Harry came at the summons without a moment’s delay. He brought a full report of all the business to lay before his chief. The Vice-Consul, notwithstanding his dreary thoughts, was making unmistakable progress. He was better every day. He was able to take an interest in all that his deputy had to tell him, and to feel the gratification which all the office had shared in baffling the man from Florence, and showing him a state of affairs with which no fault could be found.
“I told him, Sir, that your business was always in too perfect order to break down with such a little trial. I showed him how we had only to follow your rule, and all was clear.” Mr. Bonamy laid his thin hand upon the young fellow’s shoulder, and patted it softly.
“I wonder,” he said, “if you would say as much for me if I had no daughter?”
“Yes,” said Harry, with the utmost energy; “don’t think, Sir, that I had any interested motive.” This pleased the Vice-Consul; and it pleased him too that Harry resented with scorn, and almost indignation, the idea that he might not return to his work, or that this illness of his was a break up, as in his heart Mr. Bonamy believed it to be. Harry knew nothing whatever about medicine, but his light-hearted certainty that his patron would be in the office again in October as well as ever, gave a cheer to the sick man’s failing heart, as shouts of encouragement from the shore, and the sight of all the eager assistants ready to help and watching every struggle, cheer a vessel which is trying to reach a dangerous harbour. There began to steal into his heart a feeling that, perhaps--after all. Notwithstanding he held by his first resolution. He had a long conversation with Harry, which had nothing to do with business. The young man never forgot that half hour’s talk, with the sea air blowing softly over all the sweetness of the garden, the cicala in the trees, the sound of the Mediterranean beyond. Harry thought that once or twice he saw in the dim room beyond a little white figure appear in the distance, opening a door, looking wistfully to see if the conference was nearly at an end, then disappearing again. And though the Vice-Consul was opening the gates of heaven to him, at that moment even Mr. Bonamy seemed tedious. The last time the apparition showed the Vice-Consul had gripped Harry’s hand with those long worn fingers, which he called claws, not without a certain justice. “And you must give me your word never to take her to England,” he was saying, in a low and earnest voice. But before Harry could reply, Rita, impatient, had come across the dim room indoors, and was standing in the window with a pucker in her forehead, and a tone of querulous impatience.