do you love another man?'
'And it is not that,' said Alice shortly, nevertheless looking him full in the face.
A great load was removed from his heart.
'Then it is only,' he said eagerly—'only that you wish to cancel the past? really only that?'
'Really only that,' she repeated with a smile.
'Then,' added Dick, hope rekindling in his heart, 'may I never—that is, won't you hold out to me the least faint spark?'
'I think you had better leave well alone,' said Alice; and she stepped lightly from the boat as she spoke. 'Now I must go in. Will you come, too?'
'No; I must say good-bye.'
'Really? Then good-bye, Dick.' Another sweet smile as she stretched out her hand. 'And come as often as ever you can; you will always be welcome.'
He watched her slim form tripping daintily across the grass.
'Ay, I will come!' he muttered between his teeth; 'and I shall win you yet, Miss Caprice, though I have to begin all over again. To start afresh! How could I have borne the thought yesterday? Yet to-day it must be faced. This minute I give up looking back, and begin to look forward. And it may be better so; for when I win you, as win you I shall, you will be all the dearer to me. I might not have valued you as I ought—who knows? You do not deny me hope; I shan't deny it to myself. You shall be mine, never fear. For the present, have your wish—we are only friends.'
His resolution taken, Dick Edmonstone threw up vain regrets; 'friendly relations' with Alice were duly established, and at first the plan worked tolerably well. They had one or two common interests, fortunately. Alice dabbled in water-colours; in which Dick could help her, and did. In return, Alice took a lively interest in his sketches; and they would sometimes talk of the career to which he was to devote himself. Then there was the river; they were both good oars, and, with Alice, rowing was a passion.
Beyond these things there was little enough to bring them together. In everything else Mr. Miles either stepped in or enjoyed a previous pre-eminence. At first Dick tried hard to hate this man for his own sake, without being jealous of him; but under the circumstances it was impossible for jealousy not to creep in. He certainly distrusted Miles; the man struck him from the first as an adventurer, who had wormed himself by mysterious means into the friendship of the guileless, single-hearted Colonel Bristo; and observation deepened this impression. On the other hand, the pair saw very little of each other. Dick naturally avoided Miles, and Miles—for some good reason of his own—shunned Dick. In fact, the jealous feeling did not arise from anything he saw or heard: the flame was promoted and fed, as it were, at second-hand.
Deep in his heart, poor Dick had counted on being something of a lion (it was only human) on his return from Australia, at least on one hearth besides his own; and lo! a lion occupied that hearth before him—a lion, moreover, of the very same type. The Bristos didn't want to hear Australian experiences, because they had already heard such as could never be surpassed, from the lips of Miles; their palate for bush yarns was destroyed. Dick found himself cut out, in his own line, by Miles. His friends were very hospitable and very kind, but they had no wish to learn his adventures. And those adventures! How he had hoarded them in his mind! how he had dreamed in his vanity of enthralling the Colonel and thrilling Alice! He had hoped at least to interest them; and even in that he failed. Each little reminiscence yawned over, each comparison or allusion ignored—these were slight things with sharp edges. With Alice, it more than once happened that when he touched on his strange experiences she forgot to listen, which wounded him; or if she made him repeat it, it was to cite some far more wonderful story of Mr. Miles—which sowed salt in the wound. Of course vanity was its own cure, and he dropped the subject of Australia altogether; but he was very full of his romantic life, and this took him a day or two, and cost him some moments of bitterness.
So Dick's first fortnight in England passed, and on the whole he believed he had made some sort of progress with Alice. Moreover, he began rather to like wooing her on his merits. On consideration, it was more satisfactory, perhaps, than reviving the old boy-and-girl sentiment as if there had been no four years' hiatus; more satisfactory, because he never doubted that he would win her in the end. It is to be noted that his ideas about one or two things changed in a remarkable degree during those first days.
One morning, when they chanced to be particularly confidential together, Dick said suddenly:
'By the bye, how did you come to know this—Mr. Miles?' He had almost said 'this fellow Miles.'
'Has papa never told you?' Alice asked in surprise.
'No, never.'
'Nor Mr. Miles himself? Ah, no: he would be the last person to speak of it. But I will tell you. Well, then, it was when we were down in Sussex. Papa was bathing (though I had forbidden it), when he was seized with cramp, out of his depth. He must certainly have been drowned; but a great handsome fellow, dressed like a fisherman, saw his distress, rushed into the sea, swam out, and rescued him with the help of a boat. Poor papa, when he came to himself, at once offered the man money; and here came the surprise. The man laughed, refused the money, dived his hand into his own pocket, and threw a sovereign to the boatman who had helped!'
Dick's interest was thoroughly aroused, and he showed it; but he thought to himself: 'That was unnecessary. Why couldn't the fellow keep to the part he was playing?'
And Alice continued: 'Then papa found out that he was a gentleman in disguise—a Mr. Miles, from Sydney! He had been over some months, and was seeing England in thorough fashion. Indeed, he seemed a regular boatman, with his hands all hard and seamed with tar.'
'And your father made friends with him?'
'Naturally; he brought him up to the hotel, where I heard all about the affair. You may imagine the state I was in! After that we saw a good deal of him down there, and papa got to like him very much, and asked him to come and stay with us when he grew tired of that kind of life and returned to London. And that's all.'
'How long did you say it is since he saved your father's life?' Dick asked, after a short pause.
'Let me see, it's—yes, not quite a month ago.'
Dick gave vent to a scarcely audible whistle.
