“For fear there might be mistakes, I thought it better to come myself,” said Mr. Glascock. “You did not wish to see Sir Marmaduke?”
“Certainly not Sir Marmaduke,” said Trevelyan, with a look of anger that was almost grotesque.
“And you thought it better that Mrs. Trevelyan should not come.”
“Yes;—I thought it better;—but not from any feeling of anger towards her. If I could welcome my wife here, Mr. Glascock, without a risk of wrath on her part, I should be very happy to receive her. I love my wife, Mr. Glascock. I love her dearly. But there have been misfortunes. Never mind. There is no reason why I should trouble you with them. Let us go in to breakfast. After your drive you will have an appetite.”
Poor Mr. Glascock was afraid to decline to sit down to the meal which was prepared for him. He did mutter something about having already eaten, but Trevelyan put this aside with a wave of his hand as he led the way into a spacious room, in which had been set out a table with almost a sumptuous banquet. The room was very bare and comfortless, having neither curtains nor matting, and containing not above half a dozen chairs. But an effort had been made to give it an air of Italian luxury. The windows were thrown open, down to the ground, and the table was decorated with fruits and three or four long-necked bottles. Trevelyan waved with his hand towards an armchair, and Mr. Glascock had no alternative but to seat himself. He felt that he was sitting down to breakfast with a madman; but if he did not sit down, the madman might perhaps break out into madness. Then Trevelyan went to the door and called aloud for Catarina. “In these remote places,” said he, “one has to do without the civilisation of a bell. Perhaps one gains as much in quiet as one loses in comfort.” Then Catarina came with hot meats and fried potatoes, and Mr. Glascock was compelled to help himself.
“I am but a bad trencherman myself,” said Trevelyan, “but I shall lament my misfortune doubly if that should interfere with your appetite.” Then he got up and poured out wine into Mr. Glascock’s glass. “They tell me that it comes from the Baron’s vineyard,” said Trevelyan, alluding to the wine-farm of Ricasoli, “and that there is none better in Tuscany. I never was myself a judge of the grape, but this to me is as palatable as any of the costlier French wines. How grand a thing would wine really be, if it could make glad the heart of man. How truly would one worship Bacchus if he could make one’s heart to rejoice. But if a man have a real sorrow, wine will not wash it away—not though a man were drowned in it, as Clarence was.”
Mr. Glascock hitherto had spoken hardly a word. There was an attempt at joviality about this breakfast—or, at any rate, of the usual comfortable luxury of hospitable entertainment—which, coming as it did from Trevelyan, almost locked his lips. He had not come there to be jovial or luxurious, but to perform a most melancholy mission; and he had brought with him his saddest looks, and was prepared for a few sad words. Trevelyan’s speech, indeed, was sad enough, but Mr. Glascock could not take up questions of the worship of Bacchus at half a minute’s warning. He eat a morsel, and raised his glass to his lips, and felt himself to be very uncomfortable. It was necessary, however, that he should utter a word. “Do you not let your little boy come in to breakfast?” he said.
“He is better away,” said Trevelyan gloomily.
“But as we are to travel together,” said Mr. Glascock, “we might as well make acquaintance.”
“You have been a little hurried with me on that score,” said Trevelyan. “I wrote certainly with a determined mind, but things have changed somewhat since then.”
“You do not mean that you will not send him?”
“You have been somewhat hurried with me, I say. If I remember rightly, I named no time, but spoke of the future. Could I have answered the message which I received from you, I would have postponed your visit for a week or so.”
“Postponed it! Why—I am to be married the day after tomorrow. It was just as much as I was able to do, to come here at all.” Mr. Glascock now pushed his chair back from the table, and prepared himself to speak up. “Your wife expects her child now, and you will break her heart by refusing to send him.”
“Nobody thinks of my heart, Mr. Glascock.”
“But this is your own offer.”
“Yes, it was my own offer, certainly. I am not going to deny my own words, which have no doubt been preserved in testimony against me.”
“Mr. Trevelyan, what do you mean?” Then, when he was on the point of boiling over with passion, Mr. Glascock remembered that his companion was not responsible for his expressions. “I do hope you will let the child go away with me,” he said. “You cannot conceive the state of his mother’s anxiety, and she will send him back at once if you demand it.”
“Is that to be in good faith?”
“Certainly, in good faith. I would lend myself to nothing,
