19000 Pound Part 17

"Let me kneel, here. There, like that, then you can't be very cross, I know. Let me put my arms around your neck, and I know your lecture won't be very serious."

"Kiss me."

"There."

"And now I want to talk to you, seriously, Tessie."

"I knew you did, dad; you had such a long face. What have I done?"

"Nothing yet, girlie. It's to prevent your doing something that I fear you will be sorry for all your life that I am talking to you now."

"Yes, dad."

"Gerald Danvers has been here nearly a month. He's in love with you--that's plain to be seen. There's no blame to himself for that. You are a very pretty girl."

"Dad!"

"That's so. That don't matter much; and if you are only flirting that wouldn't matter much, either. But the point is--are you? Do you feel that you love him, Tessie?"

She was playing with the seal at the end of his watch-chain, and her eyes were cast down as she answered:

"He's the nicest man round these parts, dad."

"To look at, Tessie--yes. I admit that. He's got the city polish on him.

It's a question if that's good though. The bit of veneer on an article of furniture doesn't make the wood beneath any better quality."

"No, but the farm hands, dad! And then at Oakville who is there to talk to?"

"Maybe not polished people, Tessie."

"No, dad, and that's it. Don't think I'm blaming you, dear old daddie, but you see the years you sent me away to boarding-school made a change in me. The girls--I met people of a different cla.s.s. One must talk, you know, dad, and there isn't a soul for miles round that has an idea beyond the crops."

"I see--I see."

"Don't think I'm finding fault, daddie--not for a moment. I am as happy as possible at the dear old farm. I was born here, and I should like to die here. But one likes to exchange ideas, dad. You might, for instance, circle ten miles round the farm and you would not meet one soul who could tell you what poetry meant."

"And this man, Danvers, he talks well?"

"He is a gentleman, dad."

"Without a dollar to call his own."

"Dad! is he any the less a gentleman for that?"

"The world thinks so, Tessie."

"Let it, dad, I don't; and I know you don't. A man's a man for all that."

"But a poor man, Tessie--in a double sense. I am really sorry to hear you say this."

"What have I said, dad?"

"Nothing, girlie, nothing. But I can read you. You like Danvers?"

She was playing with the charm on the chain again as she answered:

"I don't dislike him, dad."

The old man sighed.

"I have heard you yourself say, dad, that you liked him."

"Ah! but there's a difference in my and your liking. When a woman begins by liking a man, she generally ends up by loving him."

No answer.

"Danvers was sent out to me, Tessie, with a letter of introduction. You read it. By the next mail another letter came. I opened it myself, as I have done all letters since Josh went away. It was from the writer of the letter of introduction."

"Another, dad?"

"No. He repeated that he would be glad if I would do all I could for Danvers, but, above all, I was to make him work, and work hard. That his life up, he had never done a stroke of work, that he had always lived on his friends, that his friends had provided him with an outfit and paid his pa.s.sage money, and hoped that in a new country, where he had not a single friend, he would be forced to work--work for his living."

"Poor fellow!"

"Tessie!"

"Well, dad, isn't he a poor fellow? Fancy, thousands of miles from a friend, and, as you say, without a dollar of his own. Am I wrong, dad, to sympathize with, and say of him 'poor fellow'?"

The old man stifled a groan.

He was acting badly. He felt that. He was trying to paint this man in repulsive colors, and was but exciting a tender feeling! He was putting his foot into it deeper every step he took.

It is curious how persistently parents force their children into the marriages they are so anxious not to bring about.

Bespatter her lover to a girl, and straightway the girl loves him the more. Call him everything black you can lay your tongue to, and the girl will be framing pretty speeches for future use--to make up to him for it.

"Tessie, think, my girl, you are happy now because you have everything you can reasonably want. Just picture to yourself what your life would be married to a centless man."

"But, dad, why should you think he will always be poor?"

"All his life, Tessie, he has been living on other people."

"But he may reform, dad. You said he was doing the work better than Josh had done it."

"New brooms sweep clean."

"And in a new country, dad, perhaps he has turned over a new leaf."

"Supposing he has, Tessie, what is his future? If he left here, he might get a job as a store clerk; what can he expect to be better? A store clerk with perhaps a dozen dollars a week."