“What do you mean by that?—what do you see?” asked Conyers, angrily.
“I see that Polly, my sister, was right; that she knew you better than any of us,” said Tom, boldly, for a sudden rush of courage had now filled his heart. “She said, 'Don't let him turn your head, Tom, with his fine promises. He was in good humor and good spirits when he made them, and perhaps meant to keep them too; but he little knows what misery disappointment brings, and he'll never fret himself over the heavy heart he's giving you, when he wakes in the morning with a change of mind.' And then, she said another thing,” added he, after a pause.
“And what was the other thing?”
“She said, 'If you go up there, Tom,' says she, 'dressed out like a shopboy in his Sunday suit, he'll be actually shocked at his having taken an interest in you. He 'll forget all about your hard lot and your struggling fortune, and only see your vulgarity.' 'Your vulgarity,'—that was the word.” As he said this, his lip trembled, and the chair he leaned on shook under his grasp.
“Go back, and tell her, then, that she was mistaken,” said Conyers, whose own voice now quavered. “Tell her that when I give my word I keep it; that I will maintain everything I said to you or to your father; and that when she imputed to me an indifference as to the feelings of others, she might have remembered whether she was not unjust to mine. Tell her that also.”
“I will,” said Tom, gravely. “Is there anything more?” “No, nothing more,” said Conyers, who with difficulty suppressed a smile at the words and the manner of his questioner. “Good-bye, then. You 'll send for me when you want me,” said Tom; and he was out of the room, and half-way across the lawn, ere Conyers could recover himself to reply.
Conyers, however, flung open the window, and cried to him to come back.
“I was nigh forgetting a most important part of the matter, Tom,” said he, as the other entered, somewhat pale and anxious-looking. “You told me, t' other day, that there was some payment to be made,—some sum to be lodged before you could present yourself for examination. What about this? When must it be done?”
“A month before I go in,” said Tom, to whom the very thought of the ordeal seemed full of terror and heart-sinking.
“And how soon do you reckon that may be?”