Part 88 (1/2)

”Oh, no quarrel. I forgot Mr. Dale; I saw him pretty often. He admires and praises you very much, sir.”

”Me--and why? What did he say of me?”

”That your heart was as sound as your head; that he had once seen you about some old paris.h.i.+oners of his, and that he had been much impressed with the depth of feeling he could not have antic.i.p.ated in a man of the world, and a statesman.”

”Oh, that was all; some affair when I was member for Lansmere?”

”I suppose so.”

Here the conversation had broken off; but the next time Randal was led to visit the squire he had formally asked Egerton's consent, who, after a moment's hesitation, had as formally replied, ”I have no objection.”

On returning from this visit, Randal mentioned that he had seen Riccabocca: and Egerton, a little startled at first, said composedly, ”Doubtless one of the political refugees; take care not to set Madame di Negra on his track. Remember, she is suspected of being a spy of the Austrian government.”

”Rely on me, sir,” said Randal; ”but I should think this poor doctor can scarcely be the person she seeks to discover.”

”That is no affair of ours,” answered Egerton: ”we are English gentlemen, and make not a step towards the secrets of another.”

Now, when Randal revolved this rather ambiguous answer, and recalled the uneasiness with which Egerton had first heard of his visit to Hazeldean, he thought that he was indeed near the secret which Egerton desired to conceal from him and from all,--namely, the incognito of the Italian whom Lord L'Estrange had taken under his protection.

”My cards,” said Randal to himself, as with a deep-drawn sigh he resumed his soliloquy, ”are become difficult to play. On the one hand, to entangle Frank into marriage with this foreigner, the squire could never forgive him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him without the dowry--and that depends on her brother's wedding this countrywoman--and that countrywoman be, as I surmise, Violante, and Violante be this heiress, and to be won by me! Tush, tush. Such delicate scruples in a woman so placed and so const.i.tuted as Beatrice di Negra must be easily talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this alliance to her brother, the loss of her own dowry, the very pressure of poverty and debt, would compel her into the sole escape left to her option. I will then follow up the old plan; I will go down to Hazeldean, and see if there be any substance in the new one; and then to reconcile both. Aha--the House of Leslie shall rise yet from its ruin--and--”

Here he was startled from his revery by a friendly slap on the shoulder, and an exclamation, ”Why, Randal, you are more absent than when you used to steal away from the cricket-ground, muttering Greek verses, at Eton.”

”My dear Frank,” said Randal, ”you--you are so brusque, and I was just thinking of you.”

”Were you? And kindly, then, I am sure,” said Frank Hazeldean, his honest handsome face lighted up with the unsuspecting genial trust of friends.h.i.+p; ”and Heaven knows,” he added, with a sadder voice, and a graver expression on his eye and lip,--”Heaven knows I want all the kindness you can give me!”

”I thought,” said Randal, ”that your father's last supply, of which I was fortunate enough to be the bearer, would clear off your more pressing debts. I don't pretend to preach, but really, I must say once more, you should not be so extravagant.”

FRANK (seriously).--”I have done my best to reform. I have sold off my horses, and I have not touched dice nor card these six months; I would not even put into the raffle for the last Derby.” This last was said with the air of a man who doubted the possibility of obtaining belief to some a.s.sertion of preternatural abstinence and virtue.

RANDAL.--”Is it possible? But with such self-conquest, how is it that you cannot contrive to live within the bounds of a very liberal allowance?”

FRANK (despondingly).--”Why, when a man once gets his head under water, it is so hard to float back again on the surface. You see, I attribute all my embarra.s.sments to that first concealment of my debts from my father, when they could have been so easily met, and when he came up to town so kindly.”

”I am sorry, then, that I gave you that advice.”

”Oh, you meant it so kindly, I don't reproach you; it was all my own fault.”

”Why, indeed, I did urge you to pay off that moiety of your debts left unpaid, with your allowance. Had you done so, all had been well.”

”Yes; but poor Borrowell got into such a sc.r.a.pe at Goodwood, I could not resist him; a debt of honour,--that must be paid; so when I signed another bill for him, he could not pay it, poor fellow! Really he would have shot himself, if I had not renewed it. And now it is swelled to such an amount with that cursed interest, that he never can pay it; and one bill, of course, begets another,--and to be renewed every three months; 't is the devil and all! So little as I ever got for all I have borrowed,” added Frank, with a kind of rueful amaze. ”Not L1,500 ready money; and the interest would cost me almost as much yearly,--if I had it.” ”Only L1,500!”

”Well; besides seven large chests of the worst cigars you ever smoked, three pipes of wine that no one would drink, and a great bear that had been imported from Greenland for the sake of its grease.”

”That should, at least, have saved you a bill with your hairdresser.”

”I paid his bill with it,” said Frank, ”and very good-natured he was to take the monster off my hands,--it had already hugged two soldiers and one groom into the shape of a flounder. I tell you what,” resumed Frank, after a short pause, ”I have a great mind even now to tell my father honestly all my embarra.s.sments.”

RANDAL (solemnly).--”Hum!”