Mr. Cattley laughed again and said he would have to learn them first himself.
‘For that was always my weak point: but John has a very pretty notion of mathematics. And have you come to any decision as to what he is going to do?’
‘We were just beginning to talk of it,’ said the old gentleman. ‘We were going over a few family matters, and then we were coming to the great question.’
‘I am afraid then,’ said the curate, ‘that I came in at an unfortunate moment. You should have told me you were occupied, and I should have gone away.’
‘Dear, dear, I hope you don’t think we are capable of such rudeness,’ cried the old lady, ‘and it was just this very reason, Mr. Cattley, to see you come in was what we wished most.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said her husband, ‘nobody can know like you what the boy’s good for. It will help us more than anything. I was just going to ask him—John, my lad, what do you think you’d like to be?’
And John, though he had received that shock, though he was so serious, still, moved by thrills of wondering and confused emotion, laughed. He said, ‘How can I tell, grandfather, all at once?’ with that elasticity of the youthful mind which older people find it so difficult to take into account.
The grandparents looked at each other across John and across Mr. Cattley. What their eyes said was briefly this—‘Thank God that’s over.’ ‘And he hasn’t a doubt,’ said old Sandford’s look, with a little brightness of triumph, to which his wife’s reply was an almost imperceptible shake of her head. This little pantomime was not at all remarked either by Mr. Cattley, who knew nothing about it, or by John, who made no remark at all. The existence of any mystery never occurred to the boy. How should it? He knew nothing about skeletons in cupboards, and was quite ready to have sworn to it that nothing of the kind belonged, or could belong, to his family at least.
‘Well,’ said the curate, ‘if it is making money you are thinking of, we all know what is the best way and the one way—if you have any opening: and that is business—in a London office now, or in Liverpool or Manchester.’
‘Oh, the Lord forbid!’ cried Mrs. Sandford, letting her knitting drop and clasping her hands.