not think you understand me, or rather I should say I do not think I have made myself perfectly intelligible to you. It is not for the sake of wealth itself or the éclat attending its possession that I desire an immediate fortune, but that by means of it I may attain another object dearer than wealth, and more precious than my career.”
The elder gentleman turned quickly, evidently much surprised, and cast a sudden inquiring glance at his nephew, who blushed with a modest ingenuousness pleasing to see in one so well accustomed to the critical gaze of his fellow-men.
“Yes,” said he, as if in answer to that look, “I am in love.”
A deep silence for a moment pervaded the apartment, a sombre silence almost startling to young Mandeville, who had expected some audible expression to follow this announcement if only the good-natured “Pooh! pooh!” of the matured man of the world in the presence of ardent youthful enthusiasm. What could it mean? Looking up he encountered his uncle’s eye fixed upon him with the last expression he could have anticipated seeing there, namely that of actual and unmistakable alarm.
“You are displeased,” Mandeville exclaimed. “You have thought me proof against such a passion, or perhaps you do not believe in the passion itself!” Then with a sudden remembrance of the notable if somewhat indolent loveliness of his uncle’s wife, blushed again at his unusual want of tact, while his eye with an involuntary impulse sought the large panel at their right where, in the full bloom of her first youth, the lady of the house smiled upon all beholders.
“I do not believe in that passion influencing a man’s career,” his uncle replied with no apparent attention to the other’s embarrassment. “A woman needs be possessed of uncommon excellences to justify a man in leaving a path where success is certain, for one where it is not only