"Of course she does," responded Georgy's father with considerable heat. "Mr. Raymond ought to do anything for her. The amount of that man's income is fabulous, sir: I tell you, it is fabulous: he cannot begin to spend it. I sometimes doubt if he spends more than the interest of his income. Reflect upon his principal; what must it be!"
"Well, it's his own to do as he likes with, I suppose," said Harry, rather bored with the subject. "And I am sure you cannot complain, since you are jingling his money in your pocket this very moment. How did it happen that when Miss Georgy was at Mr. Raymond's she did not make the old gentleman take a fancy to her? She turns most people's heads."
"It was always a mystery to me," returned Mr. Lenox mournfully. "But Mr. Raymond does not like my wife, nor, I sometimes think, does he like me. The truth of the matter is, that that unlucky Hermetically-Sealed Barrel Company—"
Harry looked at me. The unlucky Hermetically-Sealed Barrel Company had been one of our old jokes at Belfield, for we had been compelled to hear its history a hundred times over. It seemed to me, in my youthful wisdom, odd and pitiful that while we had grown from boyishness into something better, leaving follies and weaknesses behind us, this man, almost thrice our age, still studied the old pages of his book, not reading them with any clearer vision than before, in spite of all his experience. Why did he not turn the leaf and take a different story? Experienced in life as I believed myself in those days, I had not learned then that we halt groping over one lesson throughout our careers. Although our harps seem tuned for the most various harmonies, we strike the same chords over and over again in hopeless iteration.
So we got him off the subject, and talked college-talk, and told him about the probable appointments for commencement. He was one of our alumni, liked our gossip, and could supplement our stories with those of the jollier days twenty-five or thirty years before. Harry and I nearly died of suppressed laughter as he gravely informed us that he had expected the valedictory, and was served badly when it was given to another. It appeared a huge joke that this seedy, broken-down man, without a person in the wide world to respect him or believe in him, could ever have been justified in any of our high hopes—could ever have stood in the places we filled now, and, like us, securely counted on winning the prizes of life.
Then he produced the little white envelopes which he had hitherto forgotten, and we read that Mrs. Dwight presented us her compliments and hoped to see us for a social gathering at her house the next Wednesday evening.
"Miss Georgy's writing," said Harry, putting his down.
"How do you know, you rascal? She certainly does not write to you usually."
"No, but she writes to a fellow I know," returned Harry, nodding toward the next room. We all abated our tones now, and talked softly about Georgy, not wishing Jack to hear. Mr. Lenox was always eloquent upon this theme. He had brought her up to town himself three days before, and the Dwights were charmed with her—could not do enough for her. She was the one success of his life, and no wonder she was precious to him. A good deal of his ready money had gone into her outfit, which must be suitable for an aristocratic house and Easter gayeties, and he had put off getting a new coat until his stock was ripe for harvest. The Dwights had not seen him, you may be sure. He knew that such people would think less of Georgy for having a seedy old father out at elbows, so he was willing to keep in the background. This very morning, however, Georgy had come out for a rendezvous in a secluded corner of the Common, and had taken rare delight in the assignation and pretended he was her lover whom she was forced to meet in secret.
"I dare say she has tripped out before to meet somebody," said Harry, who was always cynical regarding women, but especially severe where Georgy was concerned. "Girls practise those wiles on fathers and brothers, that they may do the thing neatly when a lover turns up."