‘Now, do you seriously think, Miss Clare, that a young lady, living in her father’s house, with every want provided for, can know the meaning of the word poverty?’
‘Certainly I do, Mr. Gerard. But I must tell you that you start upon false premises. Young ladies living in their fathers’ houses have not always every want provided for. I have known what it is to be desperately in want of six-button gloves, and not to be able to get them.’
‘You have never known what it is to want bread.’
‘I’m not particularly fond of bread,’ said Celia, ‘but I have often had to complain of the disgusting staleness of the loaf they give us at luncheon.’
‘Ah, Miss Clare, when I was a student at Marischal College, Aberdeen, I have seen many a young fellow walking the street in his scarlet gown, gaunt and hungry-eyed, to whom a hunch of your stale loaf would have been a luxury. When a Scotch parson sends his son to the University he is not always able to give him the price of a daily dinner. Well for the lad if he can be sure of a bowl of porridge for his breakfast and supper.’
‘Poor dear creatures!’ cried Celia. ‘I’m afraid Edward spends as much money on gloves and cigars as would keep an economical young man at a Scotch University—but then he is a poet.’
‘Is a poet necessarily a spendthrift?’
‘Upon my word I don’t know, but poets seem generally given that way, don’t they? One can hardly expect them to be very careful about pounds, shillings, and pence. Their heads are in the clouds, and they have no eyes for the small transactions of daily life.’
After this they walked on for a little while in silence, George Gerard thoughtfully contemplative of the fair young face, with its mignon prettiness and frivolous expression.
‘It would be a misfortune, as well as a folly, for a man of my stamp to admire such a girl as that,’ he told himself; ‘but I may allow myself to be amused by her.’