would be only too ready to carry off Lily in their splendid cars. But not the less did he make up his mind that having loved her once, it behoved him, as a true man, to love her on to the end.
One little word he had said to her when they parted, but it had been a word of friendship rather than of love. He had strayed out after her on to the lawn, leaving Bell alone in the drawing-room. Perhaps Lily had understood something of the boy's feelings, and had wished to speak kindly to him at parting, or almost more than kindly. There is a silent love which women recognise, and which in some silent way they acknowledge,—giving gracious but silent thanks for the respect which accompanies it.
'I have come to say good-bye, Lily,' said Johnny Eames, following the girl down one of the paths.
'Good-bye, John,' said she, turning round. 'You know how sorry we are to lose you. But it's a great thing for you to be going up to London.'
'Well, yes. I suppose it is. I'd sooner remain here, though.'
'What! stay here, doing nothing! I am sure you would not.'
'Of course, I should like to do something. I mean—'
'You mean that it is painful to part with old friends; and I'm sure that we all feel that at parting with you. But you'll have a holiday sometimes, and then we shall see you.'
'Yes; of course, I shall see you then. I think, Lily, I shall care more about seeing you than anybody.'
'Oh, no, John. There'll be your own mother and sister.'
'Yes; there'll be mother and Mary, of course. But I will come over here the very first day,—that is, if you'll care to see me?'
'We shall care to see you very much. You know that. And—dear John, I do hope you'll be happy.'
There was a tone in her voice as she spoke which almost upset him; or, I should rather say, which almost put him up upon his legs and made him speak; but its ultimate effect was less powerful. 'Do you?' said he, as he held her hand for a few happy seconds. 'And I'm sure I hope you'll always be happy. Good-bye, Lily.' Then he left her, returning to the house, and she continued her walk, wandering down among the trees in the shrubbery, and not showing herself for the next half hour. How many girls have some such lover as that,—a lover who says no more to them than Johnny Eames then said to Lily Dale, who never says more than that? And yet when, in after years, they count over the names of all who have loved them, the name of that awkward youth is never forgotten.
That farewell had been spoken nearly two years since, and Lily Dale was then seventeen. Since that time, John Eames had been home once, and during his month's holiday had often visited Allington. But he had never improved upon that occasion of which I have told. It had seemed to him that Lily was colder to him than in old days, and he had become, if anything, more shy in his ways with her. He was to return to Guestwick again during this autumn; but, to tell honestly the truth in the matter, Lily Dale did not think or care very much for his coming. Girls of nineteen do not care for lovers of one-and-twenty, unless it be when the fruit has had the advantage of some forcing apparatus or southern wall.
John Eames's love was still as hot as ever, having been sustained on poetry, and kept alive, perhaps, by some close confidence in the ears of a brother clerk; but it is not to be supposed that during these two years he had been a melancholy lover. It might, perhaps, have been better for him had his disposition led him to that line of life. Such, however, had not been the case. He had already abandoned the flute on which he had learned to sound three sad notes before he left Guestwick, and, after the fifth or sixth Sunday, he had relinquished his solitary walks along the towing-path of the Regent's Park Canal. To think of one's absent love is very sweet; but it becomes monotonous after a mile or two of a towing-path, and the mind will turn away to Aunt Sally, the Cremorne Gardens, and financial questions. I doubt whether any girl would be satisfied with her lover's mind if she knew the whole of it.
'I say, Caudle, I wonder whether a fellow could get into a club?'
This proposition was made, on one of those Sunday walks, by John Eames to the friend of his bosom, a brother clerk, whose legitimate name was Cradell, and who was therefore called Caudle by his friends.
'Get into a club? Fisher in our room belongs to a club.'
'That's only a chess-club. I mean a regular club.'
'One of the swell ones at the West End?' said Cradell, almost lost in admiration at the ambition of his friend.
'I shouldn't want it to be particularly swell. If a man isn't a swell, I don't see what he gets by going among those who are. But it is so uncommon slow at Mother Roper's.' Now Mrs Roper was a respectable lady, who kept a boarding-house in Burton Crescent, and to whom Mrs Eames had been strongly recommended when she was desirous
