‘What the deuce then did you come for?’ his lordship enquired.

‘Because the idea took me. I see it won’t do. It really doesn’t matter where I am now. I’ve exhausted all remedies, I’ve swallowed all climates. As I’m here I’ll stay. I haven’t a single cousin in Sicily—much less a married one.’

‘Your cousin’s certainly an inducement. But what does the doctor say?’

‘I haven’t asked him, and I don’t care a fig. If I die here Mrs Osmond will bury me. But I shall not die here.’

‘I hope not.’ Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflectively. ‘Well, I must say,’ he resumed, ‘for myself I’m very glad you don’t insist on Sicily. I had a horror of that journey.’

‘Ah, but for you it needn’t have mattered. I had no idea of dragging you in my train.’

‘I certainly didn’t mean to let you go alone.’

‘My dear Warburton, I never expected you to come further than this,’ Ralph cried.

‘I should have gone with you and seen you settled,’ said Lord Warburton.

‘You’re a very good Christian. You’re a very kind man.’

‘Then I should have come back here.’

‘And then you’d have gone to England.’

‘No, no; I should have stayed.’

‘Well,’ said Ralph, ‘if that’s what we are both up to, I don’t see where Sicily comes in!’

His companion was silent; he sat staring at the fire. At last, looking up, ‘I say, tell me this,’ he broke out; ‘did you really mean to go to Sicily when we started?’

‘Ah, vous m’en demandez trop!⁴ Let me put a question first. Did you come with me quite—platonically?’⁵

‘I don’t know what you mean by that. I wanted to come abroad.’

‘I suspect we’ve each been playing our little game.’

‘Speak for yourself. I made no secret whatever of my desiring to be here a while.’

‘Yes, I remember you said you wished to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs.’

‘I’ve seen him three times. He’s very amusing.’

‘I think you’ve forgotten what you came for,’ said Ralph.

‘Perhaps I have,’ his companion answered rather gravely.

These two were gentlemen of a race which is not distinguished by the absence of reserve, and they had travelled together from London to Rome without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an old subject they had once discussed, but it had lost its recognized place in their attention, and even after their arrival in Rome, where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half-diffident, half-confident silence.