Bertha wore an odd smile.

“Trust me,” she replied, “I will blacken you most effectually.”

“You promise?  But, at the same time, you will urge him to be true to himself, to endure poverty—­”

“I don’t know about that.  Why shouldn’t poor Mr. Franks have enough to eat it he can get it?”

“Well—­but you promise to help him in the other way?  You needn’t say very bad things; just a smile, a hint—­”

“I quite understand,” said Bertha, nodding.

CHAPTER 13

Warburton had never seen Godfrey Sherwood so restless and excitable as during these weeks when the business in Little Ailie Street was being brought to an end, and the details of the transfer to Bristol were being settled.  Had it not been inconsistent with all the hopeful facts of the situation, as well as with the man’s temper, one would have thought that Godfrey suffered from extreme nervousness; that he lived under some oppressive anxiety, which it was his constant endeavour to combat with resolute high spirits.  It seemed an odd thing that a man who had gone through the very real cares and perils of the last few years without a sign of perturbation, nay, with the cheeriest equanimity, should let himself be thrown into disorder by the mere change to a more promising state of things.  Now and then Warburton asked himself whether his partner could be concealing some troublesome fact with regard to Applegarth’s concern; but he dismissed the idea as too improbable; Sherwood was far too good a fellow, far too conscientious a man of business, to involve his friend in obvious risk—­especially since it had been decided that Mrs. Warburton’s and her money should go into the affair.  The inquiries made by Mr. Turnbull had results so satisfactory that even the resolute pessimist could not but grudgingly admit his inability to discover storm-signals.  Though a sense of responsibility made a new element in his life, which would not let him sleep quite so soundly as hitherto, Will persuaded himself that he had but to get to work, and all would be right.

The impression made upon him by Applegarth himself was very favourable.  The fact that the jam manufacturer was a university man, an astronomer, and a musician, had touched Warburton’s weak point, and he went down to Bristol the first time with an undeniable prejudice at the back of his mind; but this did not survive a day or two’s intercourse.  Applegarth recommended himself by an easy and humorous geniality of bearing which Warburton would have been the last man to resist; he talked of his affairs with the utmost frankness.