“I leave him to you, Mr. Fenton. Talk the matter over with him, and bring him with you when you come to me Monday. Good-day.”
Fenton returned to his desk in a more excited mood than he had expected ever to feel again. When a man renews his youth the rejuvenation is apt to bring with it many surprises. That it should make any important difference to him whether he lived in New York or London was an astonishing fact to John Fenton. It was an unpleasant truth that, in a way, forced him to come to a decision that he had been avoiding for a long time. Should he or should he not give up all thought of making Gertrude Van Vleck his wife, was the question that haunted him.
And Mr. Robinson, gazing moodily out of the window in his room up-stairs, was thinking that John Fenton’s hesitation was due to ambition.
CHAPTER XXI.
“If we go, Richard, we burn our bridges behind us.”
So said John Fenton, as he walked restlessly up and down the room, puffing a pipe nervously, his face paler than usual, and a gleam in his eyes that indicated a mind disturbed.
Stoughton was lounging in one of Fenton’s easy-chairs and gazing at his friend questioningly. It was the evening of the day on which Fenton had listened to Mr. Robinson’s proposition, and he had summoned Richard to his rooms for a council of war.
“I am fully convinced,” continued Fenton, “that the best thing that could happen to you at present, Richard, would be a long absence from New York. As for myself, I am not sure that this London scheme would not save me from making a fool of myself. But”—
“But,” put in Richard solemnly, “you love Gertrude Van Vleck. The ‘but’ is a very important one. Why should you give her up? Of course, John, there are several reasons why I can see an advantage for myself in going to London as your assistant. But I am perfectly willing to waive all that, if you’ll throw away your unreasonable scruples, and take the good the gods provide.”