“Oh!” said old Paul, after listening. “Want to better yourself, do you? Going to London to get four hundred a-year, with a faint prospect of partnership? Have had it in your mind some time to make a change? No prospects here at Islip? Can only just keep your mother? Perhaps you want to keep a wife as well, Tom Chandler?”
Tom flushed like a school-girl. As the old gentleman saw, peering at him from under his bushy grey eyebrows.
“I should very much like to be able to do it, sir,” boldly replied Tom, playing with his wine-glass. “But I can’t. I can’t as much as think of it under present circumstances.”
“Who is the young lady? Your cousin Julietta?”
Tom burst into laughter. “No, that it is not, sir.”
“Perhaps it is Miss Maceveril? Well, the Maceverils are exclusive people. But faint heart, you know, never won fair lady.”
Tom shook his head. “I should not be afraid of winning her.” But it was not Miss Maceveril he was thinking of.
“What should you be afraid of?”
“Her friends. They would not listen to me.”
“Thinking you are not rich, I suppose?”