It has passed away like a dream, thought Lady Harcourt; and now he will be happy again. And she, too, strove to comfort herself in thinking so; but the comfort was very cold.
And now George was constantly with his uncle. For the first two days nothing further was said about money. Mr. Bertram seemed to be content that matters should rest as they were then settled, and his nephew certainly had no intention of recurring to the subject on his own behalf. The old man, however, had become much kinder in his manner to him—kinder to him than to any one else in the house; and exacted from him various little promises of things to be done—of last wishes to be fulfilled.
"Perhaps it is better as it is, George," he said, as Bertram was sitting by his bedside late one night.
"I am sure it is, sir," said George, not at all, however, knowing what was the state of things which his uncle described as being better.
"All men can't be made alike," continued the uncle.
"No, uncle; there must be rich men, and there must be poor men."
"And you prefer the latter."
Now George had never said this; and the assertion coming from his uncle at such a moment, when he could not contradict it, was rather hard on him. He had tried to prove to Mr. Bertram, not so much then, as in their former intercourse, that he would in no way subject his feelings to the money-bags of any man; that he would make no sacrifice of his aspirations for the sake of wealth; that he would not, in fact, sell himself for gold. But he had never said, or intended to say, that money was indifferent to him. Much as his uncle understood, he had failed to understand his nephew's mind. But George could not explain it to him now;—so he merely smiled, and let the assertion pass.
"Well; be it so," said Mr. Bertram. "But you will see, at any rate, that I have trusted you. Why father and son should be so much unlike, God only can understand." And from that time he said little or nothing more about his will.
But Sir Omicron had been wrong. Mr. Bertram overlived the week, and overlived the fortnight. We must now leave him and his relatives in the house of sickness, and return to Arthur Wilkinson.