It's charity.'
'Do I not behave to you as an equal?'
'But you know that don't make us equals.'
'But isn't there something better than being equals? Supposing, as
you will have it, that we're not equals, can't we be friends?'
'I hope so, sir.'
'Do you think now, Mr. De Fleuri, if you weren't something more to
me than a mere equal, I would go telling you my own history? But I
forgot: I have told you hardly anything yet. I have to tell you how
much nearer I am to your level than you think. I had the design too
of getting you to help me in the main object of my life. Come,
don't be a fool. I want you.'
'I can't leave Katey,' said the weaver, hesitatingly.
'Miss St. John is there still. I will ask her to stop till you come
back.'
Without waiting for an answer, he ran up the stairs, and had
speedily arranged with Miss St. John. Then taking his consent for
granted, he hurried De Fleuri away with him, and knowing how unfit a
man of his trade was for walking, irrespective of feebleness from
want, he called the first cab, and took him home. Here, over their
tea, which he judged the safest meal for a stomach unaccustomed to
food, he told him about his grandmother, and about Dr. Anderson, and
how he came to give himself to the work he was at, partly for its
own sake, partly in the hope of finding his father. He told him his
only clue to finding him; and that he had called on Mrs. Macallister
twice every week for two years, but had heard nothing of him.
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