Bertha turned her face away.
“Why, Miss Renville, are you sorry that I am the son of an earl? It does not amount to much in my case, for I am only a second son. My brother Carolus is the heir to the title and estates. You know there is nothing for second sons to do in England but to go into the Army or Navy or to enter the Church. I expect to be ordered on a cruise very shortly.”
“I should not like that,” said Bertha. “If I were a young man, I should look forward to a happy home life.”
“So do I, one of these days,” said Jack. “There may be a war and I may come home covered with glory, and perhaps Parliament will give me a pension.”
Then he reflected that he had made another blunder. How could he ask the beautiful being who stood beside him to become his wife when he, of his own accord, had said that such happiness could only come to him in the, perhaps, far distant future. A thought came to him suddenly that sent a cold chill through his frame. How near he had come to trespassing on his friend’s hospitality. What right had he to ask Miss Renville to become his wife until he had spoken to her guardian on the subject? No, he must drop the whole matter just where it was until he had obtained an interview with Mr. Glynne, Sr.
The opportunity came to him that evening, for his host invited him into the library to inspect the fine editions of rare books with which the shelves were filled.
While examining the flowers in the conservatory, Jack had kept his eyes fixed, most of the time, upon Miss Renville, but in the library he devoted his attention to the fine bindings and beautiful illustrations rather than to his companion.
“I suppose you smoke,” said Mr. Glynne. “I do not, and I have made it an inflexible rule not to allow smoking in this room, but when you join my son Clarence in the billiard room, you will have all the opportunity you desire to indulge in your love of tobacco.”
“All the boys at the Academy smoked,” said Jack, “and I fell into it with the rest of them.”
“The late Mrs. Glynne abhorred smoking,” said his host, “and I felt that I should be untrue to her memory if I should take up the habit now. Clarence has the most reprehensible habit of smoking cigarettes. I am not so averse to the odour of good tobacco, but I think the odour of burnt paper is positively vile.”