"And she really said—"
"She said that she did not want any more of my jaw—rather more elegantly expressed, but that is what she meant. Well, I was a fool!"
Mr. Hinchford sat and reflected, becoming graver every instant. He did not attempt to make light of the story, to treat it as one of those trifles 'light as air,' which a breath would disperse. His son's was neither a frivolous nor a romantic nature, and he treated even his twenty years with respect. Mr. Hinchford was astonished also at his own short-sightedness; the strangeness of this love passage darting across the monotony of his quiet way, without a flash from the danger signal by way of hint at its approach. He saw how it was to end, very clearly now, he thought; Harriet Wesden and his son would contract an early engagement, marry in haste, and cut him off by a flank movement, from his son's society. He saw the new loves replacing the old, and himself, white-haired and feeble, isolated from the boy to whom his heart yearned. He scarcely knew how he had idolized his son, until the revelation of this night. Still he was one of the least selfish men in the world; Sidney's happiness first, and then the thought how best to promote his own.
After a few more questions and answers, Mr. Hinchford mastered the position of affairs. Harriet Wesden loved his boy—that was a certainty, and to be expected—and her timid embarrassment at Sid's sudden proposal, and her nervous escape from it, were but natural in that sex which poor Sid knew so little concerning. And the Wesdens, père et mère, why, they would be proud of the match; for Sid's abilities would make a gentleman of him, and Sid in good time—all in good time—would raise the stationer's daughter to a position, of which she might well be proud! He liked the Wesdens, but heigho!—he had looked forward to his boy doing better in the world, finding a wife more suitable for him in the future.
It was all plain enough, but he furbished up his philosophy, nevertheless—that odd philosophy which at variance with his brighter thoughts, sought to prepare those to whom it appealed for the worst that might happen. He looked at the worst aspect of things, whilst his heart had not a doubt of the best; he would have prepared all the world for the keenest disappointments, and been the man to give way most, and to be the most astounded at the result, had his prophecies come true. Years ago he foretold Mattie's ingratitude and duplicity in return for his patronage; but he had not believed a word of his forebodings. He had told his son not to build upon so improbable a thing as a partnership with his employers at so early an age; but he was more feverishly expectant than his son, and so positive that his son's abilities would be thus rewarded, that his pride had expanded of late years, and he talked more like the rich man he had been once himself.
Mr. Hinchford prepared his son for the worst that evening; and the son, knowing his character, felt a shadow removed at every dismal conjecture as to how the little love affair would terminate.
"You can't let it rest here, however bad it may turn out, Sid."
"No, of course not."
"You must see Harriet's father in the morning, and make a clean breast of it; and then if he turn you off with a short word—feeling himself a rich man, and above the connection—why, you will put up with it gravely, and like a Hinchford. There are a great many things against your chances, my boy."
"We're both too young, perhaps," suggested Sidney, more dolefully.