He followed Mr. Bolton’s advice, and it struck him once or twice that it was an unusual thing for a man in Mr. Bolton’s position to have deliberately invited a ruined man like himself, without friends and without references, to marry his only daughter, and enter his family. Perhaps, had he heard Mr. Bolton’s confidential conversation of the night before with John Leyburn, he might have felt the distinction less flattering. John and Mr. Bolton had agreed that a great change had come over Nita, and both of them, though they did not openly speak it out, and confess it, owned tacitly that they considered that change had been brought about by her feelings for Jerome Wellfield. And Mr. Bolton had said:
‘He’ll never be any great shakes as a man of business, but it seems to me that it is safe enough to put the management of his own–what used to be his own–place into his hands. He will have every inducement to care for it. And if it will make Nita happy, why should I refuse her that happiness simply because the man has no money? He is steady and honest, that seems certain. I’ve taken the trouble and the precaution to find out all about his college career, and his habits there. It’s all quite satisfactory–less backbone than I could have wished in my girl’s husband, but no vice; music and painting and æsthetics–Nita likes that sort of thing. Do you think I am a great fool?’
‘I think you are behaving in a very natural and very sensible manner,’ said John. ‘He seems to me to be all you say; and if he only makes Nita happy, what more is needed?’
‘Exactly what I think,’ said Mr. Bolton. ‘Now, leave your books and come and have supper with us. We haven’t seen as much of you as we ought to have done.’
John shut up the great folio book on ornithology which he had been studying when Mr. Bolton arrived, and picked up some water-colour drawings of different wild birds which lay beside the book. They were exquisitely finished, and, as one could see, copied by a faithful and loving hand, from nature.
‘I promised these things to Nita,’ he casually observed. ‘Perhaps she won’t care much about them now. But I will take them, at any rate.’
Mr. Bolton picked them up and looked at them.
‘They are very nice,’ he observed. ‘I wish some other people had such innocent tastes and habits, and would confine their studies to natural objects like these.’
John laughed, a little sarcastically, as he put away his book, and taking the sketches in his hand announced that he was ready.
‘When Nita is married–or if she marries, Jack, you’ll have to look out for a wife yourself,’ observed Mr. Bolton.