Cyril kissed his mother, but looked a little doubtful.
“Six hundred is not a large income in London; but I think May has two or three on her marriage. We might get along in a flat. Of course I shall do all I can, but it’s precious slow work at the Bar in these days. Some clever fellows never make their way at all. I’m not sure I sha’n’t take to literature instead. If one can get into the swim it pays better.”
“With your talents and with your education and presence you are sure to get on,” said his mother, with serene confidence, and for once in his life Cyril found this complaisant admiration a little trying. He knew that money was a hard commodity to make, and he did not like it to be assumed that he would soon be making a fine income for himself and his wife.
“Well, at any rate, I can tell the old boy that I am in a position to marry; that is, if he doesn’t look for great beginnings,” remarked Cyril, after a pause; “and the Lawrences have come down in the world themselves, and have no very grand ideas, which is a comfort. May is a bit of a Radical herself, but she’ll mend of that in time. It does all very well when you’re young to be enthusiastic and sentimental over the working classes; but one grows out of that fast enough, except fellows like North, who never have an idea beyond the shop all their lives!”
“North is a very good son, and a great help to his father. It is not his fault that he has not your talents, Cyril, dear.”
“No, we can’t all be alike! I say, mater, I’m awfully hard up for loose cash just now. This London business costs more than one fancies, and I don’t like always asking the governor. A man can’t go wooing with empty pockets. Can’t you give me a little just to go on with, from the housekeeping or something?”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do this time; but you’ve had all I have had to spare for some time, Cyril. Your father was rather vexed at my not getting a new winter mantle, but I managed to pacify him. You mustn’t keep me too short or there will be a fuss.”
“Oh, no, it’s only for a few trifles for May; there will be the ring, you know, and flowers, and that sort of thing. Thanks awfully, mother, you are real good sort! I daresay the governor will stump up handsome when I tell him the news, and then I’ll pay you back.”
Cyril went away well pleased with himself, and resolved to lose no more time in his wooing. It had occurred to him that it was about time he had an independent home of his own. Something in the home atmosphere had become uncongenial to him. North was cool, and rather avoided his society, and Cyril had very uneasy moments sometimes when his brother occasionally came to him with certain rather pointed questions, the drift of which he seldom altogether understood. Ray had been rather off-hand with him ever since that luckless fire, the memory of which still made his cheeks tingle, and he often fancied that his prestige in his native place had considerably gone down. Oscar’s face was a continual reproach to him. He was tired of his life in Isingford, anxious for a sphere of his own.
But a sphere implied a centre and a home, and a home meant a wife. Cyril turned matters over in his mind a few times whether or not to go out to Madeira and propose to Effie with her rich dowry, or to content himself with the much more attractive May and her smaller fortune.