Chapter 15

Erskine soon found plenty of themes for his newly begotten
cynicism. Gertrude's manner towards him softened so much that he,
believing her heart given to his rival, concluded that she was
tempting him to make a proposal which she had no intention of
accepting. Sir Charles, to whom he told what he had overheard in
the avenue, professed sympathy, but was evidently pleased to
learn that there was nothing serious in the attentions Trefusis
paid to Agatha. Erskine wrote three bitter sonnets on hollow
friendship and showed them to Sir Charles, who, failing to apply
them to himself, praised them highly and showed them to Trefusis
without asking the author's permission. Trefusis remarked that in
a corrupt society expressions of dissatisfaction were always
creditable to a writer's sensibility; but he did not say much in
praise of the verse.

"Why has he taken to writing in this vein?" he said. "Has he been
disappointed in any way of late? Has he proposed to Miss Lindsay
and been rejected?"

"No," said Sir Charles surprised by this blunt reference to a
subject they had never before discussed. "He does not intend to
propose to Miss Lindsay."

"But he did intend to."

"He certainly did, but he has given up the idea."

"Why?" said Trefusis, apparently disapproving strongly of the
renunciation.

Sir Charles shrugged his shoulders and did not reply.

"I am sorry to hear it. I wish you could induce him to change his
mind. He is a nice fellow, with enough to live on comfortably,
whilst he is yet what is called a poor man, so that she could
feel perfectly disinterested in marrying him. It will do her good
to marry without making a pecuniary profit by it; she will
respect herself the more afterwards, and will neither want bread
and butter nor be ashamed of her husband's origin, in spite of
having married for love alone. Make a match of it if you can. I
take an interest in the girl; she has good instincts."

Sir Charles's suspicion that Trefusis was really paying court to
Agatha returned after this conversation, which he repeated to
Erskine, who, much annoyed because his poems had been shown to a
reader of Blue Books, thought it only a blind for Trefusis's
design upon Gertrude. Sir Charles pooh-poohed this view, and the
two friends were sharp with one another in discussing it. After
dinner, when the ladies had left them, Sir Charles, repentant and
cordial, urged Erskine to speak to Gertrude without troubling
himself as to the sincerity of Trefusis. But Erskine, knowing
himself ill able to brook a refusal, was loth to expose himself
to o

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"If you had heard the tone of her voice when she asked him
whether he was in earnest, you would not talk to