Part 4 (2/2)
Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history.
--CHAMFORT.
”He draweth out the thread of his verbosity, finer than the staple of his argument.”
--LOVES LABOR LOST.
Young Mandeville having finished his story, looked at his uncle. He found him sitting in an att.i.tude of extreme absorption, his right arm stretched before him on the table, his face bent thoughtfully downwards and clouded with that deep melancholy that seemed its most natural expression, ”He has not heard me,” was the young man's first mortifying reflection. But catching his uncle's eye which at that moment raised itself, he perceived he was mistaken and that he had rather been listened to only too well.
”You must forgive me if I have seemed to rhapsodize,” the young man stammered. ”You were so quiet I half forgot I had a listener and went on much as I would if I had been thinking aloud.”
His uncle smiled and throwing off the weight of his reflections whatever they might be, arose and began pacing the floor. ”I see you are past surgery,” quoth he, ”any wisdom of mine would be only thrown away.”
Young Mandeville was hurt. He had expected some token of approval on his uncle's part, or at least some betrayal of sympathy. His looks expressed his disappointment.
”You expected to convert me by this story,” continued the elder, pausing with a certain regret before his nephew; ”nothing could convert me but--”
”What?” inquired Mandeville after waiting in vain for the other to finish.
”Something which we will never find in the whirl of New York fas.h.i.+onable life. A woman with faith to reward and soul to understand such unqualified trust as yours.”
”But I believe Miss Preston is such a girl and will be such a woman. Her looks, her last words prove it.”
”Nothing proves it but time and as for your belief, I have believed too.” Then as if fearing he had said too much, a.s.sumed his most business-like tone and observed, ”But we will drop all that; you have resolved to quit music and enter Wall Street, your object money and the social consideration which money secures. Now, why Wall Street?”
”Because I can think of no other means for attaining what I desire, in the s.p.a.ce of time I would consent to keep a young lady of Miss Preston's position waiting.”
”Humph! and you have money, I suppose, which you propose to risk on the hazard?”
”Some! enough to start with; a small amount to you, but sufficient if I am fortunate.”
”And if you are not?”
The young man opened his arms with an expressive gesture, ”I am done for, that is all.”
”Bertram,” his uncle exclaimed with a change of tone, ”has it ever struck you that Mr. Preston might have as strong a prejudice against speculation as against the musical profession?”
”No, that is, pardon me but I have sometimes thought that even in the event of success I should have to struggle against his inherited instincts of caste and his natural dislike of all things new, even wealth, but I never thought of the possibility of my arousing his distrust by speculating in stocks and engaging in enterprises so nearly in accord with his own business operations.”
”Yet if I guess aright you would run greater risk of losing the support of his countenance by following the hazardous course you propose, than if you continued in the line of art that now engages you.”
”Do you know--”
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