john brancker's abrupt departure left mr. avison in no very enviable frame of mind. he was thoroughly dissatisfied with john; nay, more, as he told himself, he was deeply offended with him; but none the less was he conscious of a certain sense of dissatisfaction with himself. although he had laid such stress on the fact that the trial had failed to clear up certain points of evidence which told strongly against john, and had brought forward that fact as an excuse for getting rid of him, and although he still failed to understand how the crime could possibly have been the work of a stranger, he was possessed by a secret conviction, which the recent interview had not failed to strengthen, that john brancker was as innocent as he, benjamin avison, was of any participation either in the death of mr. hazeldine, or in the robbery which had formed part and parcel of the mysterious affair. therefore he was dissatisfied with himself. the scales of justice which he prided himself on holding with such an even balance in his dealings with his fellows, inclined for once a little more to one side than the other, and he was conscious that their doing so was owing entirely to his own bias in the affair.
such thoughts were not comforting, and with a strong wrench he broke away from them. john brancker had taken his own headstrong course, and he must abide by the consequences. "for the future, i wash my hands of him entirely," said mr. avison, as he touched the bell at his elbow.
the death of mr. hazeldine and the enforced absence of john had necessitated several changes in the bank staff. such changes, however, in view of john's probable resumption of his duties, had only been of a makeshift and temporary character; but now the time had come for them to be made permanent. mr. avison had taken upon his own shoulders a great part of the duties of his dead manager. the next clerk to john brancker in point of seniority was a mr. howes, who was a protégé of mr. avison, and, consequently, somewhat of a favorite, although no signs of his being so had ever been detected by the rest of the staff. mr. howes, who had performed john's duties while the latter was in prison, was now confirmed in the position at a considerable advance of salary. when he had given expression to his thanks and was dismissed, ephraim judd and frank derison were sent for.
mr. avison had never liked ephraim, although no one, except perhaps the object of his dislike, had any cognizance of the fact. the banker, in matters of dress and personal appearance, was one of the most fastidious of men, whereas ephraim was careless to the verge of slovenliness. his clothes were of coarse material and badly made; one collar and one pair of cuffs were made to do duty for a week; while his necktie was usually either awry, or had its ends loosely flying. both his nails and his teeth would have repaid more attention than he chose to bestow on them, while his lank, black hair, which he wore several inches longer than is customary nowadays, only tended to accentuate the general untidiness of his appearance. all these things, each one a trifle in itself, had yet, when taken in the aggregate, an irritating effect on the nerves of mr. avison. then there were those terrible ears of his, and his peculiar mode of progression--although, of course, the fellow could not help it--something between a hop and a skip when unassisted by his stick. taking him all in all, the banker desired to see as little as possible of ephraim judd.
but, on the other hand, ephraim was one of the best of clerks, industrious, painstaking, conscientious. mr. avison told himself that it would never do--that it was contrary to all his principles--to allow personal prejudices to stand in the way of doing what was right by the other. it may be that he felt the more determined to deal with him in a thoroughly just spirit because he was not without his secret doubts whether that was altogether the spirit in which he had dealt with john brancker. accordingly, the banker now proceeded to inform judd that he might consider himself as being permanently installed in the position lately filled by mr. howes, while frank derison was to succeed ephraim. a substantial increase of salary would follow in each case as a matter of course.
both the young men were profuse in their professions of thanks, which, however, mr. avison deprecated with a gentle motion of his hand. then he said: "if you can see your way, judd, if you really can see your way to pay a little more attention to the details of your attire, and--and to your personal appearance generally, upon my word, i shall esteem it a favor." there was something that verged on the pathetic in the way he spoke. then he added: "that will do for the present, judd. derison, i want a word with you before you go."
ephraim left the room with a very red face, and a tingling sensation about his ears as if someone had soundly boxed them. frank turned not red but white. which of his little peccadilloes, he asked himself, was he going to be "called over the coals" about?
"i have not conferred this promotion on you, derison, without having very serious doubts as to the wisdom of doing so," said mr. avison, toying with a paper-knife and staring the young man straight in the face. "i trust, however, that you will give me no cause to regret having taken such a step; but, in order that you may not do so, it will be needful for you at once to turn over a fresh leaf. for one thing, you must wholly give up frequenting the 'crown and cushion,' or any other tavern, and if you continue to play billiards, it must be at private houses only. i have made it my business to ascertain in what way you are in the habit of passing your evenings, and the result, i am sorry to say, is one which is far from creditable to you. it is not, however, too late for you to reform, but i need scarcely tell you that the reformation must be both thorough and sincere, and i must have ample proof that it is so. and now, to turn to another matter. you are a frequent visitor, i believe, at the house of john brancker. i am also given to understand that brancker has a niece--a more than ordinarily attractive young woman. is there any engagement, may i ask, between yourself and the person in question?"
there was a momentary hesitation before frank spoke. then he said in low, but distinct tones: "there is no engagement whatever, sir, between me and the young lady you refer to."
"i am glad, for reasons of my own, to have your assurance of the fact. if you will be advised by me, you will be a less frequent visitor at brancker's house in time to come. i don't know that i have anything more to say to you just now, unless it be to impress upon you the fact that your future rests entirely in your own hands, either to make or mar."
when frank reached home that evening he made haste to tell his mother all that had passed between himself and mr. avison.
"to think that he should have set someone to play the spy on me! i call it mean and contemptible in the extreme," concluded the young clerk in a fine burst of indignation.
