'In the past, perhaps,' he resumed, 'our relations have not been
quite--the fault was mine. I have always endeavored to do my duty.
It is a difficult task to look after a young man of your age--'
His lordship's sense of his grievance made him eloquent.
'Dash it all!' he cried. 'That's just what I jolly well complain of.
Who the dickens wanted you to look after me? Hang it, you've kept
your eye on me all these years like a frightful policeman! You cut
off my allowance right in the middle of my time at college, just
when I needed it most, and I had to come and beg for money whenever
I wanted to buy a cigarette. I looked a fearful ass, I can tell you!
Men who knew me used to be dashed funny about it. I'm sick of the
whole bally business. You've given me a jolly thin time all this
while, and now I'm going to get a bit of my own back. Wouldn't you,
Pitt, old man?'
Jimmy, thus suddenly appealed to, admitted that, in his lordship's
place, he might have experienced a momentary temptation to do
something of the kind.
'Of course,' said his lordship; 'any fellow would.'
'But, Spencer, let met--'
'You've soured my life,' said his lordship, frowning a tense,
Byronic frown. 'That's what you've done--soured my whole bally life.
I've had a rotten time. I've had to go about touching my friends for
money to keep me going. Why, I owe you a fiver, don't I, Pitt, old
man?'
It was a tenner, to be finnickingly accurate about details, but
Jimmy did not say so. He concluded, rightly, that the memory of the
original five pounds which he had lent Lord Dreever at the Savoy
Hotel had faded from the other's mind.
'Don't mention it,' he said.
'But I do mention it,' protested his lordship, shrilly. 'It just
proves what I say. If I had had a decent allowance, it wouldn't have
happened. And you wouldn't give me enough to set me going in the
diplomatic service. That's another thing. Why wouldn't you do that?'
Sir Thomas pulled himself together.
'I hardly thought you qualified, my dear boy--'
His lordship did not actually foam at the mouth, but he looked as if
he might do so at any moment. Excitement and the memory of his
wrongs, lubricated, as it were, by the champagne he had consumed
both at and after dinner, had produced in him a frame of mind far
removed from the normal. His manners no longer had that repose which
stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. He waved his hands:
'I know, I know!' he shouted. 'I know you didn't. You thought me a
fearful fool. I tell you, I'm sick of it. And always trying to make
me marry money! Dashed humiliating! If she hadn't been a jolly
sensible girl, you'd have spoiled Miss McEachern's life as well as
mine. You came very near it. I tell you, I've had enough of it. I'm
in love. I'm in love with the rippingest girl in England. You've
seen her, Pitt, old top. Isn't she a ripper?'
Jimmy stamped the absent lady with the seal of his approval.
