“It would be dreadful, you know, if anybody knew what you had been doing. Just think how everybody would talk and laugh. You oughtn’t to give way to your impulses as you do, Henry. Some time you’ll get into trouble by it.”
“Oh, I’m sure nobody saw me,” said Gilderman, and then he was uncomfortably silent. It would, indeed, be very disagreeable to be guyed about such a thing.
“I want you to promise something, Henry,” said Mrs. Gilderman, suddenly.
“What is it?” said Gilderman.
“I want you to promise that you’ll never undertake to do as that Man told you–to sell all that you have and give it to the poor.”
Gilderman laughed. “I think you can set your mind at rest as to that, Florence,” he said.
“But I want you to promise me–think of Reginald.”
Reginald, by-the-way, was the name into which the baby had been born. It was the name of Gilderman’s baby brother, who had died almost in infancy and whom he could just remember. “Very well, my dear,” said Gilderman, “I promise.”
“We must think always of little Reginald now,” said Mrs. Gilderman; “we must remember that all we have is in trust for him. I want you to promise me, dear, because I don’t want you to do anything rash. You are so impulsive–you poor, dear boy.”