"I meant to have had a good work at the model to-night, but that little
scene stopped it. Now about yourself. You are getting a sad truant
from the office."
He said it in a hesitating manner, and turned his face away directly
after, but only to dart round in surprise at my next words.
"I am not coming back to the office any more--but don't think me
ungrateful."
"Not coming back?"
"No, Hallett; Miss Carr sent for me--she has been away--and I am to go
at once as a pupil to an engineer."
He turned his back to me, and I ran to his side:
"Oh, Hallett," I cried piteously; "don't be angry with me. I told her I
was sorry to go, because you were such a good friend."
"You told her that, Antony?"
"Indeed, indeed I did; but I thought in being an engineer I might be
some day such a help to you, and that it was for the best; and now you
are vexed and think me ungrateful."
He was silent for a few moments, and then he turned to me and took my
hands, speaking in a low, husky voice:
"You must not heed me to-night, Antony," he said. "You saw how upset
and strange I was. This affair of Linny's, and her letter, trouble me
more than I care to own. No, no, my dear boy, I am not vexed with you,
and I do not for a moment think you ungrateful."
"You do not!" I cried joyfully.
"No, no, of course not. I rejoice to find that you have so good and
powerful a friend in--Miss Carr. She must be--a truly good--woman."
"She's everything that's good and beautiful and kind," I cried, bursting
into raptures about her. "I'm to have books and to go there every week,
and she trusts to me to try and succeed well in my new life. Oh,
Hallett, you can't think how I love her."
He laid his hand on my shoulder and gazed with a strange light in his
eyes upon my eager face.
"That's right," he said. "Yes--love her, and never give her cause to
blush for her kindness to you, my boy."
He sat listening to me eagerly as I went on telling him her words,
describing her home, everything I could think of, but the one subject
tabooed, and of that I gave no hint, while he, poor fellow, sat drinking
in what was to him a poisoned draught, and I unwittingly kept on adding
to his pain.
"I'm only afraid of one thing," I said with all a boy's outspoken
frankness.
"And what is that, Antony?"
"I'm afraid that when she is married to Mr Lister--"
His hand seemed to press my shoulder more tightly.
"Yes," he said in a whisper, "she is to be married to Mr Lister."
"Yes, I knew that the first day I came to the office."
"It is the common talk there," he said with knitted brows. "And what is
your fear, Antony?"
"That when she is married to Mr Lister she will forget all about me."
"You wrong her, boy," he said almost fiercely; and I stared at his
strange display of excitement, for I had not the key then to his
thoughts, and went on blindly again and again tearing open his throbbing
wound.
"You wrong her," he said. "Antony, Miss Carr is a woman to have won
whose esteem is to have won a priceless gem, and he who goes farther,
and wins her love, can look but for one greater happiness--that of
heaven."
He was soaring far beyond my reach, grovelling young mole that I was,
and I said in an uneasy way that must have sounded terribly commonplace
and selfish:
"You don't think she will forget me, then?"
"No," he said sternly. "There is that in her face which seems to say
that she is one who never forgets--never forgives. She is no common
woman, Antony; be worthy of her trust, and think of her name in your
prayers before you sleep."
I gazed at him curiously, he seemed so strange; and, noticing my uneasy
looks, he said in a cheerful voice:
"There, we will not talk so seriously any more. You see how I trust
you, Antony, in return for your confidence in me. Now let's talk of
pleasant things. An engineer, eh?"
"Yes," I said, delighted at the change in his conversation. "I am glad
of it--heartily glad of it," he said with kindling eyes. "Linny is
right; I do love and idolise my model, and you shall share her love,
Antony. Together we will make her the queen of models, and if in time,
perhaps years hence, I do perfect her--nay, if we perfect her--there,
you see," he said playfully, "I have no petty jealousies--you will then
be engineer enough to make the drawings and calculations for the
machines that are to grow from the model. Is it a bargain, Antony?"
"That it is," I cried, holding out my hand, which he firmly clasped; and
that night I went back to Revitts' walking upon air, with my head in a
whirl with the fancied noise of the machinery made by Hallett and Grace,
while, out of my share of the proceeds, I was going down to Rowford to
pay Mr Blakeford all my father's debt; and then--being quite a man
grown--I meant to tell him he was a cowardly, despicable scoundrel, for
behaving to me as he did when I was a boy.