If only this had happened later--even a day later! The reckless
impulsiveness of the modern girl had undone him. How was he to pay
Hargate the money? Hargate must be paid. That was certain. No other
course was possible. Lord Dreever's was not one of those natures
that fret restlessly under debt. During his early career at college,
he had endeared himself to the local tradesmen by the magnitude of
the liabilities he had contracted with them. It was not the being in
debt that he minded. It was the consequences. Hargate, he felt
instinctively, was of a revengeful nature. He had given Hargate
twenty pounds' worth of snubbing, and the latter had presented the
bills. If it were not paid, things would happen. Hargate and he were
members of the same club, and a member of a club who loses money at
cards to a fellow member, and fails to settle up, does not make
himself popular with the committee.
He must get the money. There was no avoiding that conclusion. But
how?
Financially, his lordship was like a fallen country with a glorious
history. There had been a time, during his first two years at
college, when he had reveled in the luxury of a handsome allowance.
This was the golden age, when Sir Thomas Blunt, being, so to speak,
new to the job, and feeling that, having reached the best circles,
he must live up to them, had scattered largesse lavishly. For two
years after his marriage with Lady Julia, he had maintained this
admirable standard, crushing his natural parsimony. He had regarded
the money so spent as capital sunk in an investment. By the end of
the second year, he had found his feet, and began to look about him
for ways of retrenchment. His lordship's allowance was an obvious
way. He had not to wait long for an excuse for annihilating it.
There is a game called poker, at which a man without much control
over his features may exceed the limits of the handsomest allowance.
His lordship's face during a game of poker was like the surface of
some quiet pond, ruffled by every breeze. The blank despair of his
expression when he held bad cards made bluffing expensive. The
honest joy that bubbled over in his eyes when his hand was good
acted as an efficient danger-signal to his grateful opponents. Two
weeks of poker had led to his writing to his uncle a distressed, but
confident, request for more funds; and the avuncular foot had come
down with a joyous bang. Taking his stand on the evils of gambling,
Sir Thomas had changed the conditions of the money-market for his
nephew with a thoroughness that effectually prevented the
possibility of the youth's being again caught by the fascinations of
poker. The allowance vanished absolutely; and in its place there
came into being an arrangement. By this, his lordship was to have
whatever money he wished, but he must ask for it, and state why it
was needed. If the request were reasonable, the cash would be
forthcoming; if preposterous, it would not. The flaw in the scheme,
from his lordship's point of view, was the difference of opinion
that can exist in the minds of two men as to what the words
reasonable and preposterous may be taken to mean.
