shall go in for literature.”
Miriam listened, but made no comment.