“I dare say that is true, as a rule,” he said.

“But you don’t think you would be?” questioned Lottie.

He turned to her with a smile:  “Well, I doubt it.  Of course I don’t know how happy I might be if I had been brought up to a profession.”  He glanced through the open window at the warm loveliness of June.  “At this moment, for instance, I might have been writing a sermon or cutting off a man’s leg.  But, somehow, I am very well satisfied as I am.”

“Oh, if you mean to make fun of it—­” Mrs. Blake began.

“But I don’t,” Percival said quickly.  “I may laugh, but I’m in earnest too.  I have plenty to eat and drink; I can pay my tailor and still have a little money in my pocket; I am my own master.  Sometimes I ride—­another man’s horse:  if not I walk, and am just as well content.  I don’t smoke—­I don’t bet—­I have no expensive tastes.  What could money do for me that I should spend the best years of my life in slaving for it?”

“That may be all very well for the present,” said Mrs. Blake.

“Why not for the future too?  Oh, I have my dream for the future too.”

“And, pray, may one ask what it is?” said Mrs. Pickering, looking down on him from the height of William’s prosperity.

“Certainly,” he said.  “Some day I shall leave England and travel leisurely about the Continent.  I shall have a sky over my head compared with which this blue is misty and pale.  I shall gain new ideas.  I shall get grapes and figs and melons very cheap.  There will be a little too much garlic in my daily life—­even such a destiny as mine must have its drawbacks—­but think of the wonderful scenery I shall see and the queer, beautiful out-of-the-way holes and corners I shall discover!  And in years to come I shall rejoice, without envy, to hear that Mr. Blake has bought a large estate and gains prizes for fat cattle, while my friend here has been knighted on the occasion of some city demonstration.”

Young Pickering, who had been listening open-mouthed to the other’s fluent and tranquil speech, reddened at the allusion to himself and dropped his hat.

“At that rate you must never marry,” said Mrs. Blake.

Percival thoughtfully stroked his lip:  “You think I should not find a wife to share my enjoyment of a small income?”

“Marry a girl with lots of money, Mr. Thorne,” said the future Sir William, feeling it incumbent on him to take part in the conversation.

“Not I.”  Percival’s glance made the lad’s hot face yet hotter.  “That’s the last thing I will do.  If a man means to work, he may marry whom he will.  But if he has made up his mind to be idle, he is a contemptible cur if he will let his wife keep him in his idleness.”  He spoke very quietly in his soft voice, and leaned back in his chair.

“Well, then, you must never fall in love with an heiress,” said Mrs. Blake.

“Or you must work and win her,” Lottie suggested almost in a whisper.