Then his mind ran away to a review of his father’s affairs. It was a genuine trouble to him that his father should be so unhappy. Of all the griefs which weighed upon the Duke’s mind, that in reference to his sister was the heaviest. The money which Gerald owed at Cambridge would be nothing if that other sorrow could be conquered. Nor had Tifto and his own extravagance caused the Duke any incurable wounds. If Tregear could be got out of the way, his father, he thought, might be reconciled to other things. He felt very tenderhearted about his father; but he had no remorse in regard to his sister as he made up his mind that he would speak very seriously to Tregear.
He had wandered into St. James’s Park, and had lighted by this time half-a-dozen cigarettes one after another, as he sat on one of the benches. He was a handsome youth, all but six feet high, with light hair, with round blue eyes, and with all that aristocratic look, which had belonged so peculiarly to the late Duke but which was less conspicuous in the present head of the family. He was a young man whom you would hardly pass in a crowd without observing—but of whom you would say, after due observation, that he had not as yet put off all his childish ways. He now sat with his legs stretched out, with his cane in his hands, looking down upon the water. He was trying to think. He worked hard at thinking. But the bench was hard and, upon the whole, he was not satisfied with his position. He had just made up his mind that he would look up Tregear, when Tregear himself appeared on the path before him.
“Tregear!” exclaimed Silverbridge.
“Silverbridge!” exclaimed Tregear.
“What on earth makes you walk about here on a Sunday morning?”
“What on earth makes you sit there? That I should walk here, which I often do, does not seem to me odd. But that I should find you is marvellous. Do you often come?”
“Never was here in my life before. I strolled in because I had things to think of.”
“Questions to be asked in Parliament? Notices of motions, Amendments in Committee, and that kind of thing?”
“Go on, old fellow.”
“Or perhaps Major Tifto has made important revelations.”
“D⸺ Major Tifto.”
“With all my heart,” said Tregear.
“Sit down here,” said Silverbridge. “As it happened, at the moment when you came up I was thinking of you.”
“That was kind.”
“And I was determined to go to you. All this about my sister must be given up.”
“Must be given up?”
“It can never lead to any good. I mean that there never can be a marriage.” Then he paused, but Tregear was determined to hear him out. “It is making my father so miserable that you would pity him if you could see him.”
“I dare say I should. When I see people unhappy I always pity them. What I would ask you to think of is this. If I were to commission you to tell your sister that everything between us should be given up, would not she be so unhappy that you would have to pity her?”
“She would get over it.”
“And so will your father.”
“He has a right to have his own opinion on such a matter.”
“And so have I. And so has she. His rights in this matter are very clear and very potential. I am quite ready to admit that we cannot marry for many years to come, unless he will provide the money. You are quite at liberty to tell him that I say so. I have no right to ask your father for a penny, and I will never do so. The power is all in his hands. As far as I know my own purposes, I shall not make any immediate attempt even to see her. We did meet, as you saw, the other day, by the merest chance. After that, do you think that your sister wishes me to give her up?”
“As for supposing that girls are to have what they wish, that is nonsense.”
“For young men I suppose equally so. Life ought to be a life of self-denial, no doubt. Perhaps it might be my duty to retire from this affair, if by doing so I should sacrifice only myself. The one person of whom I am bound to think in this matter is the girl I love.”
“That is just what she would say about you.”
“I hope so.”
“In that way you support each other. If it were any other man circumstanced just like you are, and any other girl placed like Mary, you would be the first to say that the man was behaving badly. I don’t like to use hard language to you, but in such a case you would be the first to say of another man—that he was looking after the girl’s money.”
Silverbridge as he said this looked forward steadfastly on to the water, regretting much that cause for quarrel should have arisen, but thinking that Tregear would find himself obliged to quarrel. But Tregear, after a few moments’ silence, having thought it out, determined that he would not quarrel. “I think I probably might,” he said, laying his hand on Silverbridge’s arm. “I think I perhaps might express such an opinion.”
“Well then!”
“I have to examine myself, and find out whether I am guilty of the meanness which I might perhaps be too ready to impute to another. I have done so, and I am quite sure that I am not drawn to your sister by any desire for her money. I did not seek her because she was a rich man’s daughter, nor—because she is a rich man’s daughter—will I give her up. She shall be mistress of the occasion. Nothing but a word from her shall induce me to leave her;—but a word from her, if it comes from her own lips—shall do so.”
