And your
husband will be a rich man, my dear girl, a really wealthy man; and you
must see that he makes a fitting use of his wealth, and does his duty to
society. The parable of the Talents, which you were reading to me this
afternoon, is a moral lesson your husband must not forget."
After this fashion did the invalid discourse. Gustave and Diana perceived
that he still hoped to have his share in their future life, still looked
to pleasant days to come in a world which he had loved, not wisely, but
too well. Nor could they find it in their hearts to tell him that his
journey was drawing to a close, and that on the very threshold of the
peaceful home which his diplomatic arts had helped to secure, he was to
abandon life's weary race.
They indulged his hopes a little, in order to win him the more easily to
serious thoughts; but though at times quite ready to abandon himself to a
penitential mood that was almost maudlin, there were other times when the
old Adam asserted himself, and the Captain resented this intrusion of
serious subjects as a kind of impertinence.
"I am not aware that I am at my last gasp, Diana," he said with dignity,
on one of these occasions; "or that I need to be talked to by my own
daughter as if I were on my deathbed. I can show you men some years my
senior driving their phaetons-and-pairs in that Park. The Gospel is all
very well in its place--during Sunday-morning service, and after morning
prayers, in your good old county families, where the household is large
enough to make a fair show at the end of the dining-room, without
bringing in hulking lads who smell of the stables: but I consider that
when a man is ill, there is a considerable want of tact in bringing the
subject of religion before him in any obtrusive manner.
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