And yet, when I had parted from him and was making
my way somewhat wearily to my own quarters, my first dubious impression
remained. My imagination was busy with the story I had heard, striving
quite vainly to supply omissions, to fill in meagre outlines. Yes! quite
vainly! the figure of the Romanoff was left, ambiguous and unexplained;
hardly acquitted in my mind of a certain callousness, an ingratitude almost
vulgar as it started out from time to time, in contraposition against that
forlorn old age.
III
I saw him once more at the little restaurant in Soho, before a sudden
change of fortune, calling me abroad for an absence, as it happened, of
years, closed the habit of our society. He gave me the god-speed of a
brother artist, though mine was not the way of music, with many prophesies
of my success; and the pressure of his hand, as he took leave of me, was
tremulous.
'I am an old man, monsieur, and we may not meet again, in this world. I
wish you all the chances you deserve in Paris; but I--I shall greatly miss
you. If you come back in time, you will find me in the old places; and if
not--there are things of mine, which I should wish you to have, that shall
be sent you.
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