"Good-bye, my son," she answered with a bow of strained stateliness.

She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her,
and there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.

"Kiss me, Mother," said the girl. Her flowerlike lips touched the withered
cheek and warmed its frost.

"My child! my child!" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling
in search of an imaginary gallery.

"Come, Sibyl," said her brother impatiently. He hated
his mother's affectations.

They went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled
down the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wonder
at the sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes,
was in the company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl.
He was like a common gardener walking with a rose.

Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive
glance of some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at,
which comes on geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace.
Sibyl, however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing.
Her love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking
of Prince Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more,
she did not talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which
Jim was going to sail, about the gold he was certain to find,
about the wonderful heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked,
red-shirted bushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor,