This sort of thing occurs often in the lives of young men who are "eligible," but it is not until they have ceased to be in that blissful condition that they suspect a woman's hand had some part in arranging these accidental openings for confidences. Flo looked certainly as innocent as a dove when Edgar withdrew to his study; but if Henry's eyes had been wide open he might have noticed that Edgar's recollection of his urgent letter was preceded by a meaning look and a contraction of the brows from his sister.

"Now," she said softly, turning to Henry with an air of eager interest, "do tell me all about your visit to Hampton. The name of the place sounds quite romantic to me. Is it on the map?"

"I'm afraid you would search your atlas for it in vain. At best it could only be a pin-point; like that very tiny German duchy which the American traveller said he would drive round rather than pay toll to pa.s.s through. It is smaller than the Laysford market-place."

"So small as that! Then it's all the more interesting to me."

"But there's really nothing to tell about it. One day is the same as another there. Nothing ever happens. It is a veritable Sleepy Hollow."

"But there were interesting folk there. You see, I know my Washington Irving."

Flo had the shrewdness to judge this to be an effective touch, and it did not matter that her knowledge of the American author was limited to the bare fact that he had written something about a place of that name.

"I am glad to find you have read one of my favourites," Henry replied, and the echo of an absurd "What is Meredith?" rang in his ears. It prompted him to ask, without apparent reason:

"By-the-by, have you read Meredith? He is one of the least known and greatest of living writers."

"Oh, yes, isn't he perfectly lovely?" She had a vague recollection of hearing the name somewhere.

"I am just in the middle of his latest novel, 'Beauchamp's Career.' It is positively t.i.tanic."

"I am sure it must be interesting, and I should love to read it. But really you must tell me about this Sleepy Hollow of yours. Who did you see there?"

"My own folk, of course, and a handful of old friends."

"Anybody in par-tic-u-lar?"

Flo smiled roguishly. She had practised the smile before, and could do it to perfection.

"N-o; n.o.body--worth mentioning."

Henry had a suspicion that he was being teased, and he rather liked the operation.

"Really! I can scarcely believe you. But all the same, I have a fancy to see this birthplace of our budding editor. I imagine it must be a sweet little spot."

"Perhaps it is best in imagination. You would find the actual thing deadly dull."

He felt himself drifting rudderless before a freshening breeze of talkee-talkee.

"No, no, no; I am sure I wouldn't, though you do not paint it with purple. Do you know," she went on, resting her pretty head upon her hand and glancing up sideways at him, "I'm beginning to think that they don't appreciate you properly in Hampton Bagot. A prophet has no honour in his own country, they say. But we are proud of you here."

"Perhaps that maxim is not always true, although it is biblical. In my own case, I fear there is at least one at Hampton who thinks too much of my ability."

"Ah, now you have said it. And who is that one, pray?"

"My father."

"Oh! No one else?"

"My mother and sisters, perhaps."

"I should so much like to meet your sisters. I almost feel as if I knew them already. Who knows but some day I may have a peep at your Sleepy Hollow, and tell your sisters all about you!"

The prospect was an alarming one to Henry, and for the first time in his life he felt himself ashamed of that little home behind the Post Office door. But on the whole, the chatter of this young lady was pleasant in his ears. By no means vain of his abilities, he was still hungry for appreciation, and he had not yet learned the most difficult of all lessons: to recognise sincere admiration. It seemed to him that in Flo Winton he had found one who understood him, whose sympathetic interest in his work and ambitions could brace and hearten him in the discharge of the important duties to which there was every likelihood of his being called before he was a day older.

The return of Mrs. Winton to the drawing-room sent the talk off at an obtuse angle, and Edgar, having finished that important letter, came in to render the remainder of the evening hopeless to Flo; but when Henry parted from her in the hall with another lingering hand-shake, he had the feeling that something like an understanding had been established between them; and it was with a springy stride and a light heart he pa.s.sed out to the nearest tramway station.

