The girl looked round, picked up the paper and folded it slowly.
“Nothing particularly,” she said. “Your Dr. Cassylis is an amusing man.”
“He is a very clever man,” said her mother tartly.
She had infinite faith in doctors, and offered them the tribute which is usually reserved for the supernatural.
“Is he?” said the girl coolly. “I suppose he is. Why does he live in Leeds?”
“Really, Edith, you are coming out of your shell,” said her mother with a forced smile of admiration. “I have never known you take so much interest in the people of the world before.”
“I am going to take a great deal of interest in people,” said the girl steadily. “I have been missing so much all my life.”
“I think you are being a little horrid,” said her mother, repressing her anger with an effort; “you’re certainly being very unkind. I suppose all this nonsense has arisen out of my mistaken confidence.”
The girl made no reply.
“I think I’ll go to bed, mother,” she said.
“And whilst you’re engaged in settling your estimate of people,” said Mrs. Cathcart with ominous calm, “perhaps you will interpret your fiancé’s behaviour to me. Dr. Cassylis particularly wanted to meet him.”
“I am not going to interpret anything,” said the girl.
“Don’t employ that tone with me,” replied her mother sharply.
The girl stopped, she was halfway to the door. She hardly turned, but spoke to her mother over her shoulder.
“Mother,” she said, quietly but decidedly, “I want you to understand this: if there is any more bother, or if I am again made the victim of your crossness, I shall write to Gilbert and break off my engagement.”
“Are you mad?” gasped the woman.
Edith shook her head.
“No, I am tired,” she said, “tired of many things.”
There was much that Mrs. Cathcart could have said, but with a belated wisdom she held her tongue till the door had closed behind her daughter. Then, late as the hour was, she sent for the cook and settled herself grimly for a pleasing half hour, for the vol-au-vent had been atrocious.
IV
The “Melody in F”
Gilbert Standerton was dressing slowly before his glass when Leslie was announced. That individual was radiant and beautiful to behold as became the best man at the wedding of an old friend.
Leslie Frankfort was one of those fortunate individuals who combine congenial work with the enjoyment of a private income. He was the junior partner of a firm of big stockbrokers in the City, a firm which dealt only with the gilt-edged markets of finance. He enjoyed in common with Gilbert a taste for classical music, and this was the bond which had first drawn the two men together.
He came into the room, deposited his silk hat carefully upon a chair, and sat on the edge of the bed, offering critical suggestions to the prospective bridegroom.
“By the way,” he said suddenly, “I saw that old man of yours yesterday.”
Gilbert looked round.
“You mean Springs, the musician?”
The other nodded.
“He was playing for the amusement of a theatre queue—a fine old chap.”
“Very,” said Gilbert absently.
He paused in his dressing, took up a letter from the table, and handed it to the other.
“Am I to read it?” asked Leslie.
Gilbert nodded.
“There’s nothing to read, as a matter of fact,” he said; “it’s my uncle’s wedding present.”
The young man opened the envelope and extracted the pink slip. He looked at the amount and whistled.
“One hundred pounds,” he said. “Good Lord! That won’t pay the upkeep of your car for a quarter. I suppose you told Mrs. Cathcart?”
Gilbert shook his head.
“No,” he said shortly, “I intended telling her but I haven’t. I am perfectly satisfied in my own mind, Leslie, that we are doing her an injustice. She has been so emphatic about money. And after all, I’m not a pauper,” he said with a smile.
“You’re worse than a pauper,” said Leslie earnestly; “a man with six hundred a year is the worst kind of pauper I know.”
“Why?”
“You’ll never bring your tastes below a couple of thousand, you’ll never raise your income above six hundred—plus your Foreign Office job, that’s only another six hundred.”
“Work,” said the other.
“Work!” said the other scornfully, “you don’t earn money by work. You earn money by scheming, by getting the better of the other fellow. You’re too softhearted to make money, my son.”
“You seem to make money,” said Gilbert with a little smile.
Leslie shook his head vigorously.
“I’ve never made a penny in my life,” he confessed with some enjoyment. “No, I have got some very stout, unimaginative senior partners who do all the moneymaking. I merely take dividends at various periods of the year. But then I was in luck. What is your money, by the way?”
Gilbert was in the act of tying his cravat. He looked up with a little frown.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean, is it in securities—does it continue after your death?”
The little frown still knit the brows of the other.
“No,” he said shortly, “after my death there is scarcely enough to bring in a hundred and fifty a year. I am only enjoying a life interest on this particular property.”
Leslie whistled.
“Well, I hope, old son, that you’re well insured.”
The other man made no attempt to interrupt as Leslie, arguing with great fluency and skill on the duties and responsibilities of heads of families, delivered himself of his views on insurance and upon the uninsured.
“Some Johnnies are so improvident,” he said. “I knew a man—”
He stopped suddenly. He had caught a reflection of Gilbert’s face in the glass. It was haggard and drawn, it seemed the face of a man in mortal agony. Leslie sprang up.
“What on earth is the matter, my dear chap?” he cried. He came to the other’s side and laid his hand on his shoulder.
“Oh, it’s nothing—nothing, Leslie,” said Gilbert.
He passed his hand before his eyes as though to wipe away some ugly vision.
“I’m afraid I’ve been rather a careless devil. You see, I depended too much upon uncle’s money. I ought
