The Rose and the Key by Sheridan Le Fanu--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Sheridan Le Fanu

Author:Sheridan Le Fanu [LE FANU, SHERIDAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 13 of 25 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2017-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XLV.

THE JOURNEY’S END.

For nearly three miles they drove in silence, each too comfortable to disturb the serenity of his ruminations.

There is a soothing influence in the subsidence of colour and the indistinctness of outline that surround one in a drive through a wooded country, when the thin mists arise by moonlight; and this seemed to prevail with the spirit of each gentleman, as he looked listlessly from his window.

Doctor Malkin broke the silence first.

“What asses young fellows are!” he declaimed. “I had an uncle the head of a great legal firm, and two first cousins solicitors, and they, one and all, wished me to go to the bar. I might have been making four thousand a year easily by this time. I might have been on the high road to the bench. Every one said I had a turn for it. But, like a fool, I took a fancy to be a doctor — and even so, I might have stayed in London. If I had — it was on the cards — I might have done some good. I know something about my business, I believe. And much good has it done me! What’s the good of a fellow’s making a slave of himself, if he doesn’t put by something worth while. Better to enjoy what he has.”

“Regretting is the greatest waste of time except wishing,” said Antomarchi, in his cold, resonant bass tones.

“I have not much, very little: but liberty is something,” said Doctor Malkin.

“Life without progress is death,” insisted the same marble oracle, with something of scorn ringing in his deep voice.

“Think what Paris is, or Vienna, and think, then, of being stuck in such a cursed little hole as Roydon,” said Doctor Malkin, with disgust.

“Your liberty and your vices are not resources enough for a life. A man of any mind must have a game of some sort to play at,” observed Antomarchi.

“You may laugh. I don’t say you are not a man of merit; I think you about the ablest man I ever met,” said the Roydon doctor; “but you have found a short cut to fortune.”

“You must count on a good deal of mud before you turn up a nugget,” said the man with the square beard, and yawned. “I was on my way to London this morning,” Doctor Antomarchi suddenly resumed; “I am not the first man who has so changed his purpose. A lady’s billet has brought me back. Try one of these.”

And so saying, he tendered his cigars.

“Thanks. I tell you, at a single jump you have reached a fortune,” said Doctor Malkin. “I wish I could woo the goddess as successfully.”

“Have you never tried the language of the eyes?” said Antomarchi.

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