夜雨聆风n any case, Dennis was full of his own troubles. He came into my studyand began fingering things and shuffling his feet and looking thoroughlyembarrassed.
“What is it, Dennis?” I said at last.
“Uncle Len, I don’t want to go to sea.”
I was astonished. The boy had been so very decided about his career upto now.
“But you were so keen on it.”
“Yes, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to go into finance.”
I was even more surprised.
“What do you mean—finance?”
“Just that. I want to go into the city.”
“But, my dear boy, I am sure you would not like the life. Even if I ob-tained a post for you in a bank—”
Dennis said that wasn’t what he meant. He didn’t want to go into a bank.
I asked him what exactly he did mean, and of course, as I suspected, theboy didn’t really know.
By “going into finance,” he simply meant getting rich quickly, whichwith the optimism of youth he imagined was a certainty if one “went intothe city.” I disabused him of this notion as gently as I could.
“What’s put it into your head?” I asked. “You were so satisfied with theidea of going to sea.”
“I know, Uncle Len, but I’ve been thinking. I shall want to marry someday—and, I mean, you’ve got to be rich to marry a girl.”
“Facts disprove your theory,” I said.
“I know—but a real girl. I mean, a girl who’s used to things.”
It was very vague, but I thought I knew what he meant.
“You know,” I said gently, “all girls aren’t like Lettice Protheroe.”
He fired up at once.
“You’re awfully unfair to her. You don’t like her. Griselda doesn’t either.
She says she’s tiresome.”
From the feminine point of view Griselda is quite right. Lettice is tire-some. I could quite realize, however, that a boy would resent the adject-ive.
“If only people made a few allowances. Why even the Hartley Napiersare going about grousing about her at a time like this! Just because she lefttheir old tennis party a bit early. Why should she stay if she was bored?
Jolly decent of her to go at all, I think.”
“Quite a favour,” I said, but Dennis suspected no malice. He was full ofhis own grievances on Lettice’s behalf.
“She’s awfully unselfish really. Just to show you, she made me stay. Nat-urally I wanted to go too. But she wouldn’t hear of it. Said it was too badon the Napiers. So, just to please her, I stopped on a quarter of an hour.”