Father and son greeted each other cordially, but after the undemonstrative manner of Englishmen.
"Well, father?"
"Well, Kingsley?"
Then they shook hands, and smiled and nodded at each other.
"Has everything gone off well, father?"
"Everything. The balance on the right side will be larger than I expected."
"That is better than being the other way."
"Perhaps; but I prefer matters to come out exactly as I planned them. It is altogether more satisfactory. I will tell you all about it to-night, when we must have a long talk. I have a lot of letters to attend to now."
Kingsley took the hint, and, after seeing his mother, went to his room. The first thing he did there was to take out Nansie's portrait and gaze fondly on it and kiss it. He had parted from her and her father in the morning, and had promised to write to her before he went to bed. As he had an hour now to spare, he thought he could not better employ it than in covering four sheets of paper to the girl he loved, so he sat down and enjoyed himself to his heart's content. His letter was full of the usual lover's rhapsodies, and need not here be transcribed. There was in it something better than rhapsodies, the evidence of an earnest, faithful spirit, which made it the sweetest of reading to Nansie when she received it on the following day. Kingsley mentioned that he and his father were to have a long talk together that night, and that, if he found a favorable opportunity, he would take advantage of it to make confession to his father; also if he had any good news to communicate, he might write again before he went to bed. And then, with fond and constant love and untold kisses, he was forever and ever her faithful lover, and so on, and so on. Very precious and comforting are these lovers' sweet trivialities.
Dinner over, Kingsley and his father sat together in the contractor's study, at a table upon which were wine and cigars. Mr. Manners drank always in great moderation, and did not smoke. Kingsley's habits were after a freer fashion, and his father did not disapprove. The first hour was occupied in a description by Mr. Manners of the operations in which he had been engaged in Russia, and of the difficulties which he had to surmount. He made light of these, but he was proud of his last success.