"you look at the matter from an erroneous point of view, my son," replied mrs. derison, in her unemotional way. "you may rely upon it that mr. avison would not have been at the trouble to act as he has unless your future were a matter of some concern to him. he has warned you and told you what he expects at your hands, and you may rest satisfied he has not done it without having a certain end in view. that your future will be a brilliant one i think you need not doubt, if only you will be guided by him. he has put you on your trial, and the result rests entirely with yourself."
"all the same, it was a mean thing to set a spy to dog my footsteps," said frank, sullenly.
"i do not doubt that you will live to see the wisdom of the step which you now denounce so pettishly. and now, as to miss rivers?"
"well, what about her? i consider it a piece of unwarrantable impertinence on mr. avison's part to ask me whether i am engaged to hermy, as also to advise me to visit less frequently at john brancker's house. what can it possibly matter to him how often i go there?"
"oh! frank, frank! when will you be able to see an inch further than your nose? cannot you comprehend that mr. avison's interference in your affairs is dictated by a strong desire for your ultimate good? do not his actions say as plainly as words, 'only do as i want you to do, and i will set you on the high-road to fortune?' you ought never to forget that mr. avison's nearest relatives are all of my sex, and that in view of the delicate state of his health, as well as of the fact that he is no longer young, the question of a possible successor at the bank, especially now that mr. hazeldine is no more, is one which must inevitably be much in his thoughts. i am glad you were able to assure him that there is no engagement between yourself and miss rivers."
"but there is an engagement between us, as you know full well. i was a hound to tell mr. avison that there wasn't."
"an engagement of a sort," replied mrs. dersion meaningly; then after a moment's pause, she went on: "it was only a half-and-half provisional arrangement, look at it whichever way you will. at the end of a year either of you could cry off that might wish to do so; and now that the course it is to your interest to follow is put so plainly before you, surely you would not----?"
"i repeat it, i was a hound to tell mr. avison what i did. hermia rivers is the most charming girl i know, and i'm far from sure that i want to break with her."
"frank, you are a fool, and i have no patience with you," said mrs. derison, in coldly contemptuous tones, as she got up and left the room.
but it was only to return to the charge a little later on. she did not in the least doubt that, in the long run, her stronger will should overmaster frank's weak one, and that she should ultimately carry her point. thus it fell out that, in the course of the next day but one after frank's interview with mr. avison, the following letter was received by miss rivers:
"my dear hermia,
"never before have i had so hard a task as the one which confronts me to-day, and i scarcely know in what terms to set about it. pray believe me when i tell you that to me the pain is very keen, though i cannot flatter myself that it will be anything like the same to you. in any case, i trust that what i am about to propose will, in the long run, prove conducive to the happiness of both.
"it is now upwards of a year since you and i entered into a kind of semi-engagement, which by mutual consent was to be kept secret from everyone for the time being, and was to be terminable at the end of twelve months at the option of either or both, unless it should meanwhile have developed into a bond of a much closer and warmer kind.
"dear hermia, i now write to offer you your freedom. my feelings towards you have in no wise changed. i still love you as much as ever i did, but i feel that it would be unfair towards you to keep you longer under the bond of an engagement which i see no present prospect of being able to bring to its legitimate conclusion. in brief, i am too poor to marry, and am likely to remain so for an indefinite period. rather would i keep single forever than allow my wife to deteriorate into one of those household drudges of which we can see so many specimens around us. that sort of thing i could not reconcile either to my conscience or my feelings; neither am i selfish enough to wish you to wear out the best years of your life in waiting for one who, the longer he lives, the more unworthy he feels himself to be of the great treasure of your love.
"i do not know that i can add more, unless it be to say that, should i ever find myself in a position to marry, you would be the one whom i should choose before all the world; and also that my heart still clings to you, and that, in writing as i am now, i feel that i am cutting myself adrift from all that has been brightest and best in my life.
"always, dear hermia, yours most sincerely,
"frank derison."
this characteristic epistle elicited the following reply:
"dear frank,
"the contents of your letter caused me very little surprise, and what i did experience was of a pleasurable kind. for some time past it has been plain to me that the tie which bound us, slight though it was, had become irksome to you, and that its severance would be hailed by you as a relief. to me, almost from the first, it has been as a chain that galled and fretted me; and your having written me as you have, has merely anticipated by a few days a step which i had fully made up my mind to take on my own account.
"to be candid with you--and surely in such a matter candor is of the first importance--my feelings towards you were never of a kind to warrant me in entering into any engagement with you, nor do i believe that time would do anything towards effecting a change in them. a year ago i was led away by your impassioned words, and by a certain amount of self-deception on my own part, into believing that i might, after a while, come to care for you in the way you wanted me to do. but i was not long in finding out that i had made a great mistake; and now you on your side have made a similar discovery. let us hope that, taught by experience, both of us will be wiser in time to come.
"always your friend and well-wisher,
"hermia rivers."
this was not at all the kind of answer that frank had looked for. far from expressing the slightest regret, or indignation--he could have borne a little indignation with equanimity--hermy seemed actually to welcome her release! but, of course, as he told himself, he knew better than to credit her assertions. her pride would not allow her to let him see how deeply she was wounded; as was but natural, she tried to carry it off with a high hand; but he was not to be so easily hoodwinked. all the same, the tone of her reply did not fail to jar against the self-love which was one of his most pronounced characteristics; and not for a long time to come was he able to rid himself of an uneasy consciousness that his treatment of hermia had been anything rather than that of a man of honor and a gentleman; and frank had a great desire to pose as both--as though the two were not synonymous--not only before the world at large, but in the clearer eyes of his own conscience.