“Employment!” said the Vice-Consul. It was impossible to deny that he was disappointed. His voice had an accent which there was no mistaking. Harry had not much refinement or education, but he had an air which would have been perfectly consistent with the rank of a young squire, an English country gentleman of simple mind, and no great amount of culture, travelling for his pleasure, and perhaps with some vague idea of improvement. Mr. Bonamy, who had received him so cordially, and who had been pleased to be under an obligation to a young fellow of attractive appearance and pleasant manners, was more cast down by this intimation than might have been thought possible. Not a young squire: nobody in particular: a penniless youth seeking employment. Such visitors were not rare, but they seldom penetrated into the carefully-guarded interior of the Vice-Consul’s house.
Harry felt very much abashed. He was sensible of the downfall. How he longed to produce the glories of the Joscelyns, and convince his hearer that, if he was humble now, his family had once sat with princes! Perhaps Mr. Bonamy might not have been so impressed by these ancestors as Harry thought; but as it was they looked at each other blankly, mutually feeling that a great fall had taken place. Harry smiled in that rigid way which is popularly called smiling at the wrong side of the face.
“Yes,” he said, “employment. I don’t know that I am very good for anything: but I have some little acquaintance with—business.”
This was worse and worse. Had he been possessed of a knowledge of law business, or military drill, or anything likely to be of no real use to him, the situation might have improved. But business! book-keeping, and that sort of thing! no doubt he was a mere clerk after all.
“You have recommendations, I suppose, from your last employers,” Mr. Bonamy said, coldly. “I shall be glad if I can be of any use, but——”
“To tell the truth,” said Harry—he was seized with an outburst of frankness, feeling a kind of desperation seize him at sight of this cold withdrawal of the sudden friendship which had made him so happy for the moment—“to tell the truth I have no recommendations. If anyone will be kind to me they must take me at my own word. All I have got to say for myself is that I have quarrelled with my family. I cannot enter into the question now. I have done it, and that is all I can say; and here I am, and I must get employment. I am not going to push myself into your acquaintance, Sir. It was an accident, nothing more than an accident; and probably you thought me a person of more importance——”
“Importance or not has nothing to do with it,” said the Vice-Consul; and again his countenance softened. A young man who has quarrelled with his family is no doubt a person to be lectured and reproved, and brought back to a sense of duty, but all the same he is quite different from a commonplace clerk seeking a situation. Harry did not intend to throw any halo of distinction over his own humble person, but he did it unawares. Mr. Bonamy’s countenance gradually cleared. “My dear young fellow,” he said, “I daresay you are impulsive and hot-headed, like so many other young men. As being under obligations to you, I may allow myself to give you good advice. No advantage ever springs from family quarrels. My advice to you is, make it up.”
“Not for anything in the world,” said Harry, hotly. “I have been treated—I can’t say how I have been treated. I will neither make it up, nor will I go near them, or have any communication with them, till I am altogether independent of them, and have worked out a position for myself!”
“You must not be so violent,” said the Vice-Consul. “Come, come, let me act the part of a real friend. Let me write.”
“Never!” said Harry, getting up to his feet. “I am very sorry, Sir, to have troubled you with my affairs.”