Children on his hearth with Judith’s eyes, and Judith there herself amongst them: Judith, calm, dignified, stately, yet a creature so gentle withal, so sweet, so teachable!
He looked again and again at this picture of his fancy, fascinated, alarmed at his own fascination.
Whatever happened, he would never be a poor man. There was the money which would come to him at his grandfather’s death, and at his mother’s: no inconsiderable sums. There was his own little income, besides what his practice brought him.
But it was not altogether a question of money. He had no wish to fetter himself at this early stage of his career; his ambition was boundless; and the possibilities of the future looked almost boundless too.
He had an immense idea of his own market value; an instinctive aversion to making a bad bargain.
From his cradle he had imbibed the creed that it is noble and desirable to have everything better than your neighbour; from the first had been impressed on him the sacred duty of doing the very best for yourself.
Yes, he was in love; cruelly, inconveniently, most unfortunately in love. But ten years hence, when he would still be a young man, the fever would certainly have abated, would be a dream of the past, while his ambition he had no doubt would be as lusty as ever.
Thus he swayed from side to side, balancing this way and that; pitying himself and Judith as the victims of fate; full of tenderness, of sentiment for his own thwarted desires.
He believed himself to hesitate, to waver; but at the bottom of Reuben’s heart there was that which never wavered.
He put the question by at last, wearied with the conflict, and gave himself up to pleasant dreams.