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Nicholas Freydon was now comfortably installed in rooms on the shady side of North Shore. At the same time I ran over a few variants upon such easy phrases as: 'My rooms at North Shore, 'Snug quarters, 'My boarding-house, 'My landlady, and the like. One must remember that I was less than two years distant from St. Peter's and from Sister Agatha and her cane.
'Have you seen my new book?; or, 'I noticed you published that article of mine yesterday! Presently I found myself in open, scrub-covered country, and singing, quite loudly, the old sailor's doggerel about its being a braw thing to be a 'clairk in an orfiss'; my real thought being that it was a braw thing to be Nicholas Freydon, a clerk in an office, who was very soon to be something quite otherwise.
Rawlence certainly does get all the most interesting people at his place. Landon, the painter, was deep in conversation with Mr. Freydon. No, I don't know what Mr. Freydon does some secretarial appointment, I fancy. He's evidently a great friend of Rawlence's. It is surprising that I can set these things down with no particular sense of shame.
Again, in this record, Freydon always in his writings for the press, literary and journalistic, meticulous in the matter of constructive detail clearly gave no thought to the arrangement of chapters or other divisions. He wrote of his life, as he has said, to enable himself to see it as a whole.
I told him, and he repeated it after me, twice, with a distinct licking of his lips, suggestive of the act of deliberate wine-tasting. 'Good. Yes. Ah! Nicholas Freydon, Nick to his friends, no doubt. Quite a mellifluant name. Nicholas Freydon. Tssp! Very good. You'd hardly think now that my name was George Perkins, would you? Don't seem exactly right, does it? not Perkins.
And now I was a recognised and respectable unit in a free community, earning and paying my way with the best. Finally, that very evening, had I not been addressed as 'Mister Freydon, I, the erstwhile bare-footed 'inmate' of St. Peter's? There was nothing of bathos, nothing in the least ludicrous, to me in this last reflection.
Two other points, and the task which for me has certainly been a labour of love, is done. Nicholas Freydon was perfectly correct in his belief that he might have wooed and won the lady who is referred to in these pages as Mrs. Oldcastle. In this, as in other episodes of his life which happen to be known to me, the motives behind his self-abnegation were in the highest degree creditable to him.
And, as we passed into an inner room, he wheeled upon me with a look of grave sympathy in his eyes. 'I have serious news for you, Mr. Freydon; if if it is your wife who is here. Then I knew. Something in the doctor's grave eyes and meaning voice told me. It was not really necessary for me to ask. I knew quite certainly, and had no wish, no intention to say anything.
I was touchy regarding that one spot the table, my papers, and so forth. In the same instant irritation gave place to some quite other feeling, as the sunlight showed me that tears were rolling down Fanny's pale face. She sprang to her feet in great confusion, murmuring almost passionate apologies in her habitually soft, small voice. 'Oh, please forgive me, Mr. Freydon! I know it was a liberty.
'You have been most kind, Mr. Freydon, she said, as we stepped from the gangway to the steamer's deck. 'I was in a dreadful muddle by myself, and now, thanks to you, I have really enjoyed my afternoon in Naples. Believe me, I am grateful. And, she added, with a faint blush, 'I shall now find even greater interest than before in your books. Au revoir!
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