“But you must not despair. Much money is made in the City by honesty and application. Be industrious, my young friend, and be honest. Heaven has rewarded other City men for the illustration of these qualities; Heaven may reward you. And now good evening. Jessie and I have some private business to transact.”
Poor Jones was dreadfully cast down by this interview. Because, truth to tell, he had fallen in love with the patient and beautiful lady who attended so assiduously on her broken-down father. And he had thus artfully contrived to obtain from the old gentleman a general opinion on the subject of matrimony. The result of his investigations was that he came to regard Mr. Lowndes as a perfect monster of selfishness.
“He guessed at what I was driving,” said Evelyn to himself, when he gained his own room. “He suspects that I want to marry Jessie, and has put a thousand a-year upon her as his price for making the sacrifice.”
Now, Evelyn Jones had been bred in the country, and had imbibed certain old-fashioned notions on the matter of courtship from his parents. He would have considered it a dishonourable act on his part to approach Jessie with an offer of marriage without having first consulted her only surviving parent. He inferred from a hundred little signs that she was not indifferent to him. But his highly moral training prevented his taking advantage of these circumstances to press his suit.
“I wish she had a mother,” he sighed; “I’d soon talk her over. And to hear that selfish old paragon talking of a thousand pounds! I’ll be bound he never had so much money in his whole life.”
Depressed spirits are but temporary afflictions with the young and sanguine. What appears at first to be an overmastering despair clears off. “Hope springs eternal” in the lover’s breast. And in a week’s time Evelyn Jones had recovered his equanimity, and determined once more to address “Old Boots” on the subject nearest to his heart. He purchased a pound of grapes and a bottle of port, and having returned to the suburban delights of his apartments off the Camberwell New Road, he watched the door of his fellow-lodger until he saw Miss Lowndes disappear to the lower regions to consult with her landlady.
This was his opportunity. He knocked at the door of Mr. Lowndes, and was bidden in short and querulous tones to enter. He presented his gifts to the old man, who, under the circumstances, could not do less than request him to remain. The port was opened—and so was the conversation. At first it meandered lightly among generalities. But eventually the young man “plucked up a spirit,” as the phrase hath it.
“D’you remember, Mr. Lowndes, my talking to you on the subject of matrimony?”
“I do,” answered the other, curtly.
“Well, I am in love. I want to marry.”