'You have still to learn,' said Jasper, 'that modesty helps a man in no department of modern life. People take you at your own valuation. It's the men who declare boldly that they need no help to whom practical help comes from all sides. As likely as not Yule will mention my name to someone. "A young fellow who seems to see his way pretty clear before him." The other man will repeat it to somebody else, "A young fellow whose way is clear before him," and so I come to the ears of a man who thinks "Just the fellow I want; I must look him up and ask him if he'll do such-and-such a thing." But I should like to see these Yules at home; I must fish for an invitation.'
In the afternoon, Miss Harrow and Marian came at the expected hour. Jasper purposely kept out of the way until he was summoned to the tea-table.
The Milvain girls were so far from effusive, even towards old acquaintances, that even the people who knew them best spoke of them as rather cold and perhaps a trifle condescending; there were people in Wattleborough who declared their airs of superiority ridiculous and insufferable. The truth was that nature had endowed them with a larger share of brains than was common in their circle, and had added that touch of pride which harmonised so ill with the restrictions of poverty. Their life had a tone of melancholy, the painful reserve which characterises a certain clearly defined class in the present day. Had they been born twenty years earlier, the children of that veterinary surgeon would have grown up to a very different, and in all probability a much happier, existence, for their education would have been limited to the strictly needful, and--certainly in the case of the girls--nothing would have encouraged them to look beyond the simple life possible to a poor man's offspring. But whilst Maud and Dora were still with their homely schoolmistress, Wattleborough saw fit to establish a Girls' High School, and the moderateness of the fees enabled these sisters to receive an intellectual training wholly incompatible with the material conditions of their life. To the relatively poor (who are so much worse off than the poor absolutely) education is in most cases a mocking cruelty. The burden of their brother's support made it very difficult for Maud and Dora even to dress as became their intellectual station; amusements, holidays, the purchase of such simple luxuries as were all but indispensable to them, could not be thought of. It resulted that they held apart from the society which would have welcomed them, for they could not bear to receive without offering in turn. The necessity of giving lessons galled them; they felt--and with every reason--that it made their position ambiguous. So that, though they could not help knowing many people, they had no intimates; they encouraged no one to visit them, and visited other houses as little as might be.
In Marian Yule they divined a sympathetic nature. She was unlike any girl with whom they had hitherto associated, and it was the impulse of both to receive her with unusual friendliness. The habit of reticence could not be at once overcome, and Marian's own timidity was an obstacle in the way of free intercourse, but Jasper's conversation at tea helped to smooth the course of things.
'I wish you lived anywhere near us,' Dora said to their visitor, as the three girls walked in the garden afterwards, and Maud echoed the wish.
'It would be very nice,' was Marian's reply. 'I have no friends of my own age in London.'
'None?'
'Not one!'
She was about to add something, but in the end kept silence.
'You seem to get along with Miss Yule pretty well, after all,'
said Jasper, when the family were alone again.
'Did you anticipate anything else?' Maud asked.
'It seemed doubtful, up at Yule's house. Well, get her to come here again before I go. But it's a pity she doesn't play the piano,' he added, musingly.
For two days nothing was seen of the Yules. Jasper went each afternoon to the stream in the valley, but did not again meet Marian. In the meanwhile he was growing restless. A fortnight always exhausted his capacity for enjoying the companionship of his mother and sisters, and this time he seemed anxious to get to the end of his holiday. For all that, there was no continuance of the domestic bickering which had begun. Whatever the reason, Maud behaved with unusual mildness to her brother, and Jasper in turn was gently disposed to both the girls.
On the morning of the third day--it was Saturday--he kept silence through breakfast, and just as all were about to rise from the table, he made a sudden announcement:
'I shall go to London this afternoon.'
'This afternoon?' all exclaimed. 'But Monday is your day.'
'No, I shall go this afternoon, by the 2.45.'
And he left the room. Mrs Milvain and the girls exchanged looks.
'I suppose he thinks the Sunday will be too wearisome,' said the mother.
'Perhaps so,' Maud agreed, carelessly.
Half an hour later, just as Dora was ready to leave the house for her engagements in Wattleborough, her brother came into the hall and took his hat, saying:
'I'll walk a little way with you, if you don't mind.'
When they were in the road, he asked her in an offhand manner:
'Do you think I ought to say good-bye to the Yules? Or won't it signify?'
'I should have thought you would wish to.'
'I don't care about it. And, you see, there's been no hint of a wish on their part that I should see them in London. No, I'll just leave you to say good-bye for me.'
'But they expect to see us to-day or to-morrow. You told them you were not going till Monday, and you don't know but Mr Yule might mean to say something yet.'
'Well, I had rather he didn't,' replied Jasper, with a laugh.
'Oh, indeed?'
'I don't mind telling you,' he laughed again. 'I'm afraid of that girl. No, it won't do! You understand that I'm a practical man, and I shall keep clear of dangers. These days of holiday idleness put all sorts of nonsense into one's head.'
Dora kept her eyes down, and smiled ambiguously.