Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

by Stinson Jarvis

Geoffrey smiled as he wondered if the girl herself thought she had enough to spare for others besides Jack.

"Young man, your sentiments do you credit! It must make things much more satisfactory to an engaged girl to understand that she is expected not to neglect the outside world whenever she is able 'to tear herself away,' as it were."

"I see you grinning to yourself under the bed-clothes," said Jack, who rather winced at this. "I don't know that I ever asked her to distribute herself more than she did. On the contrary, if you must have the unvarnished truth, quite the reverse." Jack reddened as he ventilated some of the truths which are generally suppressed. "The fact is, it was rather the other way. I frequently have acted like a donkey when I didn't get her undivided attention. You know girls often get accused of flirting, and when one hears their own explanation, nothing seems clearer, you know, than that there was no occasion for the row at all."

Geoffrey thought he did know, but said nothing.

"Two years, though, make changes, and having seen nothing of her for such a long time, I feel as if one glimpse of her would repay me for all the waiting. I should never have thought of our differences again if you had not raked them up."

"Which I am sorry to have done," said Geoffrey. "No doubt, two years do sometimes make a difference. I am sure you treat the affaire sublimely, and, if she is equally generous in her thoughts of you, it will be a unique thing to gaze upon both of you at once."

Jack took Geoffrey's remarks in good part, for he had got accustomed to the cynical way the latter treated most things. It was his way, he thought, and Geoffrey was "such an all-round good fellow, and all that sort of thing, you know," that it was to be expected that he should have "ways." Besides this, Jack had seen from time to time that, though very ready to recognize sterling merit, Geoffrey had ability in detecting humbug, and that he considered the optimist had too many chances against him to make him valuable as a prophet. Thus, when he spoke in this way of Nina Lindon, Jack supposed that his friend had his doubts, and, much as he loved her, he stopped, like many another, and asked himself whether she had such a generosity and nobility in her character as he had supposed. This, he felt, was rather beneath him in one way, and rather beyond him in another. When he looked for admirable traits, he remembered several instances of good-natured impulse, and while the graceful manner in which she had done these things rose before him, he grew enthusiastic. Then he sought to call up for inspection the qualities he took exception to. That she had seemed inconsiderate of his feelings at times seemed true. There was, he thought, a frivolity about her. He thought life had for him some few well-defined realities, and that she had never seemed to quite grasp the true inwardness of his best moments. But all was explained by her youth and the adulation paid to her. And then the memory of her soft dark eyes and flute-like voice, the various allurements of her vivacious manner and graceful figure, produced an enthusiasm quite overwhelming. So he laughed at the defeat of his impartiality, looked over at Geoffrey, who was peacefully snoring by this time, and went away to his own room. But deep down in his heart lay the shadow of a doubt which, with his instinctive courtesy, he never approached even in an examination supposed to be a searching one. The inspection of it seemed a sacrilege, and he put it from him. Nevertheless, there had been times when Jack felt doubtful as to whether Nina could be relied upon for absolute truth.

Joseph Lindon, the father of Nina, came from—no person seemed to know where. He, or his family, might have come from the north of Ireland or south of Scotland, or middle of England, or anywhere else, as far as any one could judge by his face; and, as likely as not, his lineage was a mixture of Scotch, Irish, English, or Dutch, which implanted in his physiognomy that conglomeration of nationalities which now defies classification, but seems to be evolving a type to be known as distinctively Canadian. His accent was not Irish, Scotch, English, nor Yankee. It was a collection of all four, which appeared separately at odd times, and it was, in this way, Canadian.

His family records had not been kept, or Joseph would certainly have produced them, if creditable. He had the appearance of a self-made man. If want of a good education somewhat interfered with the completeness of his social success, it certainly had not retarded him in business circles. If he had swept out the store of his first employers, those employers were now in their graves, and of those who knew his beginnings in Toronto there were none with the temerity to remind him of them. Mr. Lindon was not a man to be "sat upon." He had a bold front, a hard, incisive voice, and a temper that, since he began to feel his monetary oats, brooked no opposition. He might have been taken for a farmer, except for the keenness of his eye and the fact that his clothes were city made. These two differences, however, are of a comprehensive kind.

Mr. Lindon, early in life, had opened a small shop, and then enlarged it. Having been successful, he sold out, and took to a kind of broker, money-lending, and land business, and being one who devoted his whole existence to the development of the main chance, with a deal of native ability to assist him, the result was inevitable.