'As if I hadn't known it all along! And wasn't it hard to bear that you should have scolded me with such pertinacious austerity, and that I wasn't to say a word in answer!'
'I don't remember the austerity,' said Mrs Dale.
'Nor yet Lily's silence,' said Bell.
'But it's all settled now,' said Lily, 'and I'm downright happy. I never felt more satisfaction,—never, Bell!'
'Nor did I,' said her mother; 'I may truly say that I thank God for this good thing.'
LI. John Eames Does Things Which He Ought Not to Have Done
John Eames succeeded in making his bargain with Sir Raffle Buffle. He accepted the private secretaryship on the plainly expressed condition that he was to have leave of absence for a fortnight towards the end of April. Having arranged this he took an affectionate leave of Mr Love, who was really much affected at parting with him, discussed valedictory pots of porter in the big room, over which many wishes were expressed that he might be enabled to compass the length and breadth of old Ruffle's feet, uttered a last cutting joke at Mr Kissing as he met that gentleman hurrying through the passages with an enormous ledger in his hands, and then took his place in the comfortable arm-chair which FitzHoward had been forced to relinquish.
'Don't tell any of the fellows,' said Fitz, 'but I'm going to cut the concern altogether. My governor wouldn't let me stop here in any other place than that of private secretary.'
'Ah, your governor is a swell,' said Eames.
'I don't know about that,' said FitzHoward. 'Of course he has a good deal of family interest. My cousin is to come in for St. Bungay at the next election, and then I can do better than remain here.'
'That's a matter of course;' said Eames. 'If my cousin were Member for St Bungay, I'd never stand anything east of Whitehall.'
'And I don't mean,' said FitzHoward. 'This room, you know, is all very nice; but it is a bore coming into the City every day. And then one doesn't like to be rung for like a servant. Not that I mean to put you out of conceit with it.'
'It will do very well for me,' said Eames. 'I never was very particular.' And so they parted, Eames assuming the beautiful arm-chair and the peril of being asked to carry Sir Raffle's shoes, while FitzHoward took the vacant desk in the big room till such time as some member of his family should come into Parliament for the borough of St. Bungay.
But Eames, though he drank the porter, and quizzed FitzHoward, and gibed at Kissing, did not seat himself in his new arm-chair without some serious thoughts. He was aware that his career in London had not hitherto been one on which he could look back with self-respect. He had lived with friends whom he did not esteem; he had been idle, and sometimes worse than idle; and he had allowed himself to be hampered by the pretended love of a woman for whom he had never felt any true affection, and by whom he had been cozened out of various foolish promises which even yet were hanging over his head. As he sat with Sir Raffle's notes before him, he thought almost with horror of the men and women in Burton Crescent. It was now about three years since he had first known Cradell, and he shuddered as he remembered how very poor a creature was he whom he had chosen for his bosom friend. He could not make for himself those excuses which we can make for him. He could not tell himself that he had been driven by circumstances to choose a friend, before he had learned to know what were the requisites for which he should look. He had lived on terms of closest intimacy with this man for three years, and now his eyes were opening themselves to the nature of his friend's character. Cradell was in age three years his senior. 'I won't drop him,' he said to himself; 'but he is a poor creature.' He thought, too, of the Lupexes, of Miss Spruce, and of Mrs Roper, and tried to imagine what Lily Dale would do if she found herself among such people. It would be impossible that she should ever so find herself. He might as well ask her to drink at the bar of a gin shop as to sit down in Mrs Roper's drawing-room. If destiny had in store for him such good fortune as that of calling Lily his own, it was necessary that he should altogether alter his mode of life.
In truth his hobbledehoyhood was dropping off from him, as its old skin drops from a snake. Much of the feeling and something of the knowledge of manhood was coming on him, and he was beginning to recognise to himself that the future manner of his life must be to him a matter of very serious concern. No such thought had come near him when he first established himself in London. It seems to me that in this respect the fathers and mothers of the present generation understand but little of the inward nature of the young men for whom they are so anxious. They give them credit for so much that it is impossible they should have, and then deny them credit for so much that they possess! They expect from them when boys the discretion of men,—that discretion which comes from thinking; but will not give them credit for any of that power of thought which alone can
