CHAPTER XXV.
PHIL’S WOOING.
When Phil left Reinette so suddenly he was full of resentment, for she had been unusually unreasonable and exasperating, and he meant what he said when he told her he would not come to her again if she wrote him a hundred notes of apology. She had called him a bore, and a spooney, and a Miss Nancy, and he did not know what else; and his anger continued all through the day and night when he lay awake thinking of her, and how she looked with the great tears standing in her flashing eyes as she bade him leave her and never come again.
“And I won’t, by Jove!” he said, as he was dressing himself in the morning; but when breakfast was over, and he had sat for an hour or more with his mother and sisters he began to feel terribly ennuied, and to wonder why Grace and Ethel would be so dull and tame, and take so much interest in their worsteds, as if their lives depended upon having the right shades of wool in their roses.
They were nice girls, of course, he thought, but quite commonplace and old-maidish, and he was puzzled to know how he should dispose of his time, now that he could not go to Reinette. It had been his custom to ride over to Hetherton Place quite early in the day, and stay until late in the afternoon, but that was over now; he was never going there again, and life had rather a dreary lookout for Phil when he at last left the house and sauntered slowly toward Mr. Beresford’s office.
The lawyer was busy, but he greeted Phil even more cordially than usual, for there was in his heart a feeling of keen regret for having allowed himself to say aught against the young man whom he really liked so much, and who, it seemed to him, looked rather sober and abstracted, as he seated himself near the window and began idly to turn the leaves of a law book. The mail was just in, and among Mr. Beresford’s letters was one from his uncle, in New York, who wrote asking if his nephew, knew of any honest, trusty, winning young man who would like to go out to India for a year or more on business for the firm. Tact, and patience, and suavity of manner were the essential qualifications, he wrote, and to a person possessed of these, the firm would pay a liberal salary. On many accounts he preferred a man from the country, and so had written to his nephew first.
Mr. Beresford read the letter carefully, then glanced at Phil, and asked himself whether it were not a desire to remove a possible rival from his way, which prompted him to think him just the man for the place. Phil was trusty and winning, with any amount of tact and perseverance if once roused to action. The post would suit him exactly; and deciding at last that he was not wholly selfish in the matter, Mr. Beresford handed him the letter, saying:
“Here is something which may interest you, and possibly you may like the situation.”
Phil read the letter through, and his first impulse was that he would go. He should enjoy the voyage immensely, for he liked the sea, and he should enjoy the new life, too, only—and Phil gave a little gasping breath, as he thought of going away where he could not even see Reinette. Of course, she would never be to him what she had been, but it would be some pleasure to see her come in and go out of his father’s house, and to watch her in the street, and hear occasionally the sound of her voice, and all this would be impossible in India. And still the chance to do something, which he had so longed for at times, was too good to be lightly thrown away, and he said to Mr. Beresford:
“I am half inclined to go; at all events, I will see what father says, and let you know to-night.”