Misplaced sympathy is
the least available of superfluities, and Bernard at this time found
himself thinking that there was a good deal of impertinence in the
world. He would, however, readily have confessed that, in so far as he
failed to enjoy his Oriental wanderings, the fault was his own; though
he would have made mentally the gratifying reflection that never was
a fault less deliberate. If, during the period of which I speak, his
natural gayety had sunk to a minor key, a partial explanation may
be found in the fact that he was deprived of the society of his late
companion. It was an odd circumstance that the two young men had not met
since Gordon's abrupt departure from Baden. Gordon went to Berlin, and
shortly afterward to America, so that they were on opposite sides of the
globe. Before he returned to his own country, Bernard made by letter two
or three offers to join him in Europe, anywhere that was agreeable to
him. Gordon answered that his movements were very uncertain, and that he
should be sorry to trouble Bernard to follow him about. He had put him
to this inconvenience in making him travel from Venice to Baden, and
one such favor at a time was enough to ask, even of the most obliging of
men.
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