Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/82

 "That was all I meant. He once had occasion to allude to his property, but he was so modest, so reserved, in the tone he took about it, that one hardly knew what to think."

"He is ashamed of being rich," said Bernard. "He would be sure to represent everything unfavourably."

"That's just what I thought!" This ejaculation was more eager than Mrs. Vivian might have intended, but even had it been less so, Bernard was in a mood to appreciate it. "I felt that we should make allowances for his modesty. But it was in very good taste," Mrs. Vivian added.

"He's a fortunate man," said Bernard. "He gets credit for his good taste—and he gets credit for the full figure of his income as well!"

"Ah," murmured Mrs. Vivian, rising lightly, as if to make her words appear more casual, "I don't know the full figure of his income!"

She was turning away, and Bernard, as he raised his hat and separated from her, felt that it was rather cruel that he should let her go without enlightening her ignorance. But he said to himself that she knew quite enough. Indeed, he took a walk along the Lichtenthal Alley and carried out this line of reflexion. Whether or no Miss Vivian were in love with Gordon Wright, her mother was enamoured of Gordon's fortune, and it had suddenly occurred to her that instead of treating the friend of her daughter with civil mistrust, she would help her case better by giving him a hint of her state of mind, and appealing to his sense of propriety. Nothing could be more natural than that Mrs. Vivian should suppose that Bernard desired his friend's success; for, as our thoughtful hero said to himself, what she had hitherto taken into her head to fear was, not that Bernard should fall in love 74