“And you’ll stand by me, Gervase?”
“Of course I will. But you’ve got to show me the young man. I won’t stand by an abstraction. I want to see if I like him as flesh and blood.”
“I’ll take you over to Fourhouses on Saturday afternoon. And I’m quite sure you’ll like him.”
“I’ve made up my mind to, so he’ll be a pretty hopeless washout if I don’t. I wonder that I haven’t ever met him, but I expect it’s being away so much.”
Jenny was about to enlarge further on her young man’s qualities, when she remembered that there is nothing more tiresome to an unprosperous lover than the rhapsodies of someone whose love is successful and satisfied. Gervase had loved Stella Mount for two years—everybody said so—but nothing seemed to have come of it. It must distress him to hear of her happiness which had come so quickly. She wondered if his worn, fagged look were perhaps less due to hardship than to some distress of his love. She was so happy that she could not bear to think of anyone being miserable, especially Gervase, whom, next to Ben, she loved better than all the world. She checked her outpourings, and took his grimy, oil-stained hand in hers, laying it gently in her satin lap.
“Kid—do tell me. How are things between you and Stella?”
“There aren’t any ‘things’ between me and Stella.”
“Oh, Gervase, don’t tell me you’re not in love with her.”
“I won’t tell you anything so silly. Of course I’m in love with her, but it’s not a love that will ever give her to me. It can’t.”
“Why?”