Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/98

 him there? My maid was out. I began to pack with trembling fingers. . . Is it not curious that difficulties always seem to come from the least expected quarter? Here was Will’s whole future secured; he had woken up, as it were, with a golden spoon in his mouth. My dear, I had the utmost difficulty in persuading him to come at all. What he wanted was a holiday, he said; after all he had gone through, he was entitled to a good time. And, though he had never met the Erskines, he had formed an unreasoning prejudice against them which was incomprehensible in any one of his breadth of mind. . . I do assure you that we reached a deadlock.

“Will,” I said very firmly, “I ask you to come.”

“And I refuse point-blank,” he answered.

“You will be sorry for it later,” I warned him, “when the opportunity has slipped beyond recall.”

“Something will turn up,” he predicted. Then, perhaps, he saw how his refusal was paining me, for he added: “I’ve fixed up with some fellows weeks ago that we’d all meet and see life.”. . . I had already begun a letter to Lady Erskine, asking if we might postpone our visit for a day or two, when Will came in—very