“If I were ten times as well off, I would not have you waste your life in idleness. You are not twenty-four, and I am determined that you shall take some post. I have seen too much of what follows when a restless, idle young man sits down to wait for his father’s money. There, I am busy now. Go and think over what I have said. You must and shall do something. It is now a month since I received that letter. What is Mr Pradelle doing down here again?”
“Come for a change, as any other gentleman would.”
“Gentleman?”
“Well, he has a little income of his own, I suppose. If I’ve been unlucky, that’s no reason why I should throw over my friends.”
The father looked at the son in a perplexed way, and then fed another sea-anemone, Harry looking on contemptuously.
“Well, sir, you have heard what I said. Go and think it over.”
“Yes, father.”
The young man left the business-like study, and encountered his sister in the hall.
“Well, Harry?”
“Well, Lou.”