‘Perhaps you need not tell it me, darling,’ she said. ‘I think I can guess what it is.’
Ethel fell into her mother’s arms, and they kissed each other fervently.
Then they sat by the fire talking until Lady Venniker was weary and could talk no more, Ethel telling of the strange new feeling that had sprung up in her heart, and wondering how and when her mother had found it out, Lady Venniker dwelling upon the holy and blessed duties of the married life, and pointing out, in softened tones, how much a maiden may do to help and elevate the man to whom her heart is given.
The next morning Gerald Eversley was the recipient of congratulations from Lord Venniker and Harry. It was Harry’s birthday. Lord Venniker spoke with a certain reserved dignity or gravity of demeanour, as though he could not forget, and did not altogether wish his interlocutor to forget, that in winning the hand of his daughter he had won a treasure such as his natural expectations and ambitions could scarcely have aspired to.
But Gerald was not likely to minimise his own good fortune, and in his present mood he did not resent, but rather gratefully accepted, the words which reminded him how great it was. Harry received him with all his old frank enthusiasm. There did not seem to be in his mind a thought of any condescension that his sister was showing, or any unmerited blessing that his friend had obtained. It was enough for him that the friend of his boyhood was to be allied to him by a closer band than before. Enough that two souls most dear to him on earth were soon to become one. He only protested a little that they had not treated him with the candour for which he might have looked.
‘It’s too bad,’ he said, ‘old man. You ought to have given me a hint. I never thought of anything between you and Ethel. But she is a downright good girl, and if I were not her brother, I declare I would marry her myself.’
‘Would you, though?’ said Ethel laughingly. ‘Perhaps I should have had a word to say about that.’
And so he turned upon his sister, asking her if he and she had not always been the confidants of each other’s secrets, and complaining that she had deceived him for the first time.
Poor Harry! If he had lived longer in the world, he would have known that Love carries the secret of deception in his pocket. The lover, until he is successful in his love, will hide it from his best and nearest friend. It needs a woman to penetrate that disguise.
So Harry Venniker’s birthday was celebrated in a way that nobody had thought of. In the evening Gerald Eversley remarked that he hoped he had given Harry a welcome birthday present.