“Ah,” she cried, with hasty contempt, “but you don’t understand! He may not have much money; but they—they live in a little house with two maids and Toni. They have no luxuries or grandeur. When they take a drive in old Luca’s carriage, it is something to think about. All that is quite, quite different from you people here. Don’t you see, Sir Thomas, don’t you see? And Captain Gaunt has been—oh, I don’t know how it is—losing his money; and he has not got any—and he is miserable—and I cannot get any one to take an interest, to tell him—to warn him, to get him to give up——”
“Did he tell you all this himself?” said Sir Thomas, gravely.
“Oh no, not a word. It was Mr Ramsay who told me; and when I begged him to say something, to warn him——”
“He could not do that. There he was quite right; and you were quite wrong, if you will let me say so. It is too common a case, alas! I don’t know what any one can do.”
“Oh, Sir Thomas! if you will think of the old General and his mother, who love him more than all the rest—for he is the youngest. Oh, won’t you do something, try something, to save him?” Frances clasped her hands, as if in prayer. She raised her eyes to his face with such an eloquence of entreaty, that his heart was touched. Not only was her whole soul in the petition for the sake of him who was in peril, but it was full of boundless confidence and trust in the man to whom she appealed. The other plea might have failed; but this last can scarcely fail to affect the mind of any individual to whom it is addressed.
Sir Thomas put his hand on her shoulder with fatherly tenderness. “My dear little girl,” he said, “what do you think I can do? I don’t know what I can do. I am afraid I should only make things worse, were I to interfere.”
“No, no. He is not like that. He would know you were a friend. He would be thankful. And oh, how thankful, how thankful I should be!”
“Frances, do you take, then, so great an interest in this young man? Do you want me to look after him for your sake?”
She looked at him hastily with an eager “Yes”—then paused a little, and looked again with a dawning understanding which brought the colour to her cheek. “You mean something more than I mean,” she said, a little troubled. “But yet, if you will be kind to George Gaunt, and try to help him, for my sake—— Yes, oh, yes! Why should I refuse? I would not have asked you if I had not thought that perhaps you would do it—for me.”
“I would do a great deal for you; for your mother’s daughter, much; and for poor Waring’s child; and again, for yourself. But, Frances, a young man who is so weak, who falls into temptation in this way—my dear, you must let me say it—he is not a mate for such as you.”