Sylvia's Lovers - Page 86/290

For the brothers Foster were thinking of retiring from business, and

relinquishing the shop to their two shopmen, Philip Hepburn and

William Coulson. To be sure, it was only by looking back for a few

months, and noticing chance expressions and small indications, that

this intention of theirs could be discovered. But every step they

took tended this way, and Philip knew their usual practice of

deliberation too well to feel in the least impatient for the quicker

progress of the end which he saw steadily approaching. The whole

atmosphere of life among the Friends at this date partook of this

character of self-repression, and both Coulson and Hepburn shared in

it. Coulson was just as much aware of the prospect opening before

him as Hepburn; but they never spoke together on the subject,

although their mutual knowledge might be occasionally implied in

their conversation on their future lives. Meanwhile the Fosters were

imparting more of the background of their business to their

successors. For the present, at least, the brothers meant to retain

an interest in the shop, even after they had given up the active

management; and they sometimes thought of setting up a separate

establishment as bankers. The separation of the business,--the

introduction of their shopmen to the distant manufacturers who

furnished their goods (in those days the system of 'travellers' was

not so widely organized as it is at present),--all these steps were

in gradual progress; and already Philip saw himself in imagination

in the dignified position of joint master of the principal shop in

Monkshaven, with Sylvia installed as his wife, with certainly a silk

gown, and possibly a gig at her disposal. In all Philip's visions of

future prosperity, it was Sylvia who was to be aggrandized by them;

his own life was to be spent as it was now, pretty much between the

four shop walls.