Amos had to think a moment before he spoke. For in the glowing picture he had conjured up, the poor tool had been forgotten. Then, with measured steps, he crossed the little room, and sat down by Rees.
“Tell me,” he said sympathetically, “if you will so far honor me with your confidence, how this disastrous state of things came about.”
Rees told him the whole story faithfully, not withholding the record of his own shame and astonishment, and the mortifying derision with which the earl had received his proposals. He had expected sympathy, he had expected a kindly palliation of his own fault. But he was not prepared for the torrent of outraged amazement with which Goodhare heard the account of Lord St. Austell’s behavior.
The librarian walked to and fro on the hearth-rug, which was the longest promenade his tiny sitting-room afforded.
“To think that he, of all men, after the admiration he always expressed for you, the hints which he has frequently given about the handsome manner in which he intended to provide for you”—here Rees looked up in surprise,—“that he should treat you in this manner, as if you were his inferior! I cannot understand it! I always imagined him to be a man of right feeling and noble instincts, incapable of outraging the feelings of a man poorer than himself.”
“Well,” said Rees, who, now that his own cause was espoused so hotly, could afford to be magnanimous, “money makes the one great difference now, you know, as Lord St. Austell has said himself a dozen times.”
Amos stopped suddenly in the centre of the hearth-rug.
“If you could only, some day, get rich, make a fortune, and come back and see him anxious for you to renew your proposal! What a revenge that would be for you!”
The young man looked at him dubiously. Even to the excitable brain of twenty-three, that seemed a fantastic and melodramatic idea.
“Yes,” he answered, rather drily, “but fortunes are not picked up in the roads.”