"Why, yes. You know that I have always liked you—always. No chap was ever such a friend to me as you have been;" and he squeezed Owen's arm with strong boyish love.
"I know all about it," said Owen.
"Well; then all that happened about Clara. I was young then, you know,"—he was now sixteen—"and had not thought anything about it. The idea of you and Clara falling in love had never occurred to me. Boys are so blind, you know. But when it did happen—you remember that day, old fellow, when you and I met down at the gate?"
"Remember it!" said Owen. He would remember it, as he thought, when half an eternity should have passed over his head.
"And I told you then what I thought. I don't think I am a particular fellow myself about money and rank and that sort of thing. I am as poor as a church mouse, and so I shall always remain; and for myself I don't care about it. But for one's sister, Owen—you never had a sister, had you?"
"Never," said Owen, hardly thinking of the question.
"One is obliged to think of such things for her. We should all go to rack and ruin, the whole family of us, box and dice,—as indeed we have pretty well already—if some of us did not begin to look about us. I don't suppose I shall ever marry and have a family. I couldn't afford it, you know. And in that case Clara's son would be Earl of Desmond; or if I died she would be Countess of Desmond in her own right." And the young lord looked the personification of family prudence.
"I know all that," said Owen; "but you do not suppose that I was thinking of it?"
"What; as regards yourself. No; I am sure you never did. But, looking to all that, it would never have done for her to marry a man as poor as you were. It is not a comfortable thing to be a very poor nobleman, I can tell you."
Owen again remained silent. He wanted to talk the earl over into favouring his views, but he wanted to do so as Owen of Hap House, not as Owen of Castle Richmond. He perceived at once from the tone of the boy's voice, and even from his words, that there was no longer anything to be feared from the brother's opposition; and perceiving this, he thought that the mother's opposition might now perhaps also be removed. But it was quite manifest that this had come from what was supposed to be his altered position. "A man as poor as you were," Lord Desmond had said, urging that though now the marriage might be well enough, in those former days it would have been madness. The line of argument was very clear; but as Owen was as poor as ever, and intended to remain so, there was nothing in it to comfort him.