Isoline said nothing, but she looked a little incredulous.
“Harry’s father allows him two hundred a year. If he married he might possibly increase it a little—a very little—but I know that is all he could do. Harry has no profession. Personally, I think that a mistake, for, in my opinion, every young man who has not learned to work has missed something, but that is Mr. Fenton’s affair, not mine. Between you both, you would not have three hundred a year, and, even if a little more were forthcoming, you would barely have three hundred and fifty. That is very well when a man has something to work at.”
“But why will not Mr. Fenton give Harry more?”
“He has not got it to give.”
She looked dumbly at him, tears gathering in her eyes; her lips quivered.
“My dear, my dear,” said her uncle, “don’t be so upset. I did not mean to dishearten you, but it was right to tell you the truth. We have not heard what the Squire has to say, and something might be found, no doubt, for Harry to do.”
He was quite glad to see her display some real feeling, and he came round to her side and put his arm tenderly about her.
“Don’t, my little girl, do not be so distressed,” he said, pressing his lined cheek against her soft one. “If Mr. Fenton says ‘Yes,’ and Harry is a man—which I am sure he is—we shall find some way out of the difficulty. It will be a capital thing for him to work a little, for he will want money all his life, if he is to stand in his father’s place.”
She wept on unrestrainedly, and her emotion touched him; it roused in him a hope that he had judged her hardly. After all, he had possibly often misunderstood her, and Harry’s affection might yet bring out things her education had stifled. Though the small interests of provincial town life were bad training for a woman, they might not have quite succeeded in spoiling her. But it was not for love that her tears flowed, it was for a fallen card house.
He spoke very gravely and gently.