The young man willingly assented. The girl opened the front-door, and they went in together, and sat down side by side near the fire.
‘You have always been such a kind friend to my grandfather and to me, Walter,’ said the girl, ‘that although it may seem strange to you that I should put the question I am going to ask, still I am sure you will believe I have a good reason for doing so. Tell me, if you can, why it is that my grandfather, who has served the House of Armytage and Company so many years—so many, many years,’ she repeated with emphasis, ‘and so faithfully too, should receive so paltry a salary? Can you explain it?’
The young man looked up with some surprise expressed in his frank eyes. ‘Paltry, Rachel?’ asked he. ‘I call it princely!’
A look of disappointment, even of regret, came into the girl’s face. ‘That is what grandfather says. He talks as though he thought it princely too. He always reminds me, when I mention the subject, that there are hundreds of poor clerks in this old city of London who would be only too glad if they could make sure of a like remuneration.’
‘So I should think,’ cried the young man, laughing. ‘Why, Rachel, if I had a salary half as large as your grandfather, I’d ask you to marry me to-morrow!’
‘Be serious, please.’
‘So I am serious! What astonishes me is, that Silas Monk, with the fine salary—in my opinion, very fine salary—which he draws from Armytage and Company, should live in a back street like this. It’s downright incomprehensible!’
‘What can you mean?’ The girl uttered the words in a hurried voice, as though a sudden thought had crossed her mind. She placed her hand upon Walter’s arm and said: ‘Don’t speak!’
What troubled her was the discovery that her grandfather had deceived her. There was no truth in what he had led her to believe about their intense poverty. They were perhaps rich, and had been for years, while she had remained in ignorance of the fact. What was his object in concealing this from her? She could not doubt that it was a good one. He knew the world and all the horrors of poverty; how often he had spoken of that! He wished to leave her in a position of independence; and doubtless he had the intention of telling her this secret as an agreeable surprise.
‘Walter,’ said she, looking up into the youth’s face after this pause, ‘you must think me strangely discontented to speak as I have just done of Armytage and Company. I value my grandfather’s services to the firm perhaps far too high. But he was a clerk in the House before the oldest living partner was born. No salary, not even the offer of a share in the business, would seem to me more than he merits.’