‘My dear boy, the house is yours,—or at least it will soon be yours,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It is very nice of you to consult me, and you know I am not very able to receive strangers; but still Mary is there to do all that is necessary, and of course you must have your friends.’
‘Mother, I should like you to understand that it is not at all of course,’ said Ben. ‘The house is not mine,—I am not calculating that it will ever be mine. I want Hillyard, not so much because he is my friend, as because he is with me in business. He is my right-hand man——’
‘It was Mr. Hillyard you went to America with at first?’ said Mary, from her distant seat.
And Ben, relieved, walked across the room, finding she was easier to talk to than his mother. ‘Eh? Yes, it is the same Hillyard,’ he said, with a laugh which had some pleasure in it. ‘I was his right-hand man then, and now he is mine. That is all the difference; but we have always hung together all the same.’
‘Then you have done better than he has,’ said Mary, looking up at him with a smile.
And Ben came and stood by the side of the table she was working at, and looked down upon her as he spoke. ‘He’s a very good fellow,’ he said, ‘but he does not stick to his work. There are some people who do best to be masters, and some who do best to be subordinate. And when he is not master, poor fellow, he is worth a dozen ordinary men.’
‘When some one else is master?’ said Mary, with natural female gratification.
‘No compliments,’ said Ben. ‘A man needs to be as hard as iron, and as bold as brass;—though why brass should be the emblem of unpleasant boldness, by the way, I don’t know.’
When there had been as much of it as this, Mrs. Renton began to stir uneasily. ‘I cannot hear what you two are saying,’ she said. ‘You have light enough for your work generally at this window, Mary. Why should you go away so far to-day? And, Ben, I can see there are two or three things here you did not read to me. There is a dreadful burglary somewhere, in a country-house like this. It is dreadful to think we might be killed in our beds any nights,—and gives it such an interest;—and there is a great deal out of “Galignani” in the French article. “Galignani” is always amusing. But Mary will read it to me when you go out.’
‘I was not thinking of going out,—at present, mother. When is Laurie coming? He ought to be here,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t understand how a man can choose to shut himself up in London at this time of the year.’