‘Something like L5000 in all, Van.’

‘Very well.’  Youth is not alarmed by the sound of big sums.  ’Very well—­I will pay it.’

Evan looked as proud as if he had just clapped down the full amount on the table.

’Out of the History of Portugal, half written, and the prospect of a Government appointment?’

Mrs. Mel raised her eyelids to him.

‘In time-in time, mother!’

’Mention your proposal to the creditors when you meet them this day week,’ she said.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes.  Then Evan came close to her, saying: 

‘What is it you want of me, mother?’

‘I want nothing, Van—­I can support myself.’

‘But what would you have me do, mother?’

‘Be honest; do your duty, and don’t be a fool about it.’

‘I will try,’ he rejoined.  ’You tell me to make the money.  Where and how can I make it?  I am perfectly willing to work.’

‘In this house,’ said Mrs. Mel; and, as this was pretty clear speaking, she stood up to lend her figure to it.

‘Here?’ faltered Evan.  ‘What! be a ——­’

‘Tailor!’ The word did not sting her tongue.

‘I?  Oh, that’s quite impossible!’ said Evan.  And visions of leprosy, and Rose shrinking her skirts from contact with him, shadowed out and away in his mind.

‘Understand your choice!’ Mrs. Mel imperiously spoke.  ’What are brains given you for?  To be played the fool with by idiots and women?  You have L5000 to pay to save your father from being called a rogue.  You can only make the money in one way, which is open to you.  This business might produce a thousand pounds a-year and more.  In seven or eight years you may clear your father’s name, and live better all the time than many of your bankrupt gentlemen.  You have told the creditors you will pay them.  Do you think they’re gaping fools, to be satisfied by a History of Portugal?  If you refuse to take the business at once, they will sell me up, and quite right too.  Understand your choice.  There’s Mr. Goren has promised to have you in London a couple of months, and teach you what he can.  He is a kind friend.  Would any of your gentlemen acquaintance do the like for you?  Understand your choice.  You will be a beggar—­the son of a rogue—­or an honest man who has cleared his father’s name!’

During this strenuously uttered allocution, Mrs. Mel, though her chest heaved but faintly against her crossed hands, showed by the dilatation of her eyes, and the light in them, that she felt her words.  There is that in the aspect of a fine frame breathing hard facts, which, to a youth who has been tumbled headlong from his card-castles and airy fabrics, is masterful, and like the pressure of a Fate.  Evan drooped his head.

‘Now,’ said Mrs. Mel, ‘you shall have some supper.’

Evan told her he could not eat.

‘I insist upon your eating,’ said Mrs. Mel; ’empty stomachs are foul counsellors.’