第13章

MRS ROBY.

Mr Wharton, as he walked home, remembered that Mrs Roby was to dine at his house that evening.During the remainder of the day, after the departure of Lopez, he had been unable to take his mind from the consideration of the proposition made to him.He had tried the novel, and he had tried Huggins v.the Trustees of the Charity of St Ambox, a case of undeniable importance in which he was engaged on the part of Huggins, but neither was sufficiently powerful to divert his thoughts.Throughout the morning he was imagining what he would say to Emily about this lover of hers,--in what way he would commence the conversation, and how he would express his own opinion should he find that she was in any degree favourable to the man.Should she altogether ignore the man's pretensions, there would be no difficulty.But if she hesitated, --if, as was certainly possible, she should show any partiality for the man, then there would be a knot which would required untying.Hitherto the intercourse between the father and daughter had been simple and pleasant.He had given her everything she had asked for, and she had obeyed him in all the very few matters as to which he had demanded obedience.

Questions of discipline, as far as there had been any discipline, had generally been left to Mrs Roby.Mrs Roby was to dine at Manchester Square to-day, and perhaps it would be well that he should have a few words with Mrs Roby before he spoke to his daughter.

Mrs Roby had a husband, but Mr Roby had not been asked to dine in the Square on this occasion.Mrs Roby dined in the Square very often, but Mr Roby very seldom,--not probably above once a year, on some special occasion.He and Mr Wharton had married sisters, but they were quite unlike in character, and had never become friends.Mrs Wharton had been nearly twenty years younger than her sister; and Mr Roby a year or two younger than his wife.The two men therefore belonged to different periods of life, Mr Roby at the present time being a florid youth of forty.He had a moderate fortune, inherited from his mother, of which he was sufficiently careful; but he loved races, and read sporting papers; he was addicted to hunting and billiards; he shot pigeons,--and, so Mr Wharton had declared calumniously more than once to an intimate friend,--had not an H in his vocabulary.

The poor man did drop an aspirate now and again; but he knew his defect and strove hard, and with fair average success, to overcome it.But Mr Wharton did not love him, and they were not friends.Perhaps neither did Mrs Roby love him very ardently.

1

Mr Wharton on entering his own house, met his son on the staircase.'Do you dine at home to-day, Everett?'

'Well, sir, no, sir.I don't think I do.I think I half promised to dine with a fellow at the club.'

'Don't you think you'd make things meet more easily about the end of the year if you dined oftener here, where you have nothing to pay, and less frequently at the club, where you pay for everything?'

'But what should I save you would lose, sir.That's the way Ilook at it.'

'Then I advise you to look at it the other way, and leave me to take care of myself.Come in here, I want to speak to you.'

Everett followed his father into a dingy back parlour, which was fitted up with book shelves and was generally called the study, but which was gloomy and comfortless because it was seldom used.

'I have had your friend Lopez with me at my chambers to-day.Idon't like your friend Lopez.'

'I am sorry for that, sir.'

'He is a man to whom I should wish to have a good deal of evidence before I would trust him to be what he seems to be.Idare say he's clever.'

'I think he's more than clever.'

'I dare say;--and well instructed in some respects.'

'I believe him to be a thorough linguist, sir.'

'I dare say.I remember a waiter in a hotel in Holborn who could speak seven languages.It's an accomplishment very necessary for a Courier or Queen's Messenger.'

'You don't mean to say, sir, that you disregard foreign languages?'

'I have said nothing of the kind.But in my estimation they don't stand in the place of principles, or a profession, or birth, or country.I fancy there has been some conversation between you about your sister.'

'Certainly there has.'

'A young man should be very chary about how he speaks to another man, to a stranger, about his sister.A sister's name should be too sacred for club talk.'

'Club talk! Good heavens, sir, you don't think that I have spoken of Emily in that way? There isn't a man in London who has a higher respect for his sister than I have for mine.This man, by no means in a light way, but with all seriousness, has told me that he was attached to Emily; and I believing him to be a gentleman and well to do in this world, have referred him to you.

Can that have been wrong?'

'I don't know how he's "to do", as you call it.I haven't asked, and I don't mean to ask.But I doubt his being a gentleman.He is not an English gentleman.What was his father?'

'I haven't the least idea.'

'Or his mother?'

'He has never mentioned her to me.'