"Off, and whereto?"

"Home; I've taken a pa.s.sage to Ma.r.s.eilles in the Messageries boat, and she sails at two o'clock. You see I was no use here till this arm got right, and the General thought my head would n't be the worse of a little quiet; so I 'll go back and recruit, and if they want me they shall have me."

"You don't know who's there?" whispered Skeff. Tony shook his head. "And all alone, too," added the other, still lower. "Alice,--Alice Trafford."

Tony grew suddenly very pale, and leaned against the wall.

"Come in; come in at once, and see her. We have been talking of you all the evening."

"No, no,--not now," said Tony, faintly.

"And when, if not now? You 're going off, you said."

"I'm in no trim to pay visits; besides, I don't wish it. I 'll tell you more some other time."

"Nonsense; you look right well in your brigand costume, and with an old friend, not to say--Well, well, don't look sulky;" and as he got thus far--he had been gradually edging closer and closer to the door--he flung it wide open, and called out, "Mr. Tony Butler!" Pushing Tony inside, and then closing the door behind, he retreated, laughing heartily to himself over his practical joke.

CHAPTER LIX. AN AWKWARD MOMENT

Alice started as she heard the name Tony Butler, and for a moment neither spoke. There was confusion and awkwardness on either side; all the greater that each saw it in the other. She, however, was the first to rally; and, with a semblance of old friendship, held out her hand, and said, "I am so glad to see you, Tony, and to see you safe."

"I 'd not have dared to present myself in such a dress," stammered he out; "but that scamp Skeffy gave me no choice: he opened the door and pushed me in."

"Your dress is quite good enough to visit an old friend in. Won't you sit down?--sit here." As she spoke, she seated herself on an ottoman, and pointed to a place at her side. "I am longing to hear something about your campaigns. Skeff was so provoking; he only told us about what he saw at Cava, and his own adventures on the road."

"I have very little to tell, and less time to tell it I must embark in about half an hour."

"And where for?"

"For home."

"So that if it had not been for Skeff's indiscretion I should not have seen you?" said she, coldly.

"Not at this moment,--not in this guise."

"Indeed!" And there was another pause.

"I hope Bella is better. Has she quite recovered?" asked he.

"She is quite well again; she 'll be sorry to have missed you, Tony. She wanted, besides, to tell you how happy it made her to hear of all your good fortune."

"My good fortune! Oh, yes--to be sure. It was so unlooked for," added he, with a faint smile, "that I have hardly been able to realize it yet; that is, I find myself planning half-a-dozen ways to earn my bread, when I suddenly remember that I shall not need them."

"And I hope it makes you happy, Tony?"

"Of course it does. It enables me to make my mother happy, and to secure that we shall not be separated. As for myself alone, my habits are simple enough, and my tastes also. My difficulty will be, I suppose, to acquire more expensive ones."

"It is not a very hard task, I believe," said she, smiling.

"Not for others, perhaps; but I was reared in narrow fortune, Alice, trained to submit to many a privation, and told too--I 'm not sure very wisely--that such hardships are all the more easily borne by a man of good blood and lineage. Perhaps I did not read my lesson right. At all events, I thought a deal more of my good blood than other people were willing to accord it; and the result was, it misled me."

"Misled you! and how--in what way?"

"Is it you who ask me this--you, Alice, who have read me such wise lessons on self-dependence, while Lady Lyle tried to finish my education by showing the evils of over-presumption; and you were both right, though I did n't see it at the time."

"I declare I do not understand you, Tony!" said she.

"Well, I 'll try to be clearer," said he, with more animation. "From the first day I knew you, Alice, I loved you. I need not say that all the difference in station between us never affected my love. You were too far above me in every gift and grace to make rank, mere rank, ever occur to my mind, though others were good enough to jog my memory on the subject."

"Others! of whom are you speaking?"

"Your brother Mark, for one; but I don't want to think of these things.

I loved you, I say; and to that degree that every change of your manner towards me made the joy or the misery of my life. This was when I was an idle youth, lounging about in that condition of half dependence that, as I look back on, I blush to think I ever could have endured. My only excuse is, however, that I knew no better."

"There was nothing unbecoming in what you did."

"Yes, there was, though. There was this: I was satisfied to hold an ambiguous position,--to be a something, neither master nor servant, in another man's house, all because it gave me the daily happiness to be near you, and to see you, and to hear your voice. That was unbecoming, and the best proof of it was, that with all my love and all my devotion, you could not care for me."

"Oh, Tony! do not say that."

"When I say care, you could not do more than care; you couldn't love me."

"Were you not always as a dear brother to me?"

"I wanted to be more than brother, and when I found that this could not be, I grew very careless, almost reckless, of my life; not but that it took a long time to teach me the full lesson. I had to think over, not only all that separated us in station, but all that estranged us in tone of mind; and I saw that your superiority to me chafed me, and that if you should ever come to feel for me, it would be through some sense of pity."

"Oh, Tony!"

"Yes, Alice, you know it better than I can say it; and so I set my pride to fight against my love, with no great success at first. But as I lay wounded in the orchard at Melazzo, and thought of my poor mother, and her sorrow if she were to hear of my death, and compared her grief with what yours would be, I saw what was real in love, and what was mere interest; and I remember I took out my two relics,--the dearest objects I had in the world,--a lock of my mother's hair and a certain glove,--a white glove you may have seen once on a time; and it was over the little braid of brown hair I let fall the last tears I thought ever to shed in life; and here is the glove--I give it back to you. Will you have it?"

She took it with a trembling hand; and in a voice of weak but steady utterance said, "I told you that this time would come."

"You did so," said he, gloomily.

Alice rose and walked out upon the balcony; and after a moment Tony followed her. They leaned on the bal.u.s.trade side by side, but neither spoke.

"But we shall always be dear friends, Tony, sha'n't we?" said she, while she laid her hand gently over his.

"Oh, Alice," said he, plaintively, "do not--do not, I beseech you--lead me back again into that land of delusion I have just tried to escape from. If you knew how I loved you--if you knew what it costs me to tear that love out of my heart--you'd never wish to make the agony greater to me."

"Dear Tony, it was a mere boyish pa.s.sion. Remember for a moment how it began. I was older than you--much older as regards life and the world--and even older by more than a year. You were so proud to attach yourself to a grown woman,--you a mere lad; and then your love--for I will grant it was love--dignified you to yourself. It made you more daring where there was danger, and it taught you to be gentler and kinder, and more considerate to every one. All your good and great qualities grew the faster that they had those little vicissitudes of joy and sorrow, the sun and rain of our daily lives; but all that is not love."

"You mean there is no love where there is no return of love?"

She was silent

"If so, I deny it. The faintest flicker of a hope was enough for me; the merest shadow, a smile, a pa.s.sing word, your mere 'Thank you, Tony,' as I held your stirrup, the little word of recognition you would give when I had done something that pleased you,--these--any of them--would send me home happy,--happier, perhaps, than I ever shall be again."