ploughed the white ocean of the chart, and was a good half-inch nearer Sydney every morning when the master of the house entered the breakfast-room.
“You sympathetic fellow!” he would say to Tom, and sympathy bred sympathy as it always will. “You must marry yourself, Thomas,” he would add. “And you and your wife must live with me and mine; and we’ll go into partnership together, up the country somewhere, and all four live happy ever after!”
To all of which the servant would shake his head, but continue to enter into the master’s happiness with unabated sympathy and enthusiasm. Nor was this a conscious merit in Tom; it made him think no better of himself. He knew how much was inspired by gratitude, and how much more by the selfish relief of sinking his own woes in the hopes and fears and raptures of his friend. He was not even aware of the essential fineness of a nature capable of this kind of comfort. Eternal dissatisfaction with his own feelings kept his opinion of himself at zero still. And if the new bond between Tom and his benefactor had done no more than provide them with common ground, on which they might meet and be at one in all sincerity, even so it would have done much for Tom’s peace of mind.
When Daintree spoke of his beloved, his dark face shone, the darker eyes softened, and the rich voice quivered with no common passion. It was possible to agree and to applaud without hypocrisy, which was not possible when the puny poet stood in the strong man’s shoes. Of his poetry enough has been said, but about his passion there was no mistake. The one was genuine; the other was not. It was a man’s passion, a selfish passion, but the sheer masterful strength of it was patent
