“There is no queer behaviour in your treating me as an old friend, my dear boy,” answered Mr. Price. “Do just as you are inclined. If you don’t wish to talk, keep silence. It is a pleasure to me to have a quiet hour with you, whether you talk or not. But at the same time, my dear Sir Ralph, I am an older man by many years than you, and my life has not been all smooth sailing. It is just possible I might be able to suggest something—advise you even, being so much older,” he added apologetically, “if you should think fit to take me into your confidence as to your present perplexity.”
Ralph made no answer. Mr. Price looked penitent.
“I trust you don’t think me officious or presumptuous,” he began. “Believe me, Sir Ralph—”
“Do one thing to please me, Mr. Price,” said his ci-devant pupil, “forget all about that ‘Sir.’ Let me be plain Ralph again for a while, to you at least. It will make it easier for me to confess all my sins to you, as if I were a lad again.”
Mr. Price smiled at his fancy.
“If you have any sins to confess, my dear Ralph,” he said, “it will not be like old times. I shall never have another like you—no, never,” he added affectionately.
“Perhaps you won’t call it a sin,” replied Ralph; “if not, so much the better. All the same, for me, if not a sin, it was a piece of inexcusable folly. You would never guess what I have done, Mr. Price.”
“Should I not?” asked he drily. “Are you quite sure of that?”
“Quite sure,” answered Ralph, “no one would believe it of me. This is what I have done, Mr. Price. I have fallen in love like any unfledged boy; or rather not like that at all, for that would be a passing affair, which, to my sorrow and my joy in one, mine is not. It is very sober earnest with me, Mr. Price. It is indeed. The whole of everything is changed to me, and what to do, how to act, I cannot for the life of me decide.”
“And the young lady?” put in Mr. Price.