"I 'll disclaim nothing that I know to be true."

"And I am to speak freely?"

"As freely as you are able."

"Here it is, then, in five words: You are in love, Tony,--in love with that beautiful widow."

Tony held his head down between his hands, and was silent.

"You feel that the case is hopeless,--that is to say, that you know, besides being of rank and wealth, she is one to make a great match, and that her family would never consent to hear of your pretensions; and yet all this while you have a sort of lurking suspicion that she cares for you?"

"No, no!" muttered Tony, between his hands.

"Well, that she did once, and that not very long ago."

"Not even that," said Tony, drearily.

"I know better,--you _do_ think so. And I'll tell you more; what makes you so keenly alive to her change--perfidy, you would like to call it--is this, that you have gone through that state of the disease yourself."

"I don't understand you."

"Well, you shall. The lovely Alice--isn't that the name?"

Tony nodded.

"The lovely Alice got your own heart only, at second hand. You used to be in love with the little girl that was governess at Richmond."

"Not a word of it true,--nothing of the kind," broke out Tony, fiercely.

"Dolly and I were brother and sister,--we always said we were."

"What does that signify? I tried the brother-and-sister dodge, and I know what it cost me when she married Maccleston;" and Skeffy here threw his cigar into the sea, as though an emblem of his shipwrecked destiny.

"Mind me well, Butler," said he, at last; "I did not say that you ever told your heart you loved her; but she knew it, take my word for it. She knew, and in the knowing it was the attraction that drew you on."

"But I was not drawn on."

"Don't tell me, sir. Answer me just this: Did any man ever know the hour, or even the day, that he caught a fever? Could he go back in memory, and say, it was on Tuesday last, at a quarter to three, that my pulse rose, my respiration grew shorter, and my temples began to throb?

So it is with love, the most malignant of all fevers. All this time that you and What's-her-name were playing brother and sister so innocently, your hearts were learning to feel in unison,--just as two pendulums in the same room acquire the same beat and swing together. You 've heard that?"

"I may; but you are all wrong about Dolly."

"What would she say to it?"

"Just what I do."

"Well, we cannot ask her, for she 's not here."

"She is here,--not two miles from where we are standing; not that it signifies much, for, of course, neither of us would do _that_."

"Not plump out, certainly, in so many words."

"Not in any way, Skeffy. It is because I look upon Dolly as my own dear sister, I would not suffer a word to be said that could offend her."

"Offend her! Oh dear, how young you are in these things!"

"What is it, Jenny?" cried Tony to the servant-girl, who was shouting not very intelligibly, from a little knoll at a distance. "Oh, she 's saying that supper is ready, and the kippered salmon getting cold, as if any one cared!"

"Don't they care!" cried Skeffy. "Well, then, they have n't been inhaling this sea-breeze for an hour, as I have. Heaven grant that love has carried off your appet.i.te, Tony, for I feel as if I could eat for six."

CHAPTER x.x.xII. ON THE ROCKS

It was a rare thing for Tony Butler to lie awake at night, and yet he did so for full an hour or more after that conversation with Skeffy.

It was such a strange blunder for one of Skeffy's shrewdness to have made,--so inexplicable.

To imagine that he, Tony, had ever been in love with Dolly! Dolly, his playfellow since the time when the "twa had paidled i' the burn;" Dolly, to whom he went with every little care that crossed him, never shrinking for an instant from those avowals of doubt or difficulty that no one makes to his sweetheart. So, at least, thought Tony. And the same Dolly to whom he had revealed once, in deepest secrecy, that he was in love with Alice! To be sure, it was a boyish confession, made years ago; and since that Alice had grown up to be a woman, and was married, so that the story of the love was like a fairy tale.

"In love with Dolly!" muttered he. "If he had but ever seen us together, he would have known that could not be." Poor Tony! he knew of love in its moods of worship and devotion, and in its aspect of a life-giving impulse,--a soul-filling, engrossing sentiment,--inspiring timidity when near, and the desire for boldness when away. With such alternating influence Dolly had never racked his heart. He sought her with a quiet conscience, untroubled by a fear.

