"
"He is all goodness to me," Clarissa answered gravely, casting down her
eyes as she spoke; and Austin Lovel knew that the marriage which had given
his sister Arden Court had been no love-match.
They talked for some time; talked of the old days when they had been
together at Arden; but of the years that made the story of his life, Austin
Lovel spoke very little.
"I have always been an unlucky beggar," he said, in his careless way.
"There's very little use in going over old ground. Some men never get
fairly on the high-road of life. They spend their existence wading across
swamps, and scrambling through bushes, and never reach any particular point
at the end. My career has been that sort of thing."
"But you are so young, Austin," pleaded Clarissa, "and may do so much yet."
He shook his head with an air of hopelessness that was half indifference.
"My dear child, I am neither a Raffaelle nor a Dore," he said, "and I need
be one or the other to redeem my past But so long as I can pick up enough
to keep the little woman yonder and the bairns, and get a decent cigar and
an honest bottle of Bordeaux, I'm content. Ambition departed from me ten
years ago."
"O Austin, I can't bear to hear you say that! With your genius you ought to
do so much. I wish you would be friends with my husband, and that he could
be of use to you."
"My dear Clarissa, put that idea out of your mind at once and for ever.
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