‘I thought young men had,’ said Cara. ‘Of course I don’t know very much about them. I know only the Burchells well; they are never allowed to come and talk in the morning. If it is Reginald, he always says he ought to be reading; and Roger, he is of course at work, you know.’
‘I don’t know in the least,’ said Oswald; ‘but I should like to learn. What does this revelation of Rogers and Reginalds mean? I never supposed there were any such persons. I thought that Edward and myself were about the limit of friendship allowed to little Cara, and here is a clan, a tribe. I forewarn you at once that I put myself in opposition to your Reginalds and Rogers. I dislike the gentlemen. I am glad to hear that they have no time to talk in the mornings. I, for my part, have plenty of time.’
‘Oh, you are not likely to know them,’ said Cara, laughing, ‘unless, indeed, Roger comes on Sundays, as he said. They are probably not so rich as you are. Their father is a clergyman, and they have to work. I should like that myself better than doing nothing.’
‘That means,’ said Oswald, with great show of savagery, setting his teeth, ‘that you prefer the said Roger, who must not talk o’ mornings, to me, presumably not required to work? Know, then, young lady, that I have as much need to work as your Roger; more, for I mean to be somebody. If I go in for the bar it is with the intention of being Lord Chancellor; and that wants work—work! such as would take the very breath away from your clergyman’s sons, who probably intend to be mere clergymen, and drop into a fat living.’
‘Roger is an engineer,’ said Cara; ‘he is at the College; he walks about with chains, measuring. I don’t know what is the good of it, but I suppose it is of some good. There are so many things,’ she added, with a sigh, ‘that one is obliged to take for granted. Some day, I suppose, he will have bridges and lighthouses to make. That one can understand—that would be worth doing.’
‘I hate Roger!’ said Oswald. ‘I shall never believe in any lighthouses of his making; there will be a flaw in them. Do you remember the Eddystone, which came down ever so often? Roger’s will tumble down. I know it. And when you have seen it topple over into the sea you shall come and see me tranquilly seated on the woolsack, and recant all your errors.’
Upon which they both laughed—not that there was much wit in the suggestion, but they were both young, and the one lighted up the other with gay gleams of possible mirth.
‘However,’ said Oswald, ‘that we may not throw that comparison to too remote a period, where do you think I was going? Talk of me as an idler, if you please. Does this look like idling?’ He took from his pocket a little roll of paper, carefully folded, and breaking open the cover showed her a number of MS. pages, fairly copied out in graduated lines. Cara’s face grew crimson with sudden excitement.
‘Poetry!’ she said; but capital letters would scarcely convey all she meant. ‘Oswald, are you a poet?’
He laughed again, which jarred upon her feelings, for poetry (she felt) was not a thing to laugh at. ‘I write verses,’ he said; ‘that is idling—most people call it so, Cara, as well as you.’