“My dear Tom,” said Harthouse, “let me try to be your banker.”
“For God sake,” replied Tom, suddenly, “don’t talk about bankers!” and very white he looked, in contrast with the roses. Very white.
Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly well bred man, accustomed to the best society, was not to be surprised – he could as soon have been affected – but he raised his eyelids a little more, as if they were lifted by a feeble touch of wonder. Albeit it was as much against the precepts of his school to wonder, as it was against the doctrines of the Gradgrind College.
“What is the present need, Tom? Three figures? Out with them. Say what they are.”
“Mr. Harthouse,” returned Tom, now actually crying; and his tears were better than his injuries, however pitiful a figure he made; “it’s too late; the money is of no use to me at present. I should have had it before to be of use to me. But I am very much obliged to you; you’re a true friend.”
A true friend! “Whelp, whelp!” thought Mr. Harthouse, lazily; “what an Ass you are!”
“And I take your offer as a great kindness,” said Tom grasping his hand. “As a great kindness, Mr. Harthouse.”
“Well,” returned the other, “it may be of more use by and by. And, my good fellow, if you will open your bedevilments to me when they come thick upon you, I may show you better ways out of them than you can find for yourself.”
“Thank you,” said Tom, shaking his head dismally, and chewing rosebuds. “I wish I had known you sooner, Mr. Harthouse.”
“Now, you see, Tom,” said Mr. Harthouse in conclusion, himself tossing over a rose or two, as a contribution to the island, which was always drifting to the wall as if it wanted to become a part of the mainland: “every man is selfish in everything he does, and I am exactly like the rest of my fellow creatures. I am desperately intent;” the languor of his desperation being quite tropical; “on your softening towards your sister – which you ought to do; and on your being a more loving and agreeable sort of brother – which you ought to be.”
“I will be, Mr. Harthouse.”
“No time like the present, Tom. Begin at once.”
“Certainly I will. And my sister Loo shall say so.”
“Having made which bargain, Tom,” said Harthouse, clapping him on the shoulder again, with an air which left him at liberty to infer – as he did, poor fool – that this condition was imposed upon him in mere careless good nature to lessen his sense of obligation, “we will tear ourselves asunder until dinner-time.”
When Tom appeared before dinner, though his mind seemed heavy enough, his body was on the alert; and he appeared before Mr. Bounderby came in. “I didn’t mean to be cross, Loo,” he said, giving her his hand, and kissing her. “I know you are fond of me, and you know I am fond of you.”
After this, there was a smile upon Louisa’s face that day, for some one else. Alas, for some one else!
“So much the less is the whelp the only creature that she cares for,” thought James Harthouse, reversing the reflection of his first day’s knowledge of her pretty face. “So much the less, so much the less.”
Chapter VIII Explosion
The next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome an influence on his young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fragrance of his eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy smoke vanishing into the air, so rich and soft with summer odors, he reckoned up his advantages as an idle winner might count his gains. He was not at all bored for the time, and could give his mind to it.
He had established a confidence with her, from which her husband was excluded. He had established a confidence with her, that absolutely turned upon her indifference towards her husband, and the absence, now and at all times, of any congeniality between them. He had artfully, but plainly assured her, that he knew her heart in its most delicate recesses; he had come so near to her through its tenderest sentiment; he had associated himself with that feeling; and the barrier behind which she lived, melted away. All very odd, and very satisfactory!