Again the Colonel looked mortified, but evidently knew not how to resent this new sneer.
“Well,” said he, after a pause, “the lad will not require to be a genius.”
“So much the better for him, probably; at all events, so much the better for his friends, and all who are to associate with him.”
Here he looked fixedly at Upton, who smiled a most courteous acquiescence in the opinion,—a politeness that made poor Harcourt perfectly ashamed of his own rudeness, and he continued hurriedly,—
“He'll have abundance of money. The life Glencore leads here will be like a long minority to him. A fine old name and title, and the deuce is in it if he can't rub through life pleasantly enough with such odds.”
“I believe you are right, after all, Harcourt,” said Upton, sighing, and now speaking in a far more natural tone; “it is 'rubbing through' with the best of us, and no more!”
“If you mean that the process is a very irksome one, I enter my dissent at once,” broke in Harcourt. “I 'm not ashamed to own that I like life prodigiously; and if I be spared to say so, I 'm sure I 'll have the same story to tell fifteen or twenty years hence; and yet I 'm not a genius!”
“No,” said Upton, smiling a bland assent.
“Nor a philosopher either,” said Harcourt, irritated at the acknowledgment.
“Certainly not,” chimed in Upton, with another smile.