Mr. Dering lay back in his chair, gazing at the door--the unromantic office door--through which Elsie had just pa.s.sed. I suppose that even the driest of old bachelors and lawyers may be touched by the sight of a young girl made suddenly and unexpectedly happy. Perhaps the mere apparition of a lovely girl, dainty and delicate and sweet, daintily and delicately apparelled, so as to look like a G.o.ddess or a wood-nymph rather than a creature of clay, may have awakened old and long-forgotten thoughts before the instincts of youth were stifled by piles of parchment. It is the peculiar and undisputed privilege of the historian to read thoughts, but it is not always necessary to write them down.

He sat up and sighed. 'I have not told her all,' he murmured. 'She shall be happier still.' He touched his hand-bell. 'Checkley,' he said, 'ask Mr. Austin kindly to step this way.--A day of surprise--of joyful surprise--for both.'

It was indeed to be a day of good fortune, as you shall see.

He opened a drawer and took out a doc.u.ment rolled and tied, which he laid upon the table before him.

George obeyed the summons, not without misgiving, for Elsie, he knew, must by this time have had the dreaded interview, and the call might have some reference to his own share in the great contumacy. To incur the displeasure of his employer in connection with that event might lead to serious consequences.

Astonishing thing! Mr. Dering received him with a countenance that seemed transformed. He smiled benevolently upon him. He even laughed. He smiled when George opened the door: he laughed when, in obedience to a gesture of invitation, George took a chair. He actually laughed: not weakly or foolishly, but as a strong man laughs.

'I want ten minutes with you, George Austin'--he actually used the Christian name--'ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, or perhaps half an hour.' He laughed again. 'Now, then'--his face a.s.sumed its usual judicial expression, but his lips broke into unaccustomed smiles--'Now then, sir, I have just seen my ward--my former ward, for she is now of age--and have heard--well--everything there was to hear.'

'I have no doubt, sir, that what you heard from Elsie was the exact truth.'

'I believe so. The questions which I put to her I also put to you. How do you propose to live? On your salary? You have been engaged to my late ward without asking the permission of her guardians--that is, her mother and myself.'

'That is not quite the case. We found that her mother opposed the engagement, and therefore it was not necessary to ask your permission.

We agreed to let the matter rest until she should be of age. Meanwhile, we openly corresponded and saw each other.'

'It is a distinction without a difference. Perhaps what you would call a legal distinction. You now propose to marry. Elsie Arundel is no longer my ward; but, as a friend, I venture to ask you how you propose to live?

A wife and a house cost money. Shall you keep house and wife on your salary alone? Have you any other resources?'

There are several ways of putting these awkward questions. There is especially the way of accusation, by which you charge the guilty young man of being by his own fault one of a very huge family--of having no money and no expectations--nothing at all, unless he can make it for himself. It is the manner generally adopted by parents and guardians.

Mr. Dering, however, when he put the question smiled genially and rubbed his hands--a thing so unusual as to be terrifying in itself--as if he was uttering a joke--a thing he never had done in his life. The question, however, even when put in this, the kindest way, is one most awkward for any young man, and especially to a young man in either branch of the law, and most especially to a young man beginning the ascent of the lower branch.

Consider, of all the professions, crowded as they are, there is none so crowded as this branch of the law. 'What,' asks anxious Quiverful Pere, 'shall I do with this boy of mine? I will spend a thousand pounds upon him and make him a solicitor. Once he has pa.s.sed, the way is clear for him.' 'How,' asks the ambitious man of trade, 'shall I advance my son?

I will make him a lawyer; once pa.s.sed he will open an office and get a practice and become rich. He will be a gentleman. And his children will be born gentlemen.' Very good; a most laudable custom it is in this realm of Great Britain for the young men still to be pressing upwards, though those who are already high up would fain forget the days of climbing and sneer at those who are making their way. But, applied to this profession, climbing seems no longer practicable. This way of advance will have to be abandoned.

Consider, again. Every profession gets rich out of its own mine. There is the mine Ecclesiastic, the mine Medical, the mine Artistic, the mine Legal. The last-named contains leases, covenants, agreements, wills, bonds, mortgages, actions, partnerships, transfers, conveyances, county courts, and other treasures, all to be had for the digging. But--and this is too often forgotten--there is only a limited quant.i.ty to be taken out of the mine every year, and there is not enough to go round, except in very minute portions. And since, until we become socialists at heart, we shall all of us continue to desire for our share that which is called the mess of Benjamin, and since all cannot get that mess--which Mr. Dering had enjoyed for the whole of his life--or anything like that desirable portion, most young solicitors go in great heaviness of spirit--hang their heads, corrugate their foreheads, write despairing letters to the girls they left behind them, and with grumbling grat.i.tude take the hundred or two hundred a year which is offered for their services as managing clerks. Again, the Legal mine seems of late years not to yield anything like so much as formerly. There has been a cruel shrinkage all over the country, and especially in country towns: the boom of building seems to have come to an end: the agricultural depression has dragged down with it an immense number of people who formerly flourished with the lawyers, and, by means of their savings, investments, leases, and partnerships and quarrels, made many a solicitor fat and happy. That is all gone. It used to be easy, if one had a little money, to buy a partnership. Now it is no longer possible, or, at least, no longer easy. n.o.body has a business greater than he himself can manage; everybody has got a son coming in.

