“Perhaps you do not think Launcelot Darrell worthy of a good woman’s love?”
“I do not,” answered Eleanor. “Don’t talk of him, please. At least, I mean, don’t talk of him, and of love,” she added, hastily, remembering that the very thing she wished was that the lawyer should talk of Launcelot Darrell. “You—you must know a great deal of his youth. He was idle and dissipated, was he not; and—and—a card-player?”
“A card-player?”
“Yes—a gambler; a man who plays cards for the sake of winning money?”
“I never heard any one say so. He was idle, no doubt, and loitered away his time in London under the pretence of studying art; but I never remember hearing that gambling was one of his vices. However, I don’t come here to speak of him, but of you. What are you going to do, now that you have left Hazlewood?”
Eleanor was cruelly embarrassed by this question. Her most earnest wish was to return to Hazlewood, or at least to the neighbourhood of Launcelot Darrell’s home. Absorbed by this wish, she had formed no scheme for the future. She had not even remembered that she stood alone in the world, with only a few pounds saved out of her slender salary, unprovided with that which is the most necessary of all weapons in any warfare, Money!
“I—I scarcely know what I shall do,” she said. “Mrs. Darrell promised to procure me a situation.”
But as she spoke she remembered that to accept a situation of Mrs. Darrell’s getting would be in some manner to eat bread provided by the kinswoman of her father’s foe, and she made a mental vow to starve rather than to receive the widow’s patronage.
“I do not put much confidence in Mrs. Darrell’s friendship when her own end is gained,” Gilbert Monckton said, thoughtfully. “Ellen Darrell is only capable of loving one person, and that person is, according to the fashion of the world, the one who has used her worst. She loves her son, Launcelot, and would sacrifice a hecatomb of her fellow-creatures for his advantage. If she can get you a new home, I dare say she will do so. If she cannot, she has succeeded in removing you from her son’s pathway, and will trouble herself very little about your future.”
Eleanor Vane lifted her head with a sudden gesture of pride.