“And there was John Vernon, don’t you know,” said Harry. “He was a caution! I shouldn’t like to follow in his ways.”
“John Vernon was a fool; he threw his chance away. I’ve gone into it, and I know that nothing could be more idiotic. And his extravagance was unbounded. He burned the candle at both ends. I hope you don’t think I want to take John Vernon for my model.”
“It seems to me,” said Harry, “that it’s awfully easy to be ruined by speculation. Something always happens to put you out. There were those mines. For my part I thought they were as safe as the bank, and we lost a lot by them. There was nobody to blame so far as I know. I don’t mean to stand in the way, or be obstructive, as you call it, but we have got to consider other people besides ourselves.”
Roland did not look upon the matter exactly in this way. He was not of Harry’s stolid temperament. He heard of a proposition so important with something of the feelings of a warhorse when he sniffs the battle. But his opposition was all the more weighty that it was more or less against his own will.
“In your place I do not think I should venture,” he said. “If I were an independent capitalist, entirely free—”
“You would go in for it without a moment’s hesitation! Of course you would. And why should we be hampered by imaginary restrictions? Aunt Catherine—if it is her you are thinking of—need know nothing about it, and we risk nobody so much as we risk ourselves. Loss would be far more fatal to us than to anyone else. Am I likely to insist upon anything which would make an end of myself first of all if it went wrong?”
But the others were not convinced by this argument. Harry shook his head, and repeated his formula.
“It wouldn’t console anybody who was injured, that you ruined yourself first of all,” he said.
“Nor would it comfort me for the loss of a fortune that other people had rejected it,” cried Edward with an angry smile.
His mind worked a great deal faster than the conversation could go, and the discussion altogether was highly distasteful to him. Harry had a right to his say when the subject was broached, but it was beyond measure embarrassing and disagreeable that Harry should have heard anything about it. It was all Ashton’s fault, whom he had consulted by way of satisfying his conscience merely, and whom he could not silence or find fault with for betraying him, since, of course, he wanted no one to suppose that he acted upon his own impulse and meant to leave Harry out. He could not express all this, but he could drop the discussion, and Ashton (he thought to himself) along with it. Let him prose as he would, and chime in with Harry’s little matter-of-fact ways, he (Edward) had no intention to allow himself to be stopped.
“I would let it alone, if I were you,” Roland said. “It is a great temptation, and of course if you were entirely independent—But I would not risk a penny of other people’s money.”
“That’s just what I say. We have others to consider besides ourselves,” said the steadfast Harry.
Edward made no reply. He was outvoted for the moment by voices which, he said to himself, had no right to be heard on the question. The best thing was to end the discussion and judge for himself. And the contemplation of the step before him took away his breath; it took the words out of his mouth. There would be nothing to be said for it. In argument it would be an indefensible proceeding. It was a thing to do, not to think, much less talk about. No one would have a word to say if (as was all but absolutely certain) his operations were attended by success. In that event his coolness, his promptitude, his daring, would be the admiration of everybody; and Harry himself, the obstructive, would share the advantage, and nothing more would be heard of his stock phrase. Edward felt that in reality it was he who was considering others, who was working for everybody’s benefit; but to form such a determination was enough to make the strongest head swim, and it was necessary that he should shake off all intrusion, and have time and solitude to think it over in private.
The way in which he thus dropped the discussion astonished both the other parties to it a little. Edward was seldom convinceable if he took an idea into his head, and he never acknowledged himself beaten. But Harry at first was simple enough to be able to believe that what he had himself said was unanswerable, and that as nothing could be done without his acquiescence, Ned showed his sense by dropping the question. Roland was not so easily reassured; but it was not his business, which makes a wonderful difference in the way we consider a subject, and it was not for him to continue a subject which the persons chiefly concerned had dropped. He strolled with Harry into his room presently on a hint from Edward that he had something particular to do. Harry was not very busy. He did what came under his special department with sufficient diligence, but that was not oppressive work: the clerks took it off his hands in great part. In all important matters it was Mr. Edward who was first consulted. Harry had rather a veto upon what was proposed, than an active hand it; but he was very steady, always present, setting the best example to the clerks. Roland talked to him for a quarter of an hour pleasantly enough about football, which
