“All the same, though,” he went on dolefully, “I am not much of a fellow, though I’ve been a very lucky one. I never used to think anything about the gals—the ladies, and they never took no notice of me, and I went on making money quite fast. I used to think of how prime it would be to have a grand house and gardeners down here at Plumton, and how Betsey would enjoy it; and then what a happy time I should have; but somehow it hasn’t turned out so well as I thought it would. You see, I’ve been a butcher—not a killing butcher, you know, but a selling butcher; and though the gentry’s very kind and patronising, and make speeches and no end of fuss about everything I do or say, I know all the time that they think I’m a tradesman, and always will be, no matter how rich I am.”
“But I’m sure people esteem you very much, Mr Burge.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head sadly, “they don’t. It’s the money they think of. You esteem me, my dear, because you’ve just told me so, and nothing but the truth never came out of those pretty little lips. They don’t think much of me. Why should they, seeing what a common-looking sort of fellow I am? No: don’t shake your head, because you know it as well as I do. I ain’t a gentleman, and if I’d twenty million times as much money it wouldn’t make a gentleman of me.”
“And I say you are a gentleman, Mr Burge—a true, honest, nature’s gentleman, such as no birth, position, or appearance could make.”
“No, no, no, my dear,” he said sadly; “I’m only a common man, who has been lucky and grown rich—that’s all.”
“I say that you are a true gentleman, Mr Burge,” she cried again, “and that you are showing it by your tender respect and consideration for a poor, helpless, friendless girl.”
“No: that you ain’t, my dear,” he cried with spirit; “not friendless; for as long as God lets William Forth Burge breathe on this earth, with money or without money, you’ve got a friend as’ll never forsake you, or say an unkind—lor’, just as if one could say an unkind word to you; I couldn’t even give you an unkind look. Why, I don’t, even now, when what you’ve said has cut me to the heart.”
“I couldn’t—I couldn’t help it, Mr Burge,” she cried.
“I suppose you couldn’t, my dear; but if you could have said yes to me, and been my little wife—it isn’t money as I care to talk about to you—but the way in which I’d reglar downright worship you, and care for them as belongs to you, and the way in which you should do everything you liked, and have what you liked—There, I get lost with trying to think about it,” he said dolefully, “and I go all awkward over my grammar, as you, being a schoolmistress, must see, and make myself worse and worse in your eyes, and ten times more common than ever.”
“No, no, no!” she cried excitedly; “I never, never thought half so much of you before, Mr Burge, as I do now. I never realised how true a gentleman you were, and how painful it would be to say to you what I now say. I do appreciate it—I do know how kind and generous you are to wish to make me your wife—now, in this time of bitter disgrace.”