Herb of Grace | Page 7

me?" asked Malcolm dubiously. "My dear boy," as Cedric grew rather red and pulled his budding moustache in an affronted manner, "I know you were good enough to invite me, but I understood from you that your sisters were the owners of the Wood House, and as I have not yet made their acquaintance--"
"Hang it all, Herrick, I suppose a fellow can see his friends sometimes, even if he is dependent on his sisters," and Cedric's tone was decidedly sulky. "Besides, Dinah sent you a message--she and Elizabeth will be delighted to see you, and all that sort of thing, and they hoped you would stay as long as possible."
"I am glad you told me that," returned Malcolm, with a relieved air. In reality he had been secretly much embarrassed by Cedric's invitation. "You know, my dear fellow, how pleased I am to be introduced to your people, and it is most kind of Miss Templeton to send me that message."
"Oh, Dinah is a good old sort," returned the lad carelessly. The cloud had vanished from his face. "Well, Herrick, what do you say about putting me up? There are two or three things I want to do in town, and it is a bore staying on at the Briars now old Fred has gone."
"When do you want to come to me?" asked Malcolm. "I am to sleep at Queen's Gate the next two nights, and I have promised to take Miss Sheldon out to-morrow. She is my mother's adopted daughter, you know--Anna Sheldon. I have often mentioned her to you."
Then Cedric nodded.
"I shall be back at Chelsea on Friday, if you like to come to me then; but the guest-chamber is remarkably small--at present it holds all my lumber and little else." But as Cedric professed himself indifferent on the subject of his own comfort--an assertion that drew a covert smile from his friend's lips--the matter was soon settled.
An animated conversation ensued, consisting mainly of a disjointed monologue on Cedric's part; for Malcolm Herrick only contributed a laconic remark or question at intervals, but there was a kindly gleam in his eyes as he listened, as though the fair, closely- cropped head lying back on the shabby cushion, with the eager bright young face, was a goodly spectacle.
At first sight the friendship between these two men seemed singularly ill-assorted; for what possible affinity could there be between a thoughtful, intellectual man like Malcolm Herrick, with his habitual reserve, his nature refined, critical, and yet imaginative, with its strong bias to pessimism, and its intolerance of all shams, and Cedric, with his facile, pleasure-loving temperament, at once indolent and mercurial--a creature of moods and tenses, as fiery as a Welshman, but full of lovable and generous impulses?
The disparity between their ages also seemed to forbid anything like equality of sympathy. Malcolm was at least eight or nine years older, and at times he seemed middle-aged in Cedric's eyes. "He is such a regular old fossil," he would say--"such a cut and dried specimen of humanity, that it is impossible to keep in touch with him; it stands to reason that we must clash a bit; but there, in spite of his cranks, Herrick is a good fellow." But, notwithstanding this faint praise, the inhabitants of the Wood House knew well that there was no one whom Cedric valued more than his friend Malcolm Herrick.
CHAPTER II
FALLEN AMONG THIEVES
Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit.--EMERSON.
Malcolm Herrick was a devout disciple of Emerson. He always spoke of him as one of the master minds that dominated humanity. "He is the chosen Gamaliel at whose feet I could sit for ever," he would say; "on every subject he speaks well and wisely;" and once, when he was strolling through Kensington Gardens with his sister-friend, Anna Sheldon, he had electrified her by quoting a favourite passage from his essay on friendship.
"Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or look, his real sympathy. I am equally baulked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself.... Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo."
Malcolm had uttered the last sentence in rather a tragic tone, but he was somewhat offended when the girl laughed. "What an odd idea!" she observed innocently. "I should strongly object to anything so