His manner altered as he spoke the last words.  The look of sorrow and alarm which he fixed on me, went to my heart.  I thought of holiday-time, when we were boys; of Ralph’s boisterous ways with me; of his good-humoured school-frolics, at my expense; of the strong bond of union between us, so strangely compounded of my weakness and his strength; of my passive and of his active nature; I saw how little he had changed since that time, and knew, as I never knew before, how miserably I was altered.  All the shame and grief of my banishment from home came back on me, at sight of his friendly, familiar face.  I struggled hard to keep my self-possession, and tried to bid him welcome cheerfully; but the effort was too much for me.  I turned away my head, as I took his hand; for the old school-boy feeling of not letting Ralph see that I was in tears, influenced me still.

“Basil!  Basil! what are you about?  This won’t do.  Look up, and listen to me.  I have promised Clara to pull you through this wretched mess; and I’ll do it.  Get a chair, and give me a light.  I’m going to sit on your bed, smoke a cigar, and have a long talk with you.”

While he was lighting his cigar, I looked more closely at him than before.  Though he was the same as ever in manner; though his expression still preserved its reckless levity of former days, I now detected that he had changed a little in some other respects.  His features had become coarser—­dissipation had begun to mark them.  His spare, active, muscular figure had filled out; he was dressed rather carelessly; and of all his trinkets and chains of early times, not one appeared about him now.  Ralph looked prematurely middle-aged, since I had seen him last.

“Well,” he began, “first of all, about my coming back.  The fact is, the morganatic Mrs. Ralph—­” (he referred to his last mistress) “wanted to see England, and I was tired of being abroad.  So I brought her back with me; and we’re going to live quietly, somewhere in the Brompton neighbourhood.  That woman has been my salvation—­you must come and see her.  She has broke me of gaming altogether; I was going to the devil as fast as I could, when she stopped me—­but you know all about it, of course.  Well:  we got to London yesterday afternoon; and in the evening I left her at the hotel, and went to report myself at home.  There, the first thing I heard, was that you had cut me out of my old original distinction of being the family scamp.  Don’t look distressed, Basil; I’m not laughing at you; I’ve come to do something better than that.  Never mind my talk:  nothing in the world ever was serious to me, and nothing ever will be.”

He stopped to knock the ash off his cigar, and settle himself more comfortably on my bed; then proceeded.