第167章 CHAPTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH(2)

"You foolish womans!" he interposed, "she will feel more than the same. I have told you already it was one enormous disappointments to her when she saw the handsome brodder with the fair complexions. Ask your own self what it will be when she sees the ugly brodder with the blue face. I tell you this!--she will think your true man the worst impostor of the two."

There I indignantly contradicted him.

"His face _may_ be a disappointment to her," I said--"I own that. But there it will end. Her hand will tell her, when he takes it, that there is no impostor deceiving her this time."

"Her hand will tell her nothing--no more than yours. I had not so much hard hearts in me as to say that to _her,_ when she asked me. I say it to _you._ Hold your tongue and listen. All those thrill-tingles that she once had when he touched her, belong to anodder time--the time gone-by when her sight was in her fingers and not in her eyes. With those fine-superfine-feelings of the days when she was blind, she pays now for her grand new privilege of opening her eyes on the world. (And worth the price too!) Do you understand yet? It is a sort of swop-bargain between Nature and this poor girls of ours. I take away your eyes--I give you your fine touch. I give you your eyes--I take away your fine touch. Soh! that is plain. You see now."

I was too mortified and too miserable to answer him. Through all our later troubles, I had looked forward so confidently to Oscar's re-appearance as the one sufficient condition on which Lucilla's happiness would be certainly restored! What had become of my anticipations now? I sat silent; staring in stupid depression at the pattern of the carpet. Grosse took out his watch.

"Your ten-minutes-time has counted himself out," he said.

I neither moved nor heeded him. His ferocious eyes began to flame again behind his monstrous spectacles.

"Go-be-off-with-you!" he shouted at me as if I was deaf. "Her eyes! her eyes! While you stop chatterboxing here, her eyes are in danger. What with her frettings and her cryings and her damn-nonsense-lofe-business, I swear you my solemn oath her sight was in danger when I saw her a whole fortnight gone-by. Do you want my big pillow to fly bang at your head?

You don't want him? Be-off-away with you then, or you will have him in one-two-three time! Be-off-away--and bring her back to me before night!"

I returned to the railway. Of all the women whom I passed in the crowded streets, I doubt if one had a heavier heart in her bosom that morning than mine.

To make matters worse still, my traveling companions (one in the refreshment-room, and one pacing the platform) received my account of my interview with Grosse in a manner which seriously disappointed and discouraged me. Mr. Finch's inhuman conceit treated my melancholy news of his daughter as a species of complimentary tribute to his own foresight.

"You remember, Madame Pratolungo, I took high ground in this matter from the first. I protested against the proceedings of the man Grosse, as involving a purely worldly interference with the ways of an inscrutable Providence. With what effect? My paternal influence was repudiated; my Moral Weight was, so to speak, set aside. And now you see the result.

Take it to heart, dear friend. May it be a warning to you!" He sighed with ponderous complacency, and turned from me to the girl behind the counter. "I will take another cup of tea."

Oscar's reception of me, when I found him on the platform, and told him next of Lucilla's critical state, was more than discouraging. It is no exaggeration to say that he alarmed me. "Another item in the debt I owe to Nugent!" he said. Not a word of sympathy, not a word of sorrow. That vindictive answer, and nothing more.

We started for Sydenham.

From time to time, I looked at Oscar sitting opposite to me, to see if any change appeared in him as we drew nearer and nearer to the place in which Lucilla was now living. No! Still the same ominous silence, the same unnatural self-repression possessed him.

Except the momentary outbreak, when Mr. Finch had placed Nugent's letter in his hand on the previous evening, not the faintest token of what was really going on in his mind had escaped him since we had left Marseilles.

He, who could weep over all his other griefs as easily and as spontaneously as a woman, had not shed a tear since the fatal day when he had discovered that his brother had played him false--that brother who had been the god of his idolatry, the sacred object of his gratitude and his love! When a man of Oscar's temperament becomes frozen up for days together in his own thoughts--when he keeps his own counsel; when he asks for no sympathy, and utters no complaint--the sign is a serious one.

There are hidden forces gathering in him which will burst their way to the surface--for good or for evil--with an irresistible result. Watching Oscar attentively behind my veil, I felt the certain assurance that the part he would take in the terrible conflict of interests now awaiting us, would be a part which I should remember to the latest day of my life.

We reached Sydenham, and went to the nearest hotel.

On the railway--with other travelers in the carriage-it had been impossible to consult on the safest method of approaching Lucilla, in the first instance. That serious question now pressed for instant decision.

We sat down to discuss it, in the room which we had hired at the hotel.