"How could Skeffy make such a mistake! That it is a mistake, who would recognize more quickly than Dolly herself; and with what humorous drollery--a drollery all her own--would she not treat it! A rare punishment for your blunder, Master Skeffy, would it be to tell Dolly of it all in your presence;" and at last, wearied out with thinking, he fell asleep.

The day broke with one of those bright breezy mornings which, though "trying" to the nerves of the weak and delicate, are glorious stimulants to the strong. The sea plashed merrily over the rocks, and the white streaky clouds flew over the land with a speed that said it blew hard at sea. "Glorious day for a sail, Skeffy; we can beat out, and come back with a stern-wind whenever we like."

"I 'll antic.i.p.ate the wish by staying on sh.o.r.e, Tony."

"I can't offer you a mount, Skeffy, for I am not the owner of even a donkey."

"Who wants one? Who wants anything better than to go down where we were yesterday evening, under that big black rock, with the sea before us, and the whole wide world behind us, and talk? When a fellow lives as I do, cooped up within four walls, the range of his view some tiers of pigeon-holes, mere freedom and a sea-breeze are the grandest luxuries in creation;" and off they set, armed with an ample supply of tobacco, the life-buoy of those stragglers in the sea of thought who only ask to float, but not to reach the sh.o.r.e.

How delightfully did the hours pa.s.s over! At least, so Tony felt, for what a wonderful fellow was Skeffy! What had he not seen or heard or read? What theme was new, what subject unknown to him? But, above all, what a marvellous insight had he into the world,--the actual world of men and women! Great people were not to _his_ eyes mighty G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, seated loftily on a West-End Olympus, but fallible mortals, with chagrins about the court and grievances about invitations to Windsor. Ministers, too, whose nods shook empires, were humanities, very irritable under the gout, and much given to colchic.u.m. Skeffy "knew the whole thing,"--_he_ was not one of the mere audience. He lived in the green-room or in the "flats." He knew all the secrets of state, from the splendid armaments that existed on paper, to the mock thunders that were manufactured and patented by F. O.

These things Skeffy told like confidences,--secrete he would not have breathed to any one he held less near his heart than Tony. But somehow commonplaces told by the lips of authority will a.s.sume an immense authority, and carry with them a stupendous weight; and Tony listened to the precious words of wisdom as he might have listened to the voice of Solomon.

But even more interesting still did he become as he sketched forth, very vaguely indeed,--a sort of Turner in his later style of cloud and vapor,--his own great future. Not very clear and distinct the steps by which he was fated to rise, but palpable enough the great elevation he was ultimately to occupy.

"Don't imagine, old fellow," said he, laying his hand on Tony's shoulders, "that I am going to forget you when that time comes. I'm not going to leave you a Queen's messenger."

"What could you make of me?" said Tony, despondently.

"Fifty things," said the other, with a confidence that seemed to say, "I, Skeffy, am equal to more than this; fifty things. You, of course, cannot be expected to know it, but I can tell you, it's far harder to get a small place than a big one,--harder to be a corporal than a lieutenant-general."

"How do you explain that?" asked Tony, with an eager curiosity.

"You can't understand it without knowing life. I cannot convey to you how to win a trick where you don't know the game." And Skeffy showed, by the impatient way he tried to light a fresh cigar, that he was not fully satisfied with the force or clearness of his own explanation; and he went on: "You see, old fellow, when you have climbed up some rungs of the ladder with a certain amount of a.s.surance, many will think you are determined to get to the top."

"Well, but if a man's ladder has only one rung, as I imagine is the case with mine!" broke in Tony.

Skeffy looked at his companion for a moment, half surprised that he should have carried out the figure, and then laughed heartily, as he said, "Splice it to mine, my boy; it will bear us both."