Dick executed a low whistle, and then he said, in an aggrieved voice,—
“Well, father, I don’t call you very consistent. I suppose I know what being disinherited means? In plain language, you have told me about half a dozen times that if I stick to Nan I am not to expect a shilling of your money. Now, in my own mind, of course I call that precious hard on a fellow, considering 231 I have not been such a bad sort of son after all. But I am not going to quarrel with you about that: a man has a right to do as he likes with his own money.”
“Yes; but, Dick, you are going to be sensible, you know, and drop the girl?” in a wheedling sort of tone.
“Excuse me, father; I am going to do nothing of the kind,” returned Dick, with sudden firmness. “I am going to stick to her, as you did to my mother; and for just as long, if it must be so. I am not a bit afraid that you will not give your permission, if we only wait long enough to prove that we are in earnest. The only thing I am anxious about is how I am to get my living; and that is why I will not consent to waste any more time at the University. The bar is too uphill work; money is made quickest in the City: so, if you will be good enough to give me an introduction to Stanfield & Stanfield,—I know they are a rattling good sort of people,—that is all I will trouble you about at present.” And Dick drew in a long breath of relief after this weighty speech.
“Do you mean this, Dick?” asked Mr. Mayne, rather feebly.
They had reached the hotel now, and, as they entered the private room where their luncheon was awaiting them, he sat down as though he had grown suddenly old and tired, and rested his head on his hand, perhaps to hide the moisture that had gathered under his shaggy eyebrows.
“Yes, father, I do,” returned Dick; but he spoke very gently, and his hand touched his father’s shoulder caressingly. “Let me give you some wine: all this business has taken it out of you.”
“Yes, I have had a blow, Dick,—my only boy has given me a blow,” returned Mr. Mayne, pathetically; but as he took the wine his hand trembled.
“I am awfully sorry,” answered Dick, penitently: “if there were anything else you had asked me but this—but I cannot give up Nan.” And, as he pronounced the name, Dick’s eyes shone with pride and tenderness. He was a soft-hearted, affectionate young fellow, and this quarrel with his father was costing him a great deal of pain. In everything else he would have been submissive to his parents; but now he had a purpose and responsibility in his life: he had to be faithful to the girl whom he had won; he must think for her now as well as for himself. How sweet was this sense of dual existence, this unity of heart and aim!
Mr. Mayne fairly groaned as he read the expression on his son’s face. Dick’s youthful countenance was stamped with honest resolution. “I am going to stick to her, as you did to my mother.”—that was what he had said. If this were true, it was all over with Dick’s chances with the pretty little heiress; he would never look at her or her thirty thousand pounds; “but all the same he, Richard Mayne, would never consent to his son marrying a dressmaker. If she had only 232 not disgraced herself, if she had not brought this humiliation on them, he might have been brought to listen to their pleading in good time and at his own pleasure; but now, never!—never!” he muttered, and set his teeth hard.