"I can't think of a girl I should so little care to catch."
And he wasn't going at all! Had never contemplated it for a moment!
The weight of the world fell off my shoulders. And for nearly five minutes of a joy almost too great to be borne, I believed that it was because of me he wasn't going.
Then he told my mother it was because of his work. And so it was that, unconsciously, he made good the excuse I had offered for his bolting off the afternoon I told him my secret. He seemed to have forgotten that episode. At least, he behaved as though it had never happened.
He laughed a little over his interview with her ladyship. "Very determined individual, Lady Helmstone." He had told her, finally, that he hadn't time even to go to his sister's wedding. He had not thought it necessary, he said to add that he wouldn't have gone to his sister's wedding however much time he had.
Of course, my mother asked why such unbrotherly behaviour? He told us that he didn't approve of the marriage. There was nothing against the man's character. He was a "Writer to the Signet," which seemed in Scotland to mean a sort of barrister. I said "Writer to the Signet" sounded much finer than "barrister." I was told that Maggie Annan could not be expected to live on a fine sound. And that was about all they would have. This particular "Writer to the Signet" was poor. "Oh, poorer than poor!"
I didn't like his way of saying that.
As we went downstairs I was rather glad of being able to disagree with him about something. It would keep me from being foolish. I had that feeling of the creature who has been straining long at bonds, and finds the sudden loosing a test of equilibrium. For fear I should seem too gloriously content with him, I taxed Eric with thinking over much about money. He said a man may put up with any sort of hardship he likes for himself. But no man had a right to marry till he could support a wife in some sort of comfort. I suggested that perhaps Maggie Annan cared less about comfort than she cared about other things. He retorted that Maggie probably hadn't thought it out at all. She was acting on impulse. "To think it out—that was the man's business." And so on.
I felt myself growing impatient when he said "comfort" for the second time.
"When people are old, yes! 'Comfort' then. But when they're young, what does it matter?"