"With all my heart," said Earle. "It is a very painful subject to me, because I regret deeply that I am unable to comply with your wishes."
Mr. Singleton made a wave of his hand which seemed peremptorily to dismiss this regret. "Nothing would be easier than for you to gratify me in the matter if you cared to do so. Since you do not desire to do so, I shall cease to urge it. I have some self-respect, too."
To this statement Earle wisely made no reply, and he was also successful in repressing a smile; though he knew well from past experience that his uncle's resolution would not hold for a week, and that the whole ground would have to be exhaustively gone over again—probably again and again.
"You seem very pleasantly settled here," he observed after a moment, by way of opening a new subject. "This is a charming old place."
"Yes. I should buy it if I expected to live long enough to make it worth while," replied Mr. Singleton. "The climate here suits me exceedingly well."
"And the people are agreeable, I suppose?" observed Earle, absently, his eye fastened on the lovely alterations of light and shade—of the nearer green melting into distant blue—which made up the scene without.
"I know little or nothing of the people of the town," said Mr. Singleton; "but I meet a sufficient number of my old friends—brought here, like myself, by the climate—to give me as much society as I want. Tom and his wife have, of course, a large circle of acquaintances; so you need entertain no fear of dullness in the short time you are good enough to give me."
"Do you fancy that I am afraid of dullness?" asked Earle, with a laugh. "On the contrary, no man was ever less inclined for society than I am. But I like the look of the country about here, and I think I shall do sketching."
"If you find sketching to do, there may be perhaps some hope of detaining you for a little while," said Mr. Singleton.
"The length of my stay will not be in the least dependent on any possible or probable sketching," returned Earle, good-humoredly. He understood the disappointment which prompted Mr. Singleton to make these sarcastic speeches; and they did not irritate him in the least, but only inspired him with fresh regret that he could not do what was desired of him. For he spoke truly in saying that, all things being equal, he much preferred to do what another wished rather than what he wished himself. This was part of a disposition which was amiable and obliging almost to a fault. But with the amiability went great strength of resolution, when he was once fairly roused; and this resolution had been roused on a matter that he felt was a question of the independence of his life. To do what his uncle asked would be to resign that independence for an indefinite length of time—to give up the career on which from earliest boyhood he had set his heart—to sell his liberty for a mess of worldly pottage—that had no attraction for him.