"You are a daring fellow to talk of nerves to me, Carr," he said. "Have not I prided myself all my life on having no nerves? Well, well, the fact is, a great change has come over the lad's face. He used to be such a boy, too light-hearted, if anything, too young, if anything, for his years—the most unselfish fellow from his birth. Give away? Bless you, there was nothing Gerald wouldn't give away. Why, look here, Carr, we all tried to spoil the boy amongst us—he was the only one—and his mother taken away when he so young—and he the image of her. Yes, all the girls resemble me, but Gerald is the image of his mother. We all tried to teach him selfishness, but we couldn't. Now. Carr, you will be surprised at what I am going to say, but if a man can be unselfish to a fault, to a fault mind you—to the verge of a crime—it's my son Gerald. I know this. I have always seen it in him. Now my boy's father-in-law. Mortimer Paget, is as selfish as my lad is the reverse. Why did he want a poor lad like mine to marry his rich and only daughter? Why did he make him a partner in his house of business, and why did he insure my boy's life? Insure it heavily? Answer me that. My boy would have taken your place here, Carr; humbly but worthily would he have served the Divine Master, no man happier than he. Is he happy now? Is he young for his years now? Tell me, Carr, what you really think?"
"I don't know, sir. I have not looked at things from your light. You are evidently much troubled, and I am deeply troubled for you. I don't know Wyndham very well but I know him a little. I think that marriage and the cares of a house of business and all his fresh responsibilities may be enough to age your son's face. As to the insurance question, all business is so fluctuating that Mr. Paget was doubtless right in securing his daughter and her children from possible want in the future. See here, Mr. Wyndham, I am going up to town this evening for two or three days. Shall I call at Park-lane and bring you my own impressions with regard to your son?"
"Thank you, Carr, that is an excellent thought, and what is more you shall escort Lilias or Marjory up to town. They have a standing invitation to my boy's house, and a little change just now would do—shall I say Lilias?—good."
"Miss Lilias wants a change, sir. She is affected like yourself with, may I call it, an attack of the nerves."
CHAPTER XIX.
Valentine really made an excellent housekeeper. Nobody expected it of her; her friends, the ladies, old and young, the girls, married or otherwise, who knew Valentine as they supposed very intimately, considered the idea of settling this remarkably ignorant young person down with a fixed income and telling her to buy with it, and contrive with it, and make two ends meet with it, quite one of the best jokes of the day.
Valentine did not regard it as a joke at all. She honestly tried, honestly studied, and honestly made a success as housekeeper and household manager.
She was a most undeveloped creature, undeveloped both in mind and heart; but she not only possessed intense latent affections, but latent capacities of all sorts. She scarcely knew the name of poverty, she had no experience with regard to the value of money, but nature had given her an instinct which taught her to spend it wisely and well. She found a thousand a year a larger income than she and Gerald with their modest wants needed. She scarcely used half of what she received, and yet her home was cheerful, her servants happy, her table all that was comfortable.
When she brought her housekeeping books to her husband to balance at the end of the first month, he looked at her with admiration, and then said in a voice of great sadness:—