Part 25 (1/2)

This was all his uncle said to him at their first meeting. Then he saw Mr. Pritchett for a moment.

”Oh, Mr. George, I am glad to see you back, sir; very glad indeed, sir. I hear you have been to very foreign parts. I hope you have always found the money right, Mr. George?”

Mr. George, shaking hands with him, warmly a.s.sured him that the money had always been quite right--as long as it lasted.

”A little does not go a long way, I'm sure, in those very foreign parts,” said Mr. Pritchett, oracularly. ”But, Mr. George, why didn't you write, eh, Mr. George?”

”You don't mean to say that my uncle expected to hear from me?”

”He asked very often whether I had any tidings. Ah! Mr. George, you don't know an old man's ways yet. It would have been better for you to have been led by me. And so you have seen Mr. Lionel--Sir Lionel, I should say now. I hope Sir Lionel is quite well.”

George told him that he had found his father in excellent health, and was going away, when Mr. Pritchett asked another question, or rather made another observation. ”And so you saw Miss Waddington, did you, Mr. George?”

Bertram felt that there was that in his countenance which might again betray him; but he managed to turn away his face as he said, ”Yes, I did meet her, quite by chance, at Jerusalem.”

”At Jerusalem!” said Mr. Pritchett, with such a look of surprise, with such an awe-struck tone, as might have suited some acquaintance of aeneas's, on hearing that gentleman tell how he had travelled beyond the Styx. Mr. Pritchett was rather fat and wheezy, and the effort made him sigh gently for the next two minutes.

Bertram had put on his hat and was going, when Mr. Pritchett, recovering himself, asked yet a further question. ”And what did you think of Miss Waddington, sir?”

”Think of her!” said George.

”A very beautiful young lady; isn't she? and clever, too. I knew her father well, Mr. George--very well. Isn't she a very handsome young lady? Ah, well! she hasn't money enough, Mr. George; that's the fact; that's the fact. But”--and Mr. Pritchett whispered as he continued--”the old gentleman might make it more, Mr. George.”

Mr. Pritchett had a somewhat melancholy way of speaking of everything. It was more in his tone than in his words. And this tone, which was all but sepulchral, was perhaps owing rather to a short neck and an asthmatic tendency than to any real sorrow or natural lowness of spirits.

Those who saw Mr. Pritchett often probably remembered this, and counted on it; but with George there was always a graveyard touch about these little interviews. He could not, therefore, but have some melancholy presentiment when he heard Miss Waddington spoken of in such a tone.

On the following day he went down to Hadley, and, as was customary there, found that he was to spend the evening _tete-a-tete_ with his uncle. Nothing seemed changed since he had left it: his uncle came in just before dinner, and poked the fire exactly as he had done on the last visit George had paid him after a long absence. ”Come, John, we're three minutes late! why don't we have dinner?” He asked no question--at least, not at first--either about Sir Lionel or about Jerusalem, and seemed resolute to give the traveller none of that _eclat_, to pay to his adventures none of that deferential awe which had been so well expressed by Mr. Pritchett in two words.

But Mr. Bertram, though he always began so coldly, did usually improve after a few hours. His tone would gradually become less cynical and harsh; his words would come out more freely; and he would appear somewhat less anxious to wound the _amour propre_ of his companion.

”Are you much wiser for your travels, George?” he said at last, when John had taken away the dinner, and they were left alone with a bottle of port wine between them. This, too, was asked in a very cynical tone, but still there was some improvement in the very fact of his deigning to allude to the journey.

”Yes, I think I am rather wiser.”

”Well, I'm glad of that. As you have lost a year in your profession, it is well that you should have gained something. Has your accession of wisdom been very extensive?”

”Somewhat short of Solomon's, sir; but probably quite as much as I should have picked up had I remained in London.”

”That is very probable. I suppose you have not the slightest idea how much it cost you. Indeed, that would be a very vulgar way of looking at it.”

”Thanks to your unexpected kindness, I have not been driven to any very close economy.”

”Ah! that was Pritchett's doing. He seemed afraid that the land would not flow with milk and honey unless your pocket was fairly provided.

But of course it's your own affair, George. It is money borrowed; that's all.”

George did not quite understand what this meant, and remained silent; but at one moment it was almost on his tongue to say that it ought at least to be admitted that the borrower had not been very pressing in his application.

”And I suppose you have come back empty?” continued his uncle.