“Oh, well, I guess whoever writes my epitaph will have to say, 'He never did anything for nothing.' At the least I shall expect to be your lawyer. My designs are no more sinister than that.”
Stephen laughed. He rather liked him for his candour. He felt that the best of Wade was his candour.
In spite of the social obligations with which he sometimes accused Wade, in the character of friend and mentor, with having loaded him up, he was oftener at the Nortons than at any other house in town.
It was Elinor who drew him thither; she had attracted him from the hour of their first meeting. There were times when he thought, when indeed he was quite sure, she liked him. There were also other times when he was equally sure she did not.
He even went so far as to suspect Wade in some degree with being responsible for the vicissitudes he suffered at her hands. He was quite sure she liked Wade; and Wade's relation with her, as well as with her father and mother, was that of a close and valued friend. He wondered if he had not a right to demand an explanation of Wade. He did not want to appear absurd, but if she was in any way bound to him, he felt that he should know it. He made elaborate plans to trap Ben into some sort of a confession on this point, but Wade, expert in evasions, was never trapped. When he avoided Wade and stole off to the Nortons by himself, he invariably found him there; sometimes playing cards with the banker, but more often with Elinor at the piano. Stephen rather despised men who sang, and the sound of Wade's clear tenor voice filled him with disgust.
“I haven't seen Wade in two days,” he told Elinor one night. “Do you know what's become of him?”
“He is out of town.”
“He's terribly energetic,” said Stephen.
“Don't you think he has done remarkably well, Stephen, for so young a man, and one who has had no help?” she asked.
“I can't quite agree to that. It seems to me that every one does help him; and those who don't, he uses whether they want to be used or not. Take your father, for instance, you can hardly deny that he has done what he could to push Wade; and even Uncle Jake seems inclined to go out of his way to advance his interests.” Stephen was not in a frame of mind to admire Wade.