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‘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! Let me put a question
first. Did you come with me quite-platonically?’
‘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 de-
siring 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 grave-
ly.
These two were gentlemen of a race which is not distin-
guished by the absence of reserve, and they had travelled
together from London to Rome without an allusion to mat-
ters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an
old subject they had once discussed, but it had lost its recog-
nized 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.
‘I recommend you to get the doctor’s consent, all the
same,’ Lord Warburton went on, abruptly, after an interval.

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