“The Claude?” said Sara, with unnecessary vehemence, “I hate it. I think I hate all pictures; they are so everlastingly the same thing. Did Jack go out, Mr. Powys, as you came up stairs?”
“Yes; he went out just after you had left us,” said Powys, glad to find something less suggestive on which to speak.
“Again?” said Sara, plunging at the new subject with an energy which proved it to be a relief to her also. “He is so strange. I don’t know if papa told you; he is giving us a great deal of trouble just now. I am afraid he has got fond of somebody very, very much below him. It will be a dreadful thing for us if it turns out to be true.”
Poor Powys’s tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He gave a wistful look at his tormentor, full of a kind of dumb entreaty. What did she say it for? was it for him, without even the satisfaction of plain-speaking, to send him away for ever?
“Of course you don’t know the circumstances,” said Sara, “but you can fancy when he is the only son. I don’t think you ever took to Jack; but of course he is a great deal to papa and me.”
“I think it was your brother who never took to me,” said Powys; “he thought I had no business here.”
“He had no right to think so, when papa thought differently,” said Sara; “he was always very disagreeable; and now to think he should be as foolish as any of us.” When she had said this, Sara suddenly recollected herself, and gave a glance up at her companion to see if he had observed her indiscretion. Then she went on hastily with a rising color—“I wish you would tell me, Mr. Powys, how it was that you first came to know papa.”
“It is very easy,” said Powys; but there he too paused, and grew red, and stopped short in his story with a reluctance that had nothing to do with pride. “I went to him seeking employment,” he continued, making an effort, and smiling a sickly smile. He knew she must know that, but yet it cost him a struggle; and somehow every thing seemed to have changed so entirely since those long-distant days.
“And you never knew him before?” said Sara—“nor your father?—nor any body belonging to you?—I do so want to know.”
“You are surprised that he has been so kind to me,” said Powys, with a pang; “and it is natural you should. No, there is no reason for it that I know of, except his own goodness. He meant to be very, very kind to me,” the young fellow added, with a certain pathos. It seemed to him as he spoke that Mr. Brownlow had in reality been very cruel to him, but he did not say it in words. Sara, for her part, gave him a little quick fugitive glance; and it is possible, though no explanation was given, that she understood what he did not speak.