These considerations show why the question was difficult to answer.

Said George in reply, but with some confusion: 'We are prepared to live on little. We are not in the least extravagant: Elsie will rough it.

Besides, she has her Art----'

'Out of which she makes at present nothing a year.'

'But she will get on--and I may hope, may reasonably hope, some time to make an income larger than my present one.'

'You may hope--you may hope. But the position is not hopeful. In fact, George Austin, you must marry on ten times your present income, or not at all.'

'But I a.s.sure you, sir, our ideas are truly modest, and we have made up our minds how we can live and pay our way.'

'You think you have. That is to say, you have prepared a table of expenses showing how, with twopence to spare, you can live very well on two hundred pounds a year. Of course you put down nothing for the thousand and one little unexpected things which everybody of your education and habits pays for every day.'

'We have provided as far as we can see.'

'Well, it won't do. Of course, I can't forbid the girl to marry you. She is of age. I can't forbid you--but I can make it impossible--impossible for you, Master Austin--impossible.'

He rapped the table. The words were stern, but the voice was kindly, and he smiled again as he spoke. 'You thought you would do without me, did you? Well--you shall see--you shall see.'

George received this threat without words, but with a red face, and with rising indignation. Still, when one is a servant, one must endure the reproofs of the master. He said nothing therefore, but waited.

'I have considered for some time,' Mr. Dering continued, 'how to meet this case in a satisfactory manner. At last, I made up my mind. And if you will read this doc.u.ment, young gentleman, you will find that I have made your foolish proposal to marry on love and nothing else quite impossible--quite impossible, sir.' He slapped the table with the paper, and tossed it over to George.

George took the paper, and began to read it. Suddenly he jumped out of his chair. He sprang to his feet. '_What?_' he cried.

'Go on--go on,' said Mr. Dering benevolently.

'Partnership? Partnership?' George gasped. 'What does it mean?'

'It is, as you say, a Deed of Partnership between myself and yourself.

The conditions of the Partnership are duly set forth--I hope you will see your way to accepting them.--A Deed of Partnership. I do not know within a few hundreds what your share may be, but I believe you may reckon on at least two thousand for the first year, and more--much more--before long.'

'More than a thousand?'

'You have not read the deed through. Call yourself a lawyer? Sit down, and read it word for word.'

George obeyed, reading it as if it was a paper submitted to him for consideration, a paper belonging to some one else.

'Well? You have read it?'

'Yes; I have read it through.'

'Observe that the Partnership may be dissolved by Death, Bankruptcy, or Mutual Consent. I receive two-thirds of the proceeds for life.

That--alas!--will not be for long.--Well, young man, do you accept this offer?'

'Accept? Oh! Accept? What can I do? What can I say--but accept?' He walked to the window, and looked out; I suppose he was admiring the trees in the square, which were certainly very beautiful in early July.

Then he returned, his eyes humid.

'Aha!' Mr. Dering chuckled. 'I told you that I would make it impossible for you to marry on two hundred pounds a year. I waited till Elsie's birthday. Well? You will now be able to revise that little estimate of living on two hundred a year. Eh?'

'Mr. Dering,' said George, with breaking voice, 'I cannot believe it; I cannot understand it. I have not deserved it.'

'Shake hands, my Partner.'

The two men shook hands.

'Now sit down and let us talk a bit,' said Mr. Dering. 'I am old. I am past seventy. I have tried to persuade myself that I am still as fit for work as ever. But I have had warnings. I now perceive that they must be taken as warnings. Sometimes it is a little confusion of memory--I am not able to account for little things--I forget what I did yesterday afternoon. I suppose all old men get these reminders of coming decay. It means that I must reduce work and responsibility. I might give up business altogether and retire: I have money enough and to spare: but this is the third generation of a successful House, and I could not bear to close the doors, and to think that the Firm would altogether vanish.

So I thought I would take a partner, and I began to look about me.

Well--in brief, I came to the conclusion that I should find no young man better qualified than yourself for ability and for power of work and for all the qualities necessary for the successful conduct of such a House as this. Especially I considered the essential of good manners. I was early taught by my father that the greatest aid to success is good breeding. I trust that in this respect I have done justice to the teaching of one who was the most courtly of his time. You belong to an age of less ceremony and less respect to rank. But we are not always in a barrack or in a club. We are not all comrades or equals. There are those below to consider as well as those above. There are women: there are old men: you, my partner, have shown me that you can give to each the consideration, the deference, the recognition that he deserves. True breeding is the recognition of the individual. You are careful of the small things which smooth the asperities of business. In no profession, not even that of medicine, is a good manner more useful than in ours.

And this you possess.--It also pleases me,' he added after a pause, 'to think that in making you my partner I am also promoting the happiness of a young lady I have known all her life.'

George murmured something. He looked more like a guilty schoolboy than a man just raised to a position most enviable. His cheeks were flushed and his hands trembled. Mr. Dering touched his bell.

'Checkley,' he said, when that faithful retainer appeared, 'I have already told you of my intention to take a partner. This is my new partner.'

Checkley changed colour. His old eyes--or was George wrong?--flashed with a light of malignity as he raised them. It made him feel uncomfortable--but only for a moment.