'Dear old fellow,' Eugene began with Lightwood, reaching up his hand, 'you couldn't have come at a better time, for my mind is full, and I want to empty it. First, of my present, before I touch upon my future. M. R. F., who is a much younger cavalier than I, and a professed admirer of beauty, was so affable as to remark the other day (he paid us a visit of two days up the river there, and much objected to the accommodation of the hotel), that Lizzie ought to have her portrait painted. Which, coming from M. R. F., may be considered equivalent to a melodramatic blessing.'
'You are getting well,' said Mortimer, with a smile.
'Really,' said Eugene, 'I mean it. When M. R. F. said that, and followed it up by rolling the claret (for which he called, and Ipaid), in his mouth, and saying, "My dear son, why do you drink this trash?" it was tantamount in him--to a paternal benediction on our union, accompanied with a gush of tears. The coolness of M. R. F. is not to be measured by ordinary standards.'
'True enough,' said Lightwood.
'That's all,' pursued Eugene, 'that I shall ever hear from M. R. F. on the subject, and he will continue to saunter through the world with his hat on one side. My marriage being thus solemnly recognized at the family altar, I have no further trouble on that score. Next, you really have done wonders for me, Mortimer, in easing my money-perplexities, and with such a guardian and steward beside me, as the preserver of my life (I am hardly strong yet, you see, for I am not man enough to refer to her without a trembling voice--she is so inexpressibly dear to me, Mortimer!), the little that I can call my own will be more than it ever has been.
It need be more, for you know what it always has been in my hands. Nothing.'
'Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small income (Idevoutly wish that my grandfather had left it to the Ocean rather than to me!) has been an effective Something, in the way of preventing me from turning to at Anything. And I think yours has been much the same.'
'There spake the voice of wisdom,' said Eugene. 'We are shepherds both. In turning to at last, we turn to in earnest. Let us say no more of that, for a few years to come. Now, I have had an idea, Mortimer, of taking myself and my wife to one of the colonies, and working at my vocation there.'
'I should be lost without you, Eugene; but you may be right.'
'No,' said Eugene, emphatically. 'Not right. Wrong!'
He said it with such a lively--almost angry--flash, that Mortimer showed himself greatly surprised.
'You think this thumped head of mine is excited?' Eugene went on, with a high look; 'not so, believe me. I can say to you of the healthful music of my pulse what Hamlet said of his. My blood is up, but wholesomely up, when I think of it. Tell me! Shall I turn coward to Lizzie, and sneak away with her, as if I were ashamed of her! Where would your friend's part in this world be, Mortimer, if she had turned coward to him, and on immeasurably better occasion?'
'Honourable and stanch,' said Lightwood. 'And yet, Eugene--'
'And yet what, Mortimer?'
'And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her sake, I say for her sake) any slight coldness towards her on the part of--Society?'
'O! You and I may well stumble at the word,' returned Eugene, laughing. 'Do we mean our Tippins?'
'Perhaps we do,' said Mortimer, laughing also.
'Faith, we DO!' returned Eugene, with great animation. 'We may hide behind the bush and beat about it, but we DO! Now, my wife is something nearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, and Iowe her a little more than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I ever was of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out to the last gasp, with her and for her, here, in the open field.
When I hide her, or strike for her, faint-heartedly, in a hole or a corner, do you whom I love next best upon earth, tell me what Ishall most righteously deserve to be told:--that she would have done well to turn me over with her foot that night when I lay bleeding to death, and spat in my dastard face.'
The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words, so irradiated his features that he looked, for the time, as though he had never been mutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond, and they discoursed of the future until Lizzie came back. After resuming her place at his side, and tenderly touching his hands and his head, she said:
'Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have stayed with you. You are more flushed than you have been for many days.
What have you been doing?'
'Nothing,' replied Eugene, 'but looking forward to your coming back.'
'And talking to Mr Lightwood,' said Lizzie, turning to him with a smile. 'But it cannot have been Society that disturbed you.'
'Faith, my dear love!' retorted Eugene, in his old airy manner, as he laughed and kissed her, 'I rather think it WAS Society though!'
The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood's thoughts as he went home to the Temple that night, that he resolved to take a look at Society, which he had not seen for a considerable period.
