LITMIR.BIZ

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His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices them.’

      The lad muttered something to himself, and drummed on the windowpane with his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something, when the door opened, and Sibyl ran in.

      ‘How serious you both are!’ she cried. ‘What is the matter?’

      ‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘I suppose one must be serious sometimes. Good-bye, mother; I will have my dinner at five o’clock. Everything is packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble.’

      ‘Good-bye, my son,’ she answered, with a bow of strained stateliness.

      She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.

      ‘Kiss me, mother,’ said the girl. Her flower-like lips touched the withered cheek and warmed its frost.

      ‘My child! my child!’ cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in search of an imaginary gallery.

      ‘Come, Sibyl,’ said her brother, impatiently. He hated his mother’s affectations.

      They went out into the flickering wind-blown sunlight, and strolled down the dreary Euston Road. The passers-by glanced in wonder at the sullen, heavy youth, who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. He was like a common gardener walking with a rose.

      Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at which comes on geniuses late in life, and never leaves the commonplace. Sibyl, however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. Her love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking of Prince Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to sail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, redshirted bush-rangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, or a super-cargo, or whatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor’s existence was dreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse, hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts down, and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! He was to leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain, and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to come across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a wagon guarded by six mounted policemen. The bushrangers were to attack them three times, and be defeated with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was not to go to the gold-fields at all. They were horrid places, where men got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad language. He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, there were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his prayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and would watch over him. She would pray for him, too, and in a few years he would come back quite rich and happy.

      The lad listened sulkily to her, and made no answer. He was heart-sick at leaving home.

      Yet, it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose. Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger of Sibyl’s position. This young dandy who was making love to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account, and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother’s nature, and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl’s happiness. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

      His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.

      ‘You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim,’ cried Sibyl, ‘and I am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something.’

      ‘What do you want me to say?’

      ‘Oh! That you will be a good boy, and not forget us,’ she answered, smiling at him.

      He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You are more likely to forget me, than I am to forget you, Sibyl.’

      She flushed. ‘What do you mean, Jim?’ she asked.

      ‘You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me about him? He means you no good.’

      ‘Stop, Jim!’ she exclaimed. ‘You must not say anything against him. I love him.’

      ‘Why, you don’t even know his name,’ answered the lad. ‘Who is he? I have a right to know.’

      ‘He is called Prince Charming. Don’t you like the name? Oh! you silly boy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, you would think him the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will meet him: when you come back from Australia. You will like him so much. Everybody likes him, and I…love him. I wish you could come to the theatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet. Oh! how I shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to surpass one’s self. Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting “genius” to his loafers at the bar. He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he will announce me as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his only, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. But I am poor beside him. Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window. Our proverbs want re-writing. They were made in winter, and it is summer now; springtime for me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies.’

      ‘He is a gentleman,’ said the lad, sullenly.

      ‘A prince!’ she cried, musically. ‘What more do you want?’

      ‘He wants to enslave you.’

      ‘I shudder at the thought of being free.’

      ‘I want you to beware of him.’

      ‘To see him is to worship him, to know him is to trust him.’

      ‘Sibyl, you are mad about him.’

      She laughed, and took his arm. ‘You dear old Jim, you talk as if you were a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. Then you will know what it is. Don’t look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to think that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have ever been before. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and difficult. But it will be different now. You are going to a new world, and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down and see the smart people go by.’

      They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulip-beds across the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white dust, tremulous cloud of orrisroot it seemed, hung in the panting air. The brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous butterflies.

      She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. He spoke slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other as players at a game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not communicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all the echo she could win. After some time she became silent. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open carriage with two ladies

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