‘You will be gone long before we come back,’ said Laura.
‘In a fortnight or three weeks, probably.’
‘But you will still be able to come to Hollywell now and then?’
‘I hope so. It is all the pleasure I can look for. We shall never see such a summer again.’
‘Oh, it has been a memorable one!’
‘Memorable! Yes. It has given me an assurance that compensates for all I have lost; yet it has made me feel, more than ever before, how poverty withers a man’s hopes.’
‘O Philip, I always thought your poverty a great, noble thing!’
‘You thought like a generous-tempered girl who has known nothing of its effects.’
‘And do you know that Guy says the thing to be proud of is of holding the place you do, without the aid of rank or riches.’
‘I would not have it otherwise—I would not for worlds that my father had acted otherwise,’ said Philip. ‘You understand that, Laura.’