He gave lip the idea at last, convinced that public life was, for
the most part, a snare and a delusion; and that there were plenty of men in
the world better able to man the great ship than he. Two years ago he
had been more interested in a vestry meeting than he was now in the most
stirring question of the day.
Finally, he determined to travel; wrote a brief letter to Sophia,
announcing his intention; and departed unattended, to roam the world;
undecided whether he should go straight to Marseilles, and then to Africa,
or whether he should turn his face northwards, and explore Norway and
Sweden. It ended by his doing neither. He went to Spa to see his boy, from
whom he had been separated something over two months.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XLIX.
BEGINNING AGAIN.
Mr. Lovel had taken his daughter to Spa, finding that she was quite
indifferent whither she went, so long as her boy went with her. It was a
pleasant sleepy place out of the season, and he liked it; having a fancy
that the mineral waters had done wonders for him. He had a villa on the
skirts of the pine-wood, a little way beyond the town; a villa in which
there was ample room for young Lovel and his attendants, and from which
five minutes' walk took them into shadowy deeps of pine, where the boy
might roll upon the soft short grass.
By and by, Mr. Lovel told Clarissa they could go farther afield, travel
wherever she pleased, in fact; but, for the present, perfect rest and quiet
would be her best medicine.
Pages:
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687