Lovelock went on, "I have always gone in for family feeling, early associations, and all that sort of thing. That 's what made me confide my difficulties to Dovedale. But, upon my honor, you remind me of the good Samaritan, or that sort of person; you are fonder of me than my own brother! I 'll take fifty pounds with pleasure, thank you, and you shall have them again--at the earliest opportunity. My earliest convenience--will that do? Damn it, it is a convenience, is n't it?
You make your conditions. My dear fellow, I accept them in advance.
That I 'm not to follow up Miss Evers--is that what you mean?
Have you been commissioned by the family to buy me off?
It 's devilish cruel to take advantage of my poverty! Though I'm poor, I 'm honest. But I am honest, my dear Longueville; that 's the point. I 'll give you my word, and I 'll keep it.
I won't go near that girl again--I won't think of her till I 've got rid of your fifty pounds. It 's a dreadful encouragement to extravagance, but that 's your lookout.
I 'll stop for their beastly races and the young lady shall be sacred."
Longueville called the next morning at Mrs. Vivian's, and learned that the three ladies had left Baden by the early train, a couple of hours before. This fact produced in his mind a variety of emotions--surprise, annoyance, embarrassment.
In spite of his effort to think it natural they should go, he found something precipitate and inexplicable in the manner of their going, and he declared to himself that one of the party, at least, had been unkind and ungracious in not giving him a chance to say good-bye. He took refuge by anticipation, as it were, in this reflection, whenever, for the next three or four days, he foresaw himself stopping short, as he had done before, and asking himself whether he had done an injury to Angela Vivian.
This was an idle and unpractical question, inasmuch as the answer was not forthcoming; whereas it was quite simple and conclusive to say, without the note of interrogation, that she was, in spite of many attractive points, an abrupt and capricious young woman. During the three or four days in question, Bernard lingered on at Baden, uncertain what to do or where to go, feeling as if he had received a sudden check--a sort of spiritual snub--which arrested the accumulation of motive. Lovelock, also, whom Bernard saw every day, appeared to think that destiny had given him a slap in the face, for he had not enjoyed the satisfaction of a last interview with Miss Evers.
"I thought she might have written me a note," said the Captain;
"but it appears she does n't write. Some girls don't write, you know."
Bernard remarked that it was possible Lovelock would still have news of Miss Blanche; and before he left Baden he learned that she had addressed her forsaken swain a charming little note from Lausanne, where the three ladies had paused in their flight from Baden, and where Mrs. Vivian had decreed that for the present they should remain.
"I 'm devilish glad she writes," said Captain Lovelock;
"some girls do write, you know."
Blanche found Lausanne most horrid after Baden, for whose delights she languished. The delights of Baden, however, were not obvious just now to her correspondent, who had taken Bernard's fifty pounds into the Kursaal and left them there.
Bernard, on learning his misfortune, lent him another fifty, with which he performed a second series of unsuccessful experiments; and our hero was not at his ease until he had passed over to his luckless friend the whole amount of his own winnings, every penny of which found its way through Captain Lovelock's fingers back into the bank. When this operation was completed, Bernard left Baden, the Captain gloomily accompanying him to the station.
I have said that there had come over Bernard a singular sense of freedom.
One of the uses he made of his freedom was to undertake a long journey.
He went to the East and remained absent from Europe for upward of two years--a period of his life of which it is not proposed to offer a complete history.
The East is a wonderful region, and Bernard, investigating the mysteries of Asia, saw a great many curious and beautiful things. He had moments of keen enjoyment; he laid up a great store of impressions and even a considerable sum of knowledge. But, nevertheless, he was not destined to look back upon this episode with any particular complacency.
