And as he sat in the little room at the end of the long passage, where he was permitted to smoke, and watched the floating clouds that rose from his cigar, the imaginations which rose along with these circling wreaths were beautiful. He saw within his grasp a something sweeter than love, more delicious than any kind of dalliance. Wealth! the power of doing whatever he pleased, stepping at once into a position, he, the unsuccessful, which would leave all the successful men behind, and dazzle those who had once passed him by in the race. He was not disinclined toward Lucy. He felt it was in him indeed to be fond of her, who could do so much for him. She could open to him the gates of paradise, she could make him the happiest man in the world. These hyperboles would be strictly true, far more true than they were in the majority of the cases in which they were uttered with fullest sincerity. But nobody could be more sincere than Frank St. Clair in his use of the well-worn formulas. It was nothing less than blessedness, salvation, an exemption from ills of life which Lucy had it in her power to confer.
Next morning he went as usual to the Terrace and gave Jock his lesson with a mind somewhat disturbed. The little fellow with his grammar, the tranquil figure of the girl over her books, the ordinary aspect of the room with which he was growing so familiar, had the strangest effect upon him in the state of excitement in which he found himself. The monotony of the lesson which had to be made out all the same, word by word, and the strange suspense and expectation in which he sat amid all the calmness of the domestic scene, made St. Clair’s head go round. He did not know how to support it, and it was before his hour was out that he suddenly interrupted Jock’s repetition with a sudden harsh whisper.
“Run and play,” he said; “that is enough for to-day.”
He had not even heard what Jock had been saying for the last ten minutes. The child looked up in the utmost surprise. He was stopped in the middle of a sentence, the words taken out of his mouth. He looked with his eyes opening wide.
“Run and play,” St. Clair repeated, his lips were quite dry with excitement; “I want to speak to Lucy.”
He had never spoken of her as Lucy before, he had never thought of suggesting that Jock should run and play. The child, though startled and indignant, yielded to the emergency which was unmistakable in his instructor’s face. He looked at St. Clair for a moment, angry, then yielding to the necessity. And Lucy, whose interest in her history-book was never of an absorbing description, hearing the pause, the whisper, the little rustle of movement, looked up too. She saw with some astonishment that Jock was leaving the room.
“Have you got through your lessons already?” she cried.
St. Clair made the child an imperative sign, and got up and approached Lucy.
“I have sent him away,” he said, and then stood for a moment looking down upon her. She, on her side, looked up with a surprised countenance. There could not have been a greater contrast than that which was apparent between them; he full of excitement, she perfectly calm, though surprised, wondering what it was he was about to say to her, and what his restrained agitation could mean. “I sent him away,” said St. Clair, “because I wanted to say something to you, Miss Trevor; I could not delay it any longer. It has been almost more than I could do to keep silence so long.”
“What is it?” she said. She was gently anxious, concerned about him, wondering if he was going to relieve her of her difficulty by confessing his wants, and putting it into her power to help him. It did not occur to Lucy that a man would be very unlikely to confide troubles about money to a girl. The distribution of her money occupied her own mind so much that it seemed, on the contrary, a likely matter to her that others should be so preoccupied too.