第102章

"Tom, don't be a fool. You can't make a young woman have you if she doesn't choose. I have done all that I could for you, because I saw that you'd set your heart upon it. I went to her myself, and then I gave two hundred and fifty pounds for that bauble. I am told I shall have to lose a third of the sum in getting rid of it.""Ricolay told me that he'd take it back at two hundred and twenty,"said Tom, whose mind, prostrate as it was, was still alive to consideration of profit and loss.

"Never mind that for the present," said Sir Thomas. "Don't you remember the old song? -- 'If she will, she will, you may depend on't. And if she won't, she won't; and there's an end on't.'

You ought to be a man and pluck up your spirits. Are you going to allow a little girl to knock you about in that way?" Tom only shook his head, and looked as if he was very ill. In truth, the champagne, and the imprisonment, and Ayala together, had altogether altered his appearance. "We've done what we could about it, and now it is time to give it over. Let me hear you say that you will give it over." Tom stood speechless before his father. "Speak the word, and the thing will be done," continued Sir Thomas, endeavouring to encourage the young man.

"I can't," said Tom, sighing.

"Nonsense!"

"I have tried, and I can't."

"Tom, do you mean to say that you are going to lose everything because a chit of a girl like that turns up her nose at you?""It's no use my going while things are like this," said Tom.

"If I were to get to New York, I should come back by the next ship. As for letters about business, I couldn't settle my mind to anything of the kind.""Then you're not the man I took you to be," said the father.

"I could be man enough", said Tom, clenching his fist, "if Icould get hold of Colonel Stubbs."

"Colonel who?"

"Stubbs! Jonathan Stubbs! I know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to America, nor China, nor anything else, till I've polished him off. It's all very well your abusing me, but you don't know what it is I have suffered. As for being called a man I don't care about it. What I should like best would be to get Ayala on one side and Stubbs on the other, and then all three to go off the Duke of York's Column together. It's no good talking about Travers and Treason. I don't care for Travers and Treason as I am now. If you'll get Ayala to say that she'll have me, I'll go to the shop every morning at eight and stay till nine;and as for the Mountaineers it may all go to the d -- for me."Then he rushed out of the room, banging the door after him.

Sir Thomas, when he was thus left, stood for a while with his hands in his trousers' pockets, contemplating the condition of his son. It was wonderful to him that a boy of his should be afflicted in this manner. When he had been struck by the juvenile beauties of Emmeline Dosett he had at once asked the young lady to share his fortunes with him, and the young lady had speedily acceded to his request. Then he had been married, and that was all he had ever known of the troubles of love. He could not but think, looking back at it as he did now from a distance, that had Emmeline been hardhearted he would have endured the repulse and have passed on speedily to some other charmer. But Tom had been wounded after a fashion which seemed to him to have been very uncommon. It might be possible that he should recover in time, but while undergoing recovery he would be ruined -- so great were the young man's sufferings! Now Sir Thomas, though he had spoken to Tom with all the severity which he had been able to assume, though he had abused Faddle, and had vindicated the injured dignity of Travers and Treason with all his eloquence;though he had told Tom it was unmanly to give way to his love, yet, of living creatures, Tom was at this moment the dearest to his heart. He had never for an instant entertained the idea of expelling Tom from Travers and Treason because of the policeman, or because of Faddle. What should he do for the poor boy now?

Was there any argument, any means of persuasion, by which he could induce that foolish little girl to accept all the good things which he was ready to do for her? Could he try yet once again himself, with any chance of success?

Thinking of all this, he stood there for an hour alone with his hands in his trousers' pockets.