The next afternoon he looked in at the office, and found the manager anxious to speak with him. It was even as Edgar had prophesied. Sir Henry Field was understood to think so highly of Henry's work that he agreed with Mr. Jones in offering him the editorship at a commencing salary of 250 a year. A bright young member of the reporting staff was named as his a.s.sistant. "If Sir Henry should ask your age," Mr. Jones advised, "you are getting on for thirty. You would pa.s.s for that, and I have confidence in you."

Henry found himself returning to his rooms as one who walked on eggs, murmuring to himself, with comic iteration: "Two hundred and fifty a year! two hundred and fifty a year!" And he saw arising in Hampton Bagot a fine new villa, the pride of the place, to be inhabited by Edward John Charles and his family circle. Yet he had once been so proud of that quaint old house with the Post Office in front.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PHILANDERERS

THE news was round the _Leader_ office like a flash of summer lightning.

The most secret transactions in the managerial room of a newspaper seem to have this strange quality of immediately becoming the common knowledge of the office-boy, without any one person being accusable of blabbing. Not only so; but in a few hours there was no journalist in Laysford, from the unattached penny-a-liner, who wrote paragraphs for London trade papers, to the editors of the rival dailies, that did not know who was the new editor of the _Leader_. Almost as soon as the news had been confirmed, Edgar had penned a flowery eulogium and posted it to that mighty organ of journalism, the _Fourth Estate_, which has whimpered from youth to age that journalists will not buy it, although they have never been averse from reading--or writing--its personal puffs. Edgar showed herein either a better judgment of Henry's character than one would have expected from him, or a little touch of innocence in one so fain to be a man of the world. It is seldom that the subjects of these gushing personal notices in the _Fourth Estate_ wait for others to sing their praises; they can and do sound the loud timbrel themselves.

Shyness has no part in journalism, and even the bashful young junior, who has been trying quack remedies for blushing, leaves his bashfulness outside the door of the reporters' room after his first week on the press.

But somehow, a thick streak of rustic simplicity remained in Henry's character despite all the eye-opening and mental widening which had resulted from his City life. If Edgar had not sent that paragraph Henry never would, and if we could but peer into the inmost corner of Edgar's heart we might find that the impulse behind the writing of the absurd little puff about "a rising young journalist" was to stand well with the man who had come to greatness--as greatness was esteemed in the journalistic world of Laysford.

The news was conveyed in characteristic style to a quarter where it was eagerly hoped for.

"It's happened just as I expected," Edgar announced, when he returned home that evening. "Old Mac has got the shoot direct; no humming and hawing, but 'Out you go!'"

"I suppose you mean he has been discharged?" said Mr. Winton quietly.

"Yes, dad, that's the long and short of it; and Henry is to be our new boss. You remember I told him we all expected it."

"So far as I recollect," his father observed sententiously, "that was how you put it."

"I am so glad to hear it," said Mrs. Winton. "Henry has got on," with an emphasis on "Henry has" and a motherly look towards Edgar, who gave no sign that the implied comparison was present in his mind.

The one whose interest was most personal had given least sign, but Flo's heart was fluttering in a way that was known only to herself. Following on the heels of her first thrill of satisfaction stepped something resembling irritation. She would have preferred that Edgar had been less eager with the news, and had left it for Henry to convey in person. What a splendid opportunity that would have been for unaffected congratulation! Out of her momentary irascible mood she threw a taunt at Edgar.

"And you, I suppose, have been appointed Henry's a.s.sistant--that would be the least they could do for such a brilliant young man."

Edgar flushed and winced. This flicked him on the raw; but his well-exercised powers of denunciation were equal to the occasion.

"No such luck for me; that Scotch a.s.s Tait has got Henry's crib. He is one of those sly, slaving plodders, without a touch of ability."

"I have noticed, Edgar," put in his father, "that it is the plodders who steadily push ahead."

"Oh, that's all right; but I don't like Tait." Perhaps this explained a good deal.