Hester

the two who were absent must have somehow met and be spending at least part of the time together free from all inspection⁠—a thing which was really happening, though nothing could be more unlikely, more unprecedented than that it should happen. Roland did not think thus; he knew very well that Edward had not attempted to hold any intercourse with Hester, and felt that as far as this was concerned there was no extra danger in the circumstances: but Harry’s alarm seemed to confirm all his own ideas on the other matter. He missed Hester greatly for his own part⁠—not that he did not do his best to make several of the Redborough young ladies believe that to recall himself to her individual recollection was the special object of his visit⁠—but that was a mere detail of ordinary existence. It was Hester he had looked forward to as the charm of the evening, and everything was insipid to him without her, in the feminine society around him. It was not till after supper, when the fun had become faster and more furious that he found himself standing close to Harry whose countenance in the midst of all this festivity was dull and lowering as a wintry sky. Harry did not dance much; he was a piece of still life more than anything else in his sister’s house: loyally present to stand by her, doing everything she asked him, but otherwise enduring rather than enjoying. This was not at all Roland’s role: but on this special evening when they got together after midnight the one was not much more lively and exhilarating in aspect than the other. They stood up together in a doorway, the privileged retreat of such observers, and made some gloomy remarks to each other. “Gets to look a little absurd, don’t it, this sort of thing, when you have a deal on your mind?” Harry said out of his moustache. And “Yes. Gaiety does get depressing after a while,” Roland remarked. After which they relapsed again into dead silence standing side by side.

“Mr. Ashton, what do you mean by it?” cried Ellen. “I have given up Harry: but you usually do your duty. Good gracious! I see three girls not dancing, though I always have more men on purpose. I don’t know what you boys mean.”

“Let us alone, Ashton and I, Nell⁠—we’ve got something to talk about,” said Harry.

His sister looked up half alarmed in his face.

“I declare since you’ve gone so much into business you’re insupportable, Harry,” she cried. It seemed to bring the two men a little closer to each other when she whisked off again into the crowd.

“It’s quite true,” said Harry, “let’s go into the hall, where there’s a little quiet. I do want awfully to talk to you. What do you think about Ned giving up that business all at once, when we both stood up to him about it? I was awfully grateful to you for standing by me. I scarcely expected it; but as for Ned giving in like that, I can scarcely believe it even now.”

“It was not much like him, it must be confessed,” Roland said.

“Like him! he never did such a thing in his life before; generally he doesn’t even pay much attention to what one says. He has a way of just facing you down however you may argue, with a sort of a smile which makes me fit to dance with rage sometimes. But today he was as meek as Moses⁠—What do you think? I⁠—don’t half like it, for my part.”

“You think after all he was in the right perhaps?”

“No, I don’t. I never could do that. To risk other people in that way is what I never would consent to. But a fellow who is so full of fight and so obstinate, to give in⁠—that’s what I don’t understand.”

“You think perhaps⁠—he has not given in,” Roland said.

Harry gave him a bewildered look, half grateful, half angry. “Now I wonder what I’ve said that has made you think that!”

“Nothing that you have said⁠—perhaps only an uneasy feeling in my own mind that it isn’t natural, and that I don’t understand it any more than you.”

“Well,” said Harry, with a long breath of relief, “that is just what I think. I don’t believe for a moment, you understand, that Ned, who is a real good fellow all through”⁠—here he made a slight pause, and glanced at Roland with a sort of defiance, as if expecting a doubt, which however was not expressed⁠—“means anything underhand, you know. Of course I don’t mean that. But when a man knows that he is cleverer than another fellow, he’ll just shut up sometimes and take his own way, feeling it’s no use to argue⁠—I don’t mean he thinks himself cleverer than you, Ashton; that’s a different affair. But he hasn’t much opinion of me. And in most things no doubt he’s right, and I’ve never set up to have much of an opinion.”

“There you are wrong, Vernon,” said Roland, “you have the better judgment of the two. Edward may be cleverer as you say, but I’d rather throw in my lot with you.”

“Do you really say so?” cried Harry, lighting up; “well, that is very kind of you anyhow. My only principle is we’ve got others to consider besides ourselves.”

“Precisely so,” said Roland, who had heard this statement already, “and you were quite right to stick to it: but I confess I am like you, not quite comfortable about the other matter. Has he means enough of his own to go in for it? If so, I should think that was what he intended.”

Harry shook his head. “We had none of us any means,” he said. “Aunt Catherine took us, as you might say, off the streets. We were not even very near relations. She’s done everything for us: that’s why I say doubly, don’t let us risk a penny of her money or of what she prizes above money.