Volume Ii Part 25 (2/2)
”But it will show that she--that your sister--has friends near her.”
”That very fact might rouse him to more violence, and my sister would suffer.”
”I might go and call on _him_. I do not believe he would be violent if I asked for him. I am afraid he knows me, otherwise I might take some circulars and call upon him about business.”
”As if you know anything about business.”
”I a.s.sure you I have been very hard at work lately. I have gone into the question of employment very seriously.”
”I doubt your having done anything seriously,” laughed Grace.
”That is rather hard on a fellow, when a fellow has really tried.”
”Come, Mr. Lyons, what have you tried?”
”I have offered myself as an agent to begin with. Agency is a very good thing. You spend no money yourself, and other people's money sticks to your fingers; it is really a very simple thing.”
”And what are you agent for, may I ask?”
”Oh! the appointment is not confirmed, but I think I am on the high road to it. It does not much matter what it is as long as you can get people to buy. I have at this moment two things before me, of which I have really a very fair chance.”
”Have you?”
”Are you sufficiently interested, Miss Rivers, to hear what they are?”
”I am doing my best to show my interest by listening to you with both my ears.”
”Ah! but you are _not_ giving me your undivided attention. You are knitting, and just now I quite distinctly heard you count five. A fellow cannot talk of his prospects to a girl while she counts five,” Mr. Lyons said, in a tone of disgust, and looking round the room appealing to an imaginary audience.
”I will not count again--only just this once. I have made a mistake already;” and Grace wrinkled her forehead and became absorbed in her work for a few moments.
”Miss Rivers, will you really let a fellow talk to you? life and death does not hang upon a few st.i.tches more or less.”
”No, but a sock does; and dear Mrs. Dorriman took such pains to teach me to make one.”
”You are always knitting,” the young man said, discontentedly.
”No; only when I feel very good,” she answered, gravely; ”then I knit all kinds of things into my sock.”
”What sort of things--colours? that thing looks all the same colour to me.”
”Oh, I do not mean material things, but sorrow and penitence--and the bitterest repentance,” she added the last words in a lower tone, and her eyes were concealed under lowered lids; then she sighed.
Mr. Lyons sighed also, he had a very good idea what she referred to.
”To return to your wishes,” said Grace, laughing a little, to carry off a feeling of awkwardness at having shown emotion; ”what do you wish to tell me?”
”It--it sounds a little frivolous now. I only wanted to say I have tried to get into every agency you can think of. I have gone steadily down the alphabet and picked out everything you can think of. It is quite astonis.h.i.+ng how many things there are to be canva.s.sed for. I did the W's yesterday, and the X's and Y's to-day. I took the W's out of their turn because of wine; there are such an enormous number of firms who sell or want to sell _the_ only drinkable wine; and it is a subject I know a little about.”
”And you got nothing?”
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