“Don’t say papa,” said Rowland, glad to give vent to a little of the intolerable impatience that possessed him. “Call me father. You talk about exams, and working for your living. Do you know what a young man of the upper classes, far better than you, is doing at your age?—I don’t mean the fops and the fools—I hope,” he said with some vehemence; “a son of mine will never be either the one or the other. Do you know what they do? They work in their colleges till they are older than you, or they go and travel, or they’re away with their regiment. There are idle ones, but they are no credit, any more than an idle working lad is a credit. Are you doing anything, boy?”
Archie’s countenance fell a little. “I’m in two or three debating societies,” he said; “there’s a great many students in them. We have very good debates. I’ve read a paper twice; on the Scotch question and about local government.”
“What’s the Scotch question?” said Mr. Rowland; but like other careless inquirers, he did not wait for an answer. “At your age,” he said, “you are better employed learning than teaching, in my opinion.”
“Oh, papa,” said Marion, who had finished her cake and her wine, “it’s not teaching! He doesn’t get anything for it. He subscribes to keep up the society. It’s quite a thing a gentleman might do.”
“Hold your tongue, May!” said her brother.
“Quite a thing a gentleman might do!—and he is not a gentleman, but only a wealthy engineer’s son,” said Rowland with a sudden flash of mortified pride. The boy in his badly-cut clothes filled him with an exasperation not less keen that it was mingled with tenderness for his mother’s eyes, and the ingenuous expression in his own countenance. “I’ve been a fool!” he said; “I thought, I suppose, that you would take my rise in life like nature, and start from where I ended. I hoped you would turn out like—the lads I’ve been accustomed to see. How should you? They all started from gentlemen’s houses, and had it in their vein from their birth.”
His two children stood opposite to him listening to this tirade, which they only half heard and did not half understand. They were quite bewildered by his heat and vehemence and apparent displeasure. What was it that made him angry? Marion thought that her brother was very like a gentleman, and he thought that she was very like a lady. It was the utmost length of their ambition. The MacColls, whose father had the splendid shop in Buchanan Street, were not so like ladies as May, though they had a carriage with a pair of ponies. And as for Archie, he was of opinion that he was himself one of those manly and independent thinkers, whose mission it was to pull down the aristocrats, and to abolish caste wherever it might appear.
Mr. Rowland took another turn to the window, and wiped his forehead and came back to his chair. He was very anxious to subdue himself, since the defects of the two young people were not their fault, nor were they at all likely to be cured in this way. He tried even to put on a smile as he said to Marion, “And what are you doing with yourself?”
“Oh,” said the girl, “I’m just like Archie. I am doing nothing to speak of. Aunty has always said it was not necessary, and there is very little to do. It’s no profit making our things at home, for you can buy them cheaper in the shops. At first Aunty used to make Archie’s shirts, but they never fitted him, and it was no saving. So I just fiddle about and plague everybody, Aunty says.”
“And who are the people you plague?” said her father.