"But what brings him here—with you?" returned Mr. Loftus; his voice taking a cold, haughty, reserved tone.
"There, I knew how it would be," said Sir Simon, with a short laugh. Turning round to make sure there were no listeners, he told the particulars to Mr. Loftus: of George Paradyne's happening to enter Orville College, of Raymond's discovery, and of the Head Master's appeal to himself. "The lad is as nice a lad as ever lived," he concluded, "and why should his father's fault be visited upon him?"
A moment's pause, and Mr. Loftus's better reason asserted itself. He was of a generous nature when his pride did not stand in the way: or, as Sir Simon put it, his prejudice.
"Certainly. Yes. I should have said the same, had Dr. Brabazon consulted me. Let the boy have a chance. But, Simon, how does he get supported at that expensive college? The widow protested she had but the merest pittance of an income left."
"I don't know how. Somebody, perhaps, has taken them by the hand: I can't tell what people of misfortune would do without. I show the boy kindness, not only because I like him, but that I promised something of the sort to Mary."
"To Mrs. Trace?" exclaimed Mr. Loftus.
"I did," affirmed Sir Simon, to the evident surprise of his brother-in-law. "Mary Trace had been a hard, cold woman, as you know; but the light broke in upon her when she was dying. It changed her nature—as of course, or it had not been the true, blessed light from heaven—and she got anxious for others. More than once she spoke to me of the Paradynes; their fate seemed to lie like a weight upon her. 'If ever you can lend them a helping hand, Simon, do it,' she urged; 'do it for our Saviour's sake.' I can see her blue, pinched lips now, and the anxious fever in her eyes as she spoke," he added dreamily, "and I promised. But I would help the lad for his own sake, apart from this."
Mr. Loftus made no comment: to confess the truth, he could not quite understand why Mrs. Trace should have done this. He raised his double eye-glass.
"Is not that Albert?" he asked. "There, in the distance, with one or two more young men." And Sir Simon turned his long glass in the direction to which he pointed.
Close against the water they stood; three of them—Bertie, for he it was, and Gall, and Leek. The tide was nearly out, and Bertie and Gall had found their way round the point, from the heights down to the sands, a long round, wrangling all the way. Had Mr. Loftus and Sir Simon but possessed an ear-glass as well as an eye-glass, they might have heard more than was meant for them. That Bertie Loftus was bent upon aggravating Gall by every means in his power, short of vulgar blows, was indisputable; each word he spoke was an insult, a derisive taunt; and Gall, who had rebelled against this kind of treatment from Bertie, even when it was implied rather than expressed, was nearly stung into madness.