"He takes a great interest in the theatre. I suppose you"ll say that may be serious too," Nick laughed.
"Oh!"--and Mr. Carteret looked as if he scarcely understood. Then he continued; "Well, it can"t hurt you."
"It can"t hurt me?"
"If Mrs. Dallow takes an interest in your interests."
"When a man"s in my situation he feels as if nothing could hurt him."
"I"m very glad you"re happy," said Mr. Carteret. He rested his mild eyes on our young man, who had a sense of seeing in them for a moment the faint ghost of an old story, the last strange flicker, as from cold ashes, of a flame that had become the memory of a memory. This glimmer of wonder and envy, the revelation of a life intensely celibate, was for an instant infinitely touching. Nick had harboured a theory, suggested by a vague allusion from his father, who had been discreet, that their benevolent friend had had in his youth an unhappy love-affair which had led him to forswear for ever the commerce of woman. What remained in him of conscious renunciation gave a throb as he looked at his bright companion, who proposed to take the matter so much the other way. "It"s good to marry and I think it"s right. I"ve not done right, I know that.
If she"s a good woman it"s the best thing," Mr. Carteret went on. "It"s what I"ve been hoping for you. Sometimes I"ve thought of speaking to you."
"She"s a very good woman," said Nick.
"And I hope she"s not poor." Mr. Carteret spoke exactly with the same blandness.
"No indeed, she"s rich. Her husband, whom I knew and liked, left her a large fortune."
"And on what terms does she enjoy it?"
"I haven"t the least idea," said Nick.
Mr. Carteret considered. "I see. It doesn"t concern you. It needn"t concern you," he added in a moment.
Nick thought of his mother at this, but he returned: "I daresay she can do what she likes with her money."
"So can I, my dear young friend," said Mr. Carteret.
Nick tried not to look conscious, for he felt a significance in the old man"s face. He turned his own everywhere but toward it, thinking again of his mother. "That must be very pleasant, if one has any."
"I wish you had a little more."
"I don"t particularly care," said Nick.
"Your marriage will a.s.sist you; you can"t help that," Mr. Carteret declared. "But I should like you to be under obligations not quite so heavy."
"Oh I"m so obliged to her for caring for me----!"
"That the rest doesn"t count? Certainly it"s nice of her to like you.
But why shouldn"t she? Other people do."
"Some of them make me feel as if I abused it," said Nick, looking at his host. "That is, they don"t make me, but I feel it," he corrected.
"I"ve no son "--and Mr. Carteret spoke as if his companion mightn"t have been sure. "Shan"t you be very kind to her?" he pursued. "You"ll gratify her ambition."
"Oh she thinks me cleverer than I am."
"That"s because she"s in love," the old gentleman hinted as if this were very subtle. "However, you must be as clever as we think you. If you don"t prove so----!" And he paused with his folded hands.
"Well, if I don"t?" asked Nick.
"Oh it won"t do--it won"t do," said Mr. Carteret in a tone his companion was destined to remember afterwards. "I say I"ve no son," he continued; "but if I had had one he should have risen high."
"It"s well for me such a person doesn"t exist. I shouldn"t easily have found a wife."
"He would have gone to the altar with a little money in his pocket."
"That would have been the least of his advantages, sir," Nick declared.
"When are you to be married?" Mr. Carteret asked.
"Ah that"s the question. Julia won"t yet say."
"Well," said the old man without the least flourish, "you may consider that when it comes off I"ll make you a settlement."
"I feel your kindness more than I can express," Nick replied; "but that will probably be the moment when I shall be least conscious of wanting anything."
"You"ll appreciate it later--you"ll appreciate it very soon. I shall like you to appreciate it," Mr. Carteret went on as if he had a just vision of the way a young man of a proper spirit should feel. Then he added; "Your father would have liked you to appreciate it."
"Poor father!" Nick exclaimed vaguely, rather embarra.s.sed, reflecting on the oddity of a position in which the ground for holding up his head as the husband of a rich woman would be that he had accepted a present of money from another source. It was plain he was not fated to go in for independence; the most that he could treat himself to would be dependence that was duly grateful "How much do you expect of me?" he inquired with a grave face.
"Well, Nicholas, only what your father did. He so often spoke of you, I remember, at the last, just after you had been with him alone--you know I saw him then. He was greatly moved by his interview with you, and so was I by what he told me of it. He said he should live on in you--he should work in you. It has always given me a special feeling, if I may use the expression, about you."
"The feelings are indeed not usual, dear Mr. Carteret, which take so munificent a form. But you do--oh you do--expect too much," Nick brought himself to say.
"I expect you to repay me!" the old man returned gaily. "As for the form, I have it in my mind."
"The form of repayment?"
"The form of repayment!"
"Ah don"t talk of that now," said Nick, "for, you see, nothing else is settled. No one has been told except my mother. She has only consented to my telling you."
"Lady Agnes, do you mean?"
"Ah no; dear mother would like to publish it on the house-tops. She"s so glad--she wants us to have it over to-morrow. But Julia herself," Nick explained, "wishes to wait. Therefore kindly mention it for the present to no one."
"My dear boy, there"s at this rate nothing to mention! What does Julia want to wait for?"
"Till I like her better--that"s what she says."
"It"s the way to make you like her worse," Mr. Carteret knowingly declared. "Hasn"t she your affection?"
"So much so that her delay makes me exceedingly unhappy."
Mr. Carteret looked at his young friend as if he didn"t strike him as quite wretched; but he put the question: "Then what more does she want?"
Nick laughed out at this, though perceiving his host hadn"t meant it as an epigram; while the latter resumed: "I don"t understand. You"re engaged or you"re not engaged."