"Many thanks, but I should never be able to pay you back."
"Don't, then. I'm laying up treasure on earth, which the Prayer Book says I mustn't. There's a couple of hundred lying idle at my bank which you're entirely welcome to, and which would just tide you over the next two years. You ought to be a family man, Thomas, you were cut out for it. Besides, Miss Woodward will get sick of waiting."
Tom continued to shake his obstinate head. "It's very good of you, but I'd rather not do that," he said with some constraint. "You'll want to marry yourself some day."
Gardiner looked at him again, with a faint, faint light of amusement. He could never bring himself to take Tom quite seriously. How annoying that was, to Tom! and how little Gardiner meant to annoy!
"When I find myself in danger of matrimony, maybe I'll start saving," he said lightly. "I suppose it's no use pressing you? No? Well, of course I'd take it myself, if I were in your shoes, but then I haven't your fine sturdy independence, Thomas—also I'm older than you are, and a little less positive about the lines of right and wrong. There are times when you remind me of Denis Merion-Smith, do you know? By the by, I must run down and see him before I go back. Yes, and if I pass through town I can also see—"
His voice trailed off into a meditative whistle, and a spark lighted in his eye.
"Who?" asked Tom with curiosity.
"A young lady friend of mine, who's invited me to call on her. There's a plum for you, Thomas; make the most of it. Hullo, here's daddy."
Mr. Gardiner appeared in the porch, a small wiry figure with a spud in his hand and a Scotch plaid trailing from one shoulder. The top of his head was bald as ivory, but he carefully trained across it certain gray locks which, when he went out without a hat (as he did more often than not), ruffled up on end like a crest. He was making towards the flower-bed when his son came and took the tool away.