“Still posing,” said Samuel. “What is your latest attitude?”
“I never pose,” said the gardener. “I have a horror of the pose. My mind’s eye sometimes changes the spectacles it wears, but that’s all. I now find that all along the gods were intending me to be a business man.”
“Hard luck,” said Samuel.
The nurses had melted away, and Mrs. Rust followed them into the house. The sun was making ready for his triumph in the west and a diffident moon perched on the peak of the pink horse chestnut.
“Perhaps one ought to have foreseen the gods’ intention of making you a business man,” said Samuel, “for you certainly carried out the unscrupulous deceiver part with wonderful success—That is—jolly well—what? My Red Place now sings a hymn of praise to you, to the tune of ten pounds a week—clear.”
“Don’t mention it,” said the gardener. “It didn’t need much unscrupulous deceiving to persuade your mother to get her heart to work. And, to tell you the truth, the end was rather drowned in the means on that journey. I got so busy living—I only thought of you when absolutely necessary.”
“I didn’t expect you to wear my image graven on your heart, what?” said Samuel. “You are young, and living should certainly be your business. Is that why you said you were a business man? I have often thought that being young and only lately set up in business, you had no business to saddle yourself with a wife.”
“No business whatever,” admitted the gardener.
“Then why did you?”
“I didn’t.”