“Give most of it to my Aunt Virginia, and keep some for myself,” answered Stephen.
“That's a first-rate idea,” said Benson.
“They, my father and uncle, must have had a lot of money once, Mr. Benson.”
“Yes, they did—a fortune.”
The boy frowned.
“Well, I wish it hadn't been lost; then there wouldn't be this talk about my being a professional man. What are all the professions anyway, Mr. Benson?”
“The law, medicine, the ministry—”
“Oh, well, I guess I'll have to argue my Aunt Virginia out of that notion!” he said in evident low spirits.
Stephen was rather good looking and mature for his years. All his ideas, such as they were, were well thought out and definite. He was dark like his father, and had the Landray air of high breeding; indeed, his manner toward Benson was one of courteous and restrained good-fellowship, he was neither boisterous nor familiar; and the lawyer, considering those points which were most in his favour, decided that while in some respects he was only an average boy, he yet possessed certain fine possibilities of manhood, though he was forced to own he did not quite know what they were, and was dubious as to their practical value. He remembered that his father and uncle had both been exceptional men, but he would hardly have called them successful men.
If Benson's opinion of Stephen was not wholly complimentary, no doubt of the boy's capacity or brilliancy ever entered Virginia's mind. He was a Landray, and she was sure he would develop into such a man as his father had been. She felt that the future of the family rested entirely with him, and had her own ideals of what this future must be.