"No, that is, pardon me but I have sometimes thought that even in the event of success I should have to struggle against his inherited instincts of caste and his natural dislike of all things new, even wealth, but I never thought of the possibility of my arousing his distrust by speculating in stocks and engaging in enterprises so nearly in accord with his own business operations."
"Yet if I guess aright you would run greater risk of losing the support of his countenance by following the hazardous course you propose, than if you continued in the line of art that now engages you."
"Do you know—"
"I know nothing, but I fear the chances, Bertram."
"Then I am already defeated and must give up my hopes of happiness."
A smile thin and indefinable crossed the other's face. "No," said he, "not necessarily." And sitting down by his nephew's side, he asked if he had any objections to enter a bank. "In a good capacity," he exclaimed.
"No indeed; it would be an opportunity surpassing my hopes. Do you know of an opening?"
"Well," said he, "under the circumstances I will let you into the secret of my own affairs. I have always had one ambition, and that was to be at the head of a bank. I have not said much about it, but for the last five years I have been working to this end, and to-day you see me the possessor of at least three-fourths of the stock of the Madison Bank. It has been deteriorating for some time, consequently I was enabled to buy it low, but now that I have got it I intend to build up the concern. I am able to throw business of an important nature in its way, and I dare prophesy that before the year is out you will see it re-established upon a solid and influential footing."
"I have no doubt of it, sir; you have the knack of success, any thing that you touch is sure to go straight."
"Unhappily yes, as far as business operations go. But no matter about that;—" as if the other had introduced some topic incongruous to the one they were considering—"the point is this. In two weeks time I shall be elected President of the Bank; if you will accept the position of assistant cashier,—the best I can offer in consideration of your total ignorance of all details of the business,—it is open to you—"
"Uncle! how generous! I—"
"Hush! your duties will be nominal, the present cashier is fully competent; but the leisure thus afforded will offer you abundant opportunity to make yourself acquainted with all matters connected with the banking system as well as with such capitalists as it would be well for you to know. So that when the occasion comes, I can raise you to the cashier's place or make such other disposal of your talents as will best insure your rapid advance."
The young man's eyes sparkled; with a sudden impetuous movement he jumped to his feet and grasped his uncle's hand. "I can never thank you enough; you have made me your debtor for life. Now let any one ask me who is my father, and I will say—"
"He was Edward Sylvester's brother. But come, come, this extreme gratitude is unnecessary. You have always been a favorite with me, Bertram, and now that I have no child, you seem doubly near; it is my pleasure to do what I can for you. But—" and here he surveyed him with a wistful look, "I wish you were entering into this new line from love of the business rather than love of a woman. I fear for you my boy. It is an awful thing to stake one's future upon a single chance and that chance a woman's faith. If she should fail you after you had compassed your fortune, should die—well you could bear that perhaps; but if she turned false, and married some one else, or even married you and then—"
"What?" came in silvery accents from the door, and a woman richly clad, her trailing velvets filling the air at once with an oppressive perfume, entered the room and paused before them in an attitude meant to be arch, but which from the massiveness of her figure and the scornful carriage of her head, succeeded in being simply imperious.
Mr. Sylvester rose abruptly as if unpleasantly surprised. "Ona!" he exclaimed, hastening, however, to cover his embarassment by a courteous acknowledgement of her presence and a careless remark concerning the shortness of the services that had allowed her to return from church so early. "I did not hear you come in," he observed.
"No, I judge not," she returned with a side glance at Mandeville. "But the services were not short, on the contrary I thought I should never hear the last amen. Mr. Turner's voice is very agreeable," she went on, in a rambling manner all her own, "it never interferes with your thoughts; not that I am considered as having any," she interjected with another glance at their silent guest, "a woman in society with a reputation for taste in all matters connected with fashionable living, has no thoughts of course; business men with only one idea in their heads, that of making money, have more no doubt. Do you know, Edward," she went on with sudden inconsequence, which was another trait of this amiable lady's conversation, "that I have quite come to a conclusion in regard to the girl Philip Longtree is going to marry; she may be pretty, but she does not know how to dress. I wish you could have seen her to-night; she had on mauve with old gold trimmings. Now with one of her complexion—But I forget you haven't seen her. Bertram, I think I shall give a German next month, will you come? Oh, Edward!" as if the thought had suddenly struck her, "Princess Louise is the sixth child of Queen Victoria; I asked Mr. Turner to-night. By the way, I wonder if it will be pleasant enough to take the horses out to-morrow? Bird has been obliging enough to get sick just in the height of the season, Mr. Mandeville. There are a thousand things I have got to do and I hate hired horses." And with a petulant sigh she laid her prayer-book on the table and with a glance in the mirror near by, began pulling off her gloves in the slow and graceful fashion eminently in keeping with her every movement.
It was as if an atmosphere of worldliness had settled down upon this room sanctified a moment before by the utterances of a pure and noble love. Mr. Sylvester looked uneasy, while Bertram searched in vain for something to say.
"I seem to have brought a blight," she suddenly murmured in an easy tone somewhat at variance with the glance of half veiled suspicion which she darted from under her heavy lids, at first one and then the other of the two gentlemen before her. "No, I will not sit," she added as her husband offered her a chair. "I am tired almost to death and would retire immediately, but I interrupted you I believe in the utterance of some wise saying about matrimony. It is an interesting subject and I have a notion to hear what one so well qualified to speak in regard to it—" and here she made a slow, half lazy courtesy to her husband with a look that might mean anything from coquetry to defiance—"has to say to a young man like Mr. Mandeville."
Edward Sylvester who was regarded as an autocrat among men, and who certainly was an acknowledged leader in any company he chose to enter, bowed his head before this anomalous glance with a gesture of something like submission.
"One is not called upon to repeat every inadvertent phrase he may utter," said he. "Bertram was consulting me upon certain topics and—"
"You answered him in your own brilliant style," she concluded. "What did you say?" she asked in another moment in a low unmoved tone which the final act of smoothing out her gloves on the table with hands delicate as white rose leaves but firm as marble, did not either hasten or retard.
"Oh if you insist," he returned lightly, "and are willing to bear the reflection my unfortunate remark seems to cast upon the sex, I was merely observing to my nephew, that the man who centered all his hopes upon a woman's faith, was liable to disappointment. Even if he succeeded in marrying her there were still possibilities of his repenting any great sacrifice made in her behalf."
"Indeed!" and for once the delicate cheek flushed deeper than its rouge. "And why do you say this?" she inquired, dropping her coquettish manner and flashing upon them both, the haughty and implacable woman Bertram had always believed her to be, notwithstanding her vagaries and fashion.
"Because I have seen much of life outside my own house," her husband replied with undiminished courtesy; "and feel bound to warn any young man of his probable fate, who thinks to find nothing but roses and felicity beyond the gates of fashionable marriage."
"Ah then,