by way
of preparation for something unpleasant.

"That was only last spring," said Michael. His tired voice sank for
a sentence or two into a meditative half-whisper. "And it was MY last
spring of all. I shall not be growing weak any more, or drawing hard
breaths, when the first warm weather comes. It will be one season to
me hereafter, always the same." He lifted his voice with perceptible
effort. "I am talking too much. The rest I can say in a word. Only half
a year has gone by, and you have another face on you entirely. I had
noticed the small changes before, one by one. I saw the great change,
all of a sudden, the day of the picnic. I see it a hundred times more
now, as you sit there. If it seemed to me like the face of a saint
before, it is more like the face of a bar-keeper now!"

This was quite too much. Theron rose, flushed to the temples, and
scowled down at the helpless man in the chair. He swallowed the sharp
words which came uppermost, and bit and moistened his lips as he forced
himself to remember that this was a dying man, and Celia's brother, to
whom she was devoted, and whom he himself felt he wanted to be very fond
of. He got the shadow of a smile on to his countenance.

"I fear you HAVE tired yourself unduly," he said, in as non-contentious
a tone as he could manage. He even contrived a little deprecatory laugh.
"I am afraid your real quarrel is with the air of Octavius. It agrees
with me so wonderfully--I am getting as fat as a seal. But I do hope I
am not paying for it by such a wholesale deterioration inside. If my own
opinion could be of any value, I should assure you that I feel myself
an infinitely better and broader and stronger man than I was when I came
here."

Michael shook his head dogmatically. "That is the greatest pity of all,"
he said, with renewed earnestness. "You are entirely deceived about
yourself. You do not at all realize how you have altered your direction,
or where you are going. It was a great misfortune for you, sir, that
you did not keep among your own people. That poor half-brother of mine,
though the drink was in him when he said that same to you, never spoke
a truer word. Keep among your own people, Mr. Ware! When you go among
others--you know what I mean--you have no proper understanding of what
their sayings and doings really mean. You do not realize that they are
held up by the power of the true Church, as a little child learning to
walk is held up with a belt by it