"I roll over to the other side, and encounter him or his twin brother there. A perfectly silent little devil this time, with a faculty for calling up pictures. He shows me the office: I see it, I smell it, with its flaring gaslights and sickly atmosphere. Then he shows me the long drawing-room at Brackenhill, the quaint old furniture, the pictures on the walls, the terrace with its balustrade and balls of mossy stone, and through the windows come odors of jasmine and roses and far-off fields, while inside there is the sweetness of dried blossoms and spices in the great china jars. A moment more and it is Bellevue street, with its rows of hideous whited houses. And then again it is a river, curving swiftly and grandly between its castled rocks, or a bridge of many arches in the twilight, and the lights coming out one by one in the old walled town, and the road and river travelling one knows not where, into regions just falling asleep in the quiet dusk. Or there is a holiday crowd, a moonlit ferry, steep wooded hills, and songs and laughter which echo in the streets and float across the tide. Or the Alps, keenly cut against the infinite depth of blue, with a whiteness and a far-off glory no tongue can utter. Or a solemn cathedral, or a busy town piled up, with church and castle high aloft and a still, transparent lake below. But through it all, and underlying it all, is Bellevue street, with the dirty men and women, who scream and shout at each other and wrangle in its filthy courts and alleys. Still, God knows that I don't repent, and that I wish my little cousin well."
In later days Percival looked back to that Christmas as his worst and darkest time. His pride had grown morbid, and he swore to himself that he would never give in--that Horace should never know him otherwise than self-sufficient, should never think that but for Mrs. Middleton's or Godfrey Hammond's charity he might have had his cousin as a pensioner. Brooding on thoughts such as these, he sauntered moodily beneath the lamps when the new year was but two days old.
His progress was stopped by a little crowd collected on the pavement. There was a concert, and a string of carriages stretched halfway down the street. Just as Percival came up, a girl in white and amber, with flowers in her hair, flitted hurriedly across the path and up the steps, and stood glancing back while a fair-haired, faultlessly-dressed young man helped her mother to alight. The father came last, sleek, stout and important. The old people went on in front, and the girl followed with her cavalier, looking up at him and making some bright little speech as they vanished into the building. Percival stood and gazed for a moment, then turned round and hurried out of the crowd. The grace and freshness and happy beauty of the girl had roused a fierce longing in his heart. He wanted to touch a lady's hand again, to hear the delicate accents of a lady's voice. He remembered how he used to dress himself as that fair-haired young man was dressed, and escort Aunt Harriet and Sissy to Fordborough entertainments, where the best places were always kept for the Brackenhill party. It was dull enough sometimes, yet how he longed for one such evening now--to hand the cups once again at afternoon tea, to talk just a little with some girl on the old terms of equality! The longing was not the less real, and even passionate, that it seemed to Thorne himself to be utterly absurd. He mocked at himself as he walked the streets for a couple of hours, and then went back when the concert was just over and the people coming away. He watched till the girl appeared. She looked a little tired, he fancied. As she came out into the chill night air she drew a soft white cloak round her, and went by, quite unconscious of the dark young man who stood near the door and followed her with his eyes. The sombre apparition might have startled her had she noticed it, though Percival was only gazing at the ghost of his dead life, and, having seen it, disappeared into the shadows once more.