“Money melts,” responded Roland. “Upon my word of honour, I do believe it must melt at times; it vanishes so quickly.”
My lady could not cavil at the assertion. She was only too much given to the same belief herself. Roland continued:
“In a little while—about three months, as I calculate—after my arrival at Port Natal, I shall be in a position to send funds home to pay what I owe; and be assured, I will faithfully send them. There is the finest opening, mother, at Port Natal! Fortunes are being made there daily. In a few years’ time I shall come home with my pockets lined, and shall settle down by you for life.”
“If I could only think the prospect was so good a one!” exclaimed Lady Augusta.
“It is good,” said Roland emphatically. “Why, mother, Port Natal is all the rage: hundreds are going out. Were there no reasons to urge me away, you would be doing the most unwise thing possible to stand in the light of my going. If I were at something that I liked, that I was not worked to death at; if I did not owe a shilling; if my prospects here, in short, were first-rate, and my life a bower of rose-leaves, I should do well to throw it all up for Port Natal.”
“But in what manner are these great fortunes made?” wondered Lady Augusta.
“Of course, I shall acquire all that information. Stuck in this know-nothing Helstonleigh, I can only state the fact that they are made. I dare say I can find an opening for one or two of the boys out there.”
Lady Augusta—persuadable as ever was a child—began to look upon the plan with less prejudiced eyes—as Roland would have styled it. As to Roland, so fully had he become imbued with the golden harvest to be gathered at Port Natal, that had an angel descended to undeceive him, he would have refused to listen.
“There will be the losing you, Roland,” said Lady Augusta, hesitating whether she should scold or cry.
“Law, what’s that?” returned Roland, slightingly. “You’ll get over that in a day, and return thanks that there’s one source of trouble less. Look here! If I were in the luck of having a good commission given me in some crack Indian regiment, would you not say, ‘Oh be joyful,’ and start me off at once? What are you the worse for George’s being away? Mother!” he added somewhat passionately, “would you like to see me tied down for life to an old proctor’s office?”