Nancy Part 16

"He seems to have told you a great many things."

"Yes," reply I, "but then I asked him a great many questions: our conversation was rather like the catechism: the moment I stopped asking _him_ questions, he began asking me!"

CHAPTER XII.

Three long days--all blue and gold--blue sky and gold suns.h.i.+ne--roll away. If Schmidt, the courier, _has_ a fault, it is over-driving us. We visit the Grune Gewolbe, the j.a.panese Palace, the Zwinger--and we visit them _alone_. Dresden is not a very large place, yet in no part of it, in none of its bright streets--in neither its old nor its new market, in none of its public places, do I catch a glimpse of my new acquaintance.

Neither does he come to call. This last fact surprises me a little, and disappoints me a good deal. Our walk at the Linnisches Bad in the gay lamplight, his character, his conversation, even his appearance, begin to undergo a transformation in my mind. After all, he was not _really_ dark--not one of those black men, against whom Barbara and I have always lifted up our testimonies; by daylight, I think his eyes would have been hazel. He certainly was very easy to talk to. One had not to pump up conversation for him, and I do not suppose that, _as men go_, he was _really_ very touchy. One cannot expect everybody to be so jest-hardened and robustly good-tempered as the boys. Often before now I have only been able to gauge the unfortunateness of my speeches to men, by the rasping effect they have had on their tempers, and which has often taken me honestly by surprise.

"_Again_, Mr. Musgrave has not been to call," say I, one afternoon, on returning from a long and rather grilling drive, speaking in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Did you expect that he would?" asks Sir Roger, with a smile. "I think that, after the searching snub you gave him, he would have been a bolder man than I take him for, if he had risked his head in the lion's mouth."

"_Am_ I such a lion?" say I, with an accent of vexation. "_Did_ I snub him? I am sure I had no more idea of snubbing him than I had of snubbing _you_; that is the way in which I always cut my own throat!"

I draw a chair into the balcony, where he has already established himself with his cigar, and sit down beside him.

"I foresee," say I, beginning to laugh rather grimly, "that a desert will spread all round our house! your friends will disappear before my tongue, like morning mist."

"Let them!"

After a pause, edging a little nearer to him, and, regardless of the hay-carts in the market below--laying my fair-haired head on his shoulder:

"What _could_ have made you marry such a _shrew_? I believe it was the purest philanthropy."

"That was it!" he answers, fondly. "To save any other poor fellow from such an infliction!"

"Quite unnecessary!" rejoin I, shaking my head. "If you had not married me, it is very certain that n.o.body else would!"

Another day has come. It is hot afternoon. Sir Roger is reading the _Times_ in our balcony, and I am strolling along the dazzling streets by myself. What can equal the white glare of a foreign town? I am strolling along by myself under a big sun-shade. My progress is slow, as my nose has a disposition to flatten itself against every shop-window--saving, perhaps, the cigar ones. A grave problem is engaging my mind. What present am I to take to father? It is this question which moiders our young brains as often as his birthday recurs. My thoughts are trailing back over all our former gifts to him. This year we gave him a spectacle-case (he is short-sighted); last year a pocket-book; the year before, an inkstand. What is there left to give him? A cigar-case? He does not smoke. A hunting-flask? He has half a dozen. A Norwegian stove?

He does not approve of them, but says that men ought to be satisfied with sandwiches out shooting. A telescope? He never lifts his eyes high enough above our delinquencies to look at the stars. I cannot arrive at any approximation to a decision. As I issue from a china-shop, with a brown-paper parcel under my arm, and out on the hot and glaring flags, I see a young man come stepping down the street, with a long, loose, British stride; a young man, pale and comely, and a good deal worn out by the flies, that have also eaten most of me.

"How are you?" cry I, hastily s.h.i.+fting my umbrella to the other hand, so as to have my right one ready to offer him. "Are not these streets blinding? I am blinking like an owl in daylight!--so you never came to see us, after all!"

"It was so likely that I should!" he answers, with his nose in the air.

"Very likely!" reply I, taking him literally; "so likely that I have been expecting you every day."

"You seem to forget--confound these flies!"--(as a stout blue-bottle blunders into one flas.h.i.+ng eye)--"you seem to forget that you told me, in so many words, to stay away."

"You _were_ huffy, then!" say I, with an accent of incredulity. "Sir Roger was right! he said you were, and I could not believe it; he was quite sorry for you. He said I had snubbed you so."

"_Snubbed_ me!" reddening self-consciously, and drawing himself up as if he did not much relish the application of the word. "I do not often give any one the chance of doing that _twice_!"

"You are not going to be offended _again_, I suppose," say I, apprehensively; "it must be with Sir Roger this time, if you are! it was he that was sorry for you, not _I_."

We look at each other under my green sun-shade (his eyes _are_ hazel, by daylight), and then we both burst into a duet of foolish friendly laughter.

"I want you to give me your advice," say I, as we toddle amicably along, side by side. "What would be a nice present for a gentleman--an elderly gentleman--at least _rather_ elderly, who _has_ a spectacle-case, a pocket-book, an inkstand, six Church services, and who does not smoke."

"But he _does_ smoke," says Mr. Musgrave, correcting me. "I _saw_ him the other day."

"Saw _whom_? What--do you mean?"

"Are not you talking of Sir Roger?" he asks, with an accent of surprise.

"_Sir Roger!_" (indignantly). "No, indeed! do you think _he_ wants spectacles? No! I was talking of my father."

"_Your father?_ You are not, like me, a poor misguided orphan, then; you have a father."

"I should think I _had_," reply I, expressively.

"Any brothers? Oh, yes, by-the-by, I know you have! you held them up for my imitation the other day--half a dozen fellows who never take offense at any thing."

"No more they do!" cry I, firing up. "If I tell them when I go home, as I certainly shall, if I remember, that you were out of humor and bore malice for _three_ whole days, because I happened to say that we were generally out-of-doors most of the day--they will not believe it--simply they will not."

"And have you also six sisters?" asks the young man, dexterously s.h.i.+fting the conversation a little.

"No, two."

"And are they _all_ to have presents?--six and two is eight, and your father nine, and--I suppose you have a mother, too?"

"Yes."

"Nine and one is ten--ten brown-paper parcels, each as large as the one you now have under your arm--by-the-by, would you like me to carry it?

_What_ a lot you will have to pay for extra luggage!"

His offer to carry my parcel is so slightly and incidentally made, and is so unaccompanied by any gesture suited to the words, that I decline the attention. The people pa.s.s to and fro in the sun as we pace leisurely along.

"Have you nearly done your shopping?" asks my companion, presently.

"Very nearly."

"What do you say to taking a tour through the gallery?" he says, "or are you sick of the pictures?"

"Far from it," say I, briskly, "but, all the same, I cannot do it; I am going back at once to Sir Roger; we are to drive to Loschwitz: I only came out for a little prowl by myself, to think about father's present!

Sir Roger cannot help me at all," I continue, marching off again into the theme which is uppermost in my thoughts. "_He_ suggested a traveling-bag, but I know that father would _hate_ that."

"To _drive_! this time of day!" cried Mr. Musgrave, in a tone of extreme disapprobation; "will not you get well baked?"

"I dare say," I answer, absently; then, in a low tone to myself, "_why_ does not he smoke? it would be so easy then--a smoking-cap, a tobacco-pouch, a cigar-holder, a hundred things!"

"Is it _quite_ settled about Loschwitz?" asks the young man, with an air of indifference.

"Quite," say I, still not thinking of what I am saying. "That is, no--not quite--nearly--a bag _is_ useful, you know."