“Oh, then I suppose he has to work for his living like—any common man? I am so glad you are not like that, Arthur. What a difference it must make! To have one’s husband away all day at his work—or to have one’s husband always at one’s side, ready to take a walk, or to answer a question, or anything. I am so glad you are a gentleman, Arthur. I never should have been happy had I married a man in any other rank of life.”
“Durant is just as much a gentleman as I am, Nancy.”
“What! when he has to work for his living? Oh, yes, I know. Whoever wears good clothes, and knows how to behave himself in society, is called a gentleman for the name of the thing, Arthur. The assistants in Shoolbred’s are all gentlemen, of course; but that is not what I mean—you know what I mean. Now supposing that Durant—I mean Mr. Durant—had known us longer, and got to coming to our house as you did, and Sarah Jane and he had fancied each other, she would not have been nearly so happy as I am.”
“Was that thought of?” said Arthur, with a smile which did not evidence any real amusement. “I did not know that had been seriously thought of.”
“Oh, yes, it was thought of. Why shouldn’t it have happened? He was your friend; and they say one wedding brings on another. I don’t think Sarah Jane would have minded,” said Nancy in perfect good faith. “She would have thrown Raisins over in a moment; and indeed I think she treats Raisins very badly with all her flirtations. I tell her it is he who will throw her over one of these days.”
“So Durant might have been preferred to Mr. Raisins,” said Arthur. “What a chance for Lewis!”
Nancy did not feel quite comfortable about the meaning of this laugh. Perhaps it was not entirely regret for what Durant had lost; but as at this moment they came in sight of Rose Villas, her whole attention was drawn to the more exciting subject. “There is the empty one, Arthur,” she said, “look, how pretty! But I see the door of No. 6 is open, so let us go there first. There is such a pretty garden behind, and the windows open into it. There is not much in the garden now, but it will be delicious in summer. Oh, yes, here we are; this is Mr. Curtis, Mrs. Smith. We have come again, if you please, to go over the house.”
“If you please, ma’am,” said the prim little landlady, whose lodgings had not let so well as usual, and who was not unwilling to get rid of her house. Nancy ran through it delighted, taking her husband from one room to another. “This you could have to write your letters in, Arthur, and this would be my drawing-room,” cried Nancy, glowing with not unlovely pride; “and look what a dear little Davenport, and an inlaid table, and that funny little three-cornered thing in the corner, and a nice white cloth over the carpet—so clean-looking—almost like our white carpets in Paris.”
Arthur allowed himself to be dragged all over the house. It was like a hundred, nay a million other semi-detached suburban villakins. The little rooms were neat enough, if not beautiful; and Arthur, though he had been brought up in Oakley, amid his mother’s favourite splendours, was not sufficiently fastidious to be annoyed by the common-place surroundings. It was not the want of beauty that moved him; but the sensation of “settling down,” which was so delightful to Nancy, affected his imagination like a nightmare. She was so satisfied herself, so anxious to know every particular about the maids whom Mrs. Smith “could recommend,” so eager about everything, that his gloomy looks passed without remark. And Arthur did not check her delight until, having settled matters with Mrs. Smith, she insisted upon carrying him next to No. 9, which was to let unfurnished. “This is the most interesting,” she said. “Come along, Arthur; for you know this will be our real ’ome—this we will furnish ourselves;” and she dragged him to the door. Nancy did not usually drop her h’s, but she was too familiar with this form of the word to call it anything but ’ome.
Here, however, Arthur had strength of mind to resist. “That is enough for to-day. You must not ask me to do more to-day. After dinner we will talk it all over, all about it, over the fire.”