He was riding on an elephant away from some cocoa-nut trees and a pagoda: it was an Eastern scene.
"God bless my soul, it is my portrait," Jos cried out.
It was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a nankeen jacket of the cut of 1804.
It was the old picture that used to hang up in Russell Square.
"I bought it," said Becky in a voice trembling with emotion;
"I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind friends.
I have never parted with that picture--I never will."
"Won't you?" Jos cried with a look of unutterable rapture and satisfaction.
"Did you really now value it for my sake?"
"You know I did, well enough," said Becky; "but why speak--why think--why look back!
It is too late now!"
That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos.
Emmy only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell.
Jos and his fair guest had a charming tete-a-tete, and his sister could hear, as she lay awake in her adjoining chamber, Rebecca singing over to Jos the old songs of 1815.
He did not sleep, for a wonder, that night, any more than Amelia.
It was June, and, by consequence, high season in London; Jos, who read the incomparable Galignani (the exile's best friend) through every day, used to favour the ladies with extracts from his paper during their breakfast.
Every week in this paper there is a full account of military movements, in which Jos, as a man who had seen service, was especially interested.
On one occasion he read out--"Arrival of the --th regiment.
Gravesend, June 20.--The Ramchunder, East Indiaman, came into the river this morning, having on board 14 officers, and 132 rank and file of this gallant corps.
They have been absent from England fourteen years, having been embarked the year after Waterloo, in which glorious conflict they took an active part, and having subsequently distinguished themselves in the Burmese war.
The veteran colonel, Sir Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., with his lady and sister, landed here yesterday, with Captains Posky, Stubble, Macraw, Malony; Lieutenants Smith, Jones, Thompson, F.
Thomson; Ensigns Hicks and Grady; the band on the pier playing the national anthem, and the crowd loudly cheering the gallant veterans as they went into Wayte's hotel, where a sumptuous banquet was provided for the defenders of Old England.
During the repast, which we need not say was served up in Wayte's best style, the cheering continued so enthusiastically that Lady O'Dowd and the Colonel came forward to the balcony and drank the healths of their fellow-countrymen in a bumper of Wayte's best claret."
On a second occasion Jos read a brief announcement--Major Dobbin had joined the --th regiment at Chatham; and subsequently he promulgated accounts of the presentations at the Drawing-room of Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., Lady O'Dowd (by Mrs. Malloy Malony of Ballymalony), and Miss Glorvina O'Dowd (by Lady O'Dowd).
Almost directly after this, Dobbin's name appeared among the Lieutenant-Colonels: for old Marshal Tiptoff had died during the passage of the --th from Madras, and the Sovereign was pleased to advance Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd to the rank of Major-General on his return to England, with an intimation that he should be Colonel of the distinguished regiment which he had so long commanded.
Amelia had been made aware of some of these movements.
The correspondence between George and his guardian had not ceased by any means: William had even written once or twice to her since his departure, but in a manner so unconstrainedly cold that the poor woman felt now in her turn that she had lost her power over him and that, as he had said, he was free.
He had left her, and she was wretched.
The memory of his almost countless services, and lofty and affectionate regard, now presented itself to her and rebuked her day and night.
She brooded over those recollections according to her wont, saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which she had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away such a treasure.
It was gone indeed.
William had spent it all out.
He loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her.
He never could again.
That sort of regard, which he had proffered to her for so many faithful years, can't be flung down and shattered and mended so as to show no scars.
The little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it.
No, William thought again and again, "It was myself I deluded and persisted in cajoling; had she been worthy of the love I gave her, she would have returned it long ago.
It was a fond mistake.
Isn't the whole course of life made up of such?
And suppose I had won her, should I not have been disenchanted the day after my victory?
Why pine, or be ashamed of my defeat?"
The more he thought of this long passage of his life, the more clearly he saw his deception.
"I'll go into harness again," he said, "and do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased Heaven to place me.
I will see that the buttons of the recruits are properly bright and that the sergeants make no mistakes in their accounts.
I will dine at mess and listen to the Scotch surgeon telling his stories.
When I am old and broken, I will go on half-pay, and my old sisters shall scold me.
I have geliebt und gelebet, as the girl in 'Wallenstein' says.
I am done. Pay the bills and get me a cigar: find out what there is at the play to-night, Francis; to-morrow we cross by the Batavier."
He made the above speech, whereof Francis only heard the last two lines, pacing up and down the Boompjes at Rotterdam.
The Batavier was lying in the basin.