Philip opened his eyes in spite of himself.
“Then Lucy will be a great lady,” he said, half laughing, “and her brother a little school-master in Kent’s Lane.”
Lucy, who was standing behind her father at the moment, began to make the most energetic signs of dissent. She made her mouth into a puckered circle of inarticulate “No-os,” and shook her head with vehement contradiction. Just below, and all unconscious of this pantomime, the old man grinned upon his visitor, delighted with the opportunity at once of declaring his intentions, and of inflicting a salutary snub.
“That is exactly what I intend,” he said, “you have hit it. Even if it hadn’t been just, it would have been a fine thing to do as an example; but it is just as well. Is a fine lady any better than a poor school-master? Not a bit! Each one in the rank of life that is appointed, and one as good as another; that’s always been my principle. I wouldn’t have stepped out of my rank of life, or the habits of my rank of life, not if you had given me thousands for it; not, I promise you,” cried old Trevor, with a snarl, “for the sake of being asked to dinner here and there, as some folks are; but being in my own rank of life I thought myself as good as the king; and that’s why Lucy shall be a great lady, and her brother a little school-master, whether or not he’s in Kent’s Lane.”
“But he shall not be so, papa, if I can help it,” Lucy said.
“You won’t be able to help it, my pet,” said her father, relapsing Into a chuckle, “not you, nor any one else; that’s one thing of which I can make sure.”
The two young people looked at each other over his old head. They made no telegraphic signs this time. Philip was for the moment overawed by the old man’s determination, while Lucy, the most dutiful of daughters, was mute, in a womanly confidence of somehow or other finding a way to balk him. She had not in the least realized how life was to be bound and limited by the imperious will of the father who grudged her nothing. But Lucy accepted it all quite tranquilly, whatever it might be—except this. When she went with her cousin to the door, she confided to him the one exception to her purposes of obedience.
“Papa does not think what he is saying; I never believe him when he talks like that. I to be rich and Jock poor! He only says it for fun, Philip, don’t you think?”
“It does not look much like fun,” Philip said, with a rueful shake of his head.
“Well! but old people—old people are very strange; they think a thing is a joke that does not seem to us at all like a joke. I will do all that papa wishes, but not about Jock.”