"I do not know that he has any talent whatever!" replied Sir Peter angrily. "I know he stole my niece from me? the puppy!"
"Well, well," said Mr. Rowlandson gently. "That was wrong. Wrong, indeed. And I suppose you had showed him clearly that by proceeding openly he had a fair field to win her, too?"
Sir Peter set his teeth. The old bookseller repeated his question:—
"You did not discourage the lad, I am sure? He knew he had a chance, eh?"
"I must decline to discuss that with you, Rowlandson."
"Chut! Chut!" murmured Mr. Rowlandson. "We are just two old fellows jogging toward the grave together, even if you are a knight, and I am a bookseller. Come, now, Sir Peter, tell me all about it. It will do you good. I will wager you have been eating your heart out, for a month, in this great, lonely house, with no one to whom you could talk of your sorrow. Come, come, Sir Peter." Mr. Rowlandson rose. "Do not twenty-five years of honest dealing with you entitle me to a little of your confidence?"
Sir Peter stood silently by the fireplace, his back turned to the old bookseller. Mr. Rowlandson set his empty wine-glass carefully on the table, and then drew from their paper the valentines Phyllis had left at the shop.
"I read an essay of Mr. Benson's, last night,—and one bit comes to me now," he said. "The essay opens with an old French proverb, 'To make one's self beloved is the best way to be useful.' Then the essayist goes on to say that this is one of the deep sayings which young men, and even young women, ignore; which middle-aged folk hear with a certain troubled surprise? and which old people discover to be true, and think, with a sad regret, of opportunities missed, and of years devoted, how unprofitably, to other kinds of usefulness. We expect, like Joseph in his dreams, says Mr. Benson, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars, to say nothing of the sheaves, will make obeisance to us. And then, as we grow older the visions fade. The eleven stars seem unaware of our existence and we are content if, in a quiet corner, a single sheaf gives us a nod of recognition."
Mr. Rowlandson smiled pleasantly, and patted the old valentines under his hand.
"And then," he continued, "the essayist says, we make further discoveries that give us pain; that when we have seemed to ourselves most impressive, we have only been pretentious; that riches are only a talisman against poverty; that influence comes mostly to people who do not pursue it, and do not even know they possess it; and that the real rewards of life have fallen to simple-minded and unselfish people who have not sought them. I fear I have not quoted the essay quite accurately. I had a wonderful memory, once. It fails—it fails. But it is very prettily put, in the book, and of course it is all quite true."