“That is nonsense,” said Mr. Bonamy. “Sit down, sit down, and let us talk it over. You have been hot-headed, I don’t doubt. What is it now? tell me. Some foolish falling in love. You must want to marry somebody they don’t approve.”
Harry smiled in spite of himself. “I am no more in love than you are, Sir,” he said.
“That might be a dangerous affirmation,” said the Vice-Consul, shaking his head, with a smile which was somewhat melancholy; “but I understand what you mean. Then was it money? You have been foolish and got into debt?”
“It was a little about money; but not because I had got into debt—and that was the least of it,” Harry said. “You must pardon me, Sir; but indeed I cannot tell you: it is a complicated business; and I can’t depart from what I have said. I will never go home, never make it up till I have made my own fortune. But if you will believe me,” he said earnestly, with a flush of hot colour, “the fault was not mine. I have nothing to conceal on my side.”
“Then why conceal it?” said the Vice-Consul. “I cannot act for you unless I have full information; but if you will trust me with your story——”
“I would trust you sooner than anyone I know; but I have promised that I will never say a word on the subject,” said Harry, with all the obstinacy of all the Joscelyns in his face, “until—I am independent, as I have said.” He rose up a second time, all flushed and excited. “I am going to try my luck at Leghorn,” he said. “I am much obliged to you, Sir, for your kindness. I have felt myself again since I have been here; but now I will not trouble you any more.” He held out his hand. He was a handsome young fellow, tall and strong, with the sunburnt countenance and well-developed limbs, and curling, fair locks, which are everywhere identified with a young Englishman. He was not at all like a mere clerk in an office; he was like a son of the fields and woods, one of those whose training has been of the kind most prized and appreciated by all Englishmen—an open-air youth; a rider, rower, swimmer, cricketer—brought up in that way which involves leisure and space, and all the appliances of country-life. Mr. Bonamy saw all this in Harry’s vigorous form and movements. He felt sure that he could not be a nobody. And after all, except that of being a nobody, there is in youth no unpardonable sin.
“Don’t be in such a hurry. Sit down again, the office does not open for another half-hour: and let me hear what there is to be done for you,” he said.
This was a question more embarrassing than the Vice-Consul supposed, for after all there did not seem much that Harry could do. He confessed that he had almost forgotten what he knew at school, and he had never learned any modern languages, and could speak no tongue but his own. He had a little experience in business, he said; but this was the only knowledge he could lay claim to. The Vice-Counsel did not know what to make of him; but as he had started with the distinct hypothesis that Harry was a squire’s son, it was not very difficult to fit in the facts to his foregone conclusion. Many a young gentleman forgot all his school learning by the time he was twenty. The difficult thing was that knowledge of business which at first Harry had been strongly disposed to put forward as the only faculty which he knew himself to be possessed of. How had he acquired that? Mr. Bonamy ended by deciding that he must have quarrelled with his family some time before, and that his acquaintance with business had been the fruit of some attempt made in England to maintain himself before he came here. Thus, without any intention on Harry’s part, he managed to deceive his first influential friend. He neither meant to do it, nor was he aware he had done it; but still this was how things fell out. The conclusion of the interview was that Mr. Bonamy engaged Harry to come back to him next day, when he would have thought the whole matter over, and know what to say. They parted with great friendship and cordiality, Mr. Bonamy having entirely come round again to his own theory in respect to the young man who had been so serviceable to his daughter. Everything seemed to prove this, Harry’s very ignorance among the rest. “In these days every poor lad is more or less educated; a gentleman’s son, who has something else to look to than competitive examination, he is the only one that escapes that sort of thing,” the Vice-Consul wisely said. Harry, on his part, went off to his hotel with greatly exhilarated feelings. He had done nothing, he said to himself, but make friends since ever he came to Leghorn. To be sure in the light of the Vice-Consul’s friendship he felt that Paolo was (as he had always felt) somewhat beneath his pretensions. But still the poor fellow had been very kind. As he came out by the private door of the Consul’s house, he saw Paolo at a little distance waiting till the public door of the Consulate should be open. He saw Harry and rushed at him, beckoning violently.
“Komm ’ere, komm ’ere; this is the place,” he said. “Komm along, I will introduce you, I will respond for you; now is the time to find the Vice-Consul amiable. He is always amiable when he has well breakfasted.” He seized Harry by the arm, and tried to drag him back to the Consulate with an anxious desire to serve his friend which merited a better return. Harry shook himself free of the little man with good-natured impatience.
“I’ve just come from the Vice-Consul,” he said with dignity, “we’re the best of friends. I’ve been able to be of use to him, and he is going to be of use to me. Many thanks to you, Paolo, all the same; but I’ve been lunching there, and—and I’ve done my business. To-morrow I am to go again,” Harry said, unconsciously holding his head high. Paolo gazed at him with eyes and mouth that were like round O’s of wonder. He was much crestfallen in his honest endeavours to be of service. But he soon recovered his spirits.