Lord Ashden then unfolded a plan of taking Philip with him on an extended tour through Europe and the East.
The boy was overcome with gratitude, but quietly firm in his refusal to accept the tempting invitation.
“But please,” he said, forcing himself to speak calmly, “please do not think me ungrateful for your kindness. You came to me like an angel, and supported me all these long years, and gave me the opportunity to acquire my beloved art. You have given me the power to live by my own efforts, to be happy in the only way that happiness is possible to me. Even if I could do it, you would not accept the repayment of the money I have cost you; but if you took it, the debt would be in no way cancelled, for a thousand times the sum would be far from paying for the kindness that trusted and befriended me, and made me what I am.
“Oh! Lord Ashden,” he went on, quite breaking through his usual shy reserve, “I can never kneel to pray without returning thanks for such a friend as you; and I can never touch my beloved violin without thinking of you, and hoping that some day it may be my turn to do some little thing for you. Now, before the impression I have had the good fortune to make has faded away, I must work for a place in the world. Maestro Marini says teaching is the surest support, but to-night makes me hope that I may continue upon the stage; and, if you approve, I shall try for an engagement. But I must go to England first--I owe it to dear Aunt Delia. I suppose there is no one else there who will care much, but she writes to me so tenderly, and every letter says: ‘Dear boy, come home.’”
“It shall be as you please,” said Lord Ashden, “and the travelling shall be postponed till you are ready. But don’t feel burdened with gratitude to me--your success quite repays me. I am sorry to start off on my travels without you, but I expect to hear great things of you when I come back. Unless I am mistaken, the newspapers will tell me something of your career while I am away. You are not destined to obscurity, my boy; such talent as yours will make you famous, and I dare to tell you so because I know that nothing will make you conceited; if anything, you are too humble.”
Praise from such a source was very precious to Philip, and often afterward he repeated the words again to himself as an encouragement to the hope he hardly dared to cherish, that some day his father’s family might be just a little, a very little, proud of him, and that even Marion might perhaps be no longer ashamed to own him for a relative.
