Part 61 (2/2)
But Toftrees saw now that there was something deeper at work. Was it, he wondered, the old story of benefits forgot, the natural instinct of the baser type of humanity to bite the hand that feeds?
Toftrees knew how lavish with help and kindness Lothian had been to d.i.c.kson Ingworth. For himself, he detested Lothian. The bitter epigrams Lothian had made upon him in a moment of drunken unconsciousness were by no means forgotten. The fact that Lothian had probably never meant them was nothing. They had some truth in them. They were uttered by a superior mind, they stung still.
”Oh, he's no friend of mine,” Ingworth said in a bitter voice.
”Really? I know, of course, that you have disapproved of much that Mr.
Lothian seems to be doing just now, but I thought you were still friends. It is a pity. Whatever he may do, there are elements of greatness in the man.”
”He is a blackguard, Toftrees, a thorough blackguard.”
”I _am_ sorry to hear that. Well, you needn't have any more to do with him, need you? He isn't necessary to your literary career any more. And even if you had not come into your inheritance, your Italian work has put you in quite a different position.”
Ingworth nodded. He puffed quickly at his cigar. He was bursting with something, as the elder and shrewder man saw, and if he was not questioned he would come out with it in no time.
There was silence for a s.p.a.ce, and, as Toftrees expected, it was broken by Ingworth.
”Look here, Toftrees,” he said, ”you are discreet and I can trust you.”
The other made a grave inclination of his head--it was coming now!
”Very well. I don't want to say anything about a man whom I have liked, and who _has_ been kind to me. But there are times when one really must speak, whatever the past may have been--aren't there?”
Toftrees saw the last hesitation and removed it.
”Oh, he'll get over that drinking habit,” he said, though he knew well that Ingworth was not bursting with that alone. ”It's bad, of course, that such a man should drink. I was horribly upset--and so was my wife--at that dinner at the Amberleys'. But he'll get over it. And after all you know--poets!”
”It isn't that, Toftrees. It's a good deal worse than that. In fact I really do want your advice.”
”My dear fellow you shall have it. We are friends, I hope, though not of long standing. Fire away.”
”Well, then, it's just this. Lothian's wife is one of the most perfect women I have ever met. She adores him. She does everything for him, she's clever and good looking, sympathetic and kind.”
Toftrees made a slight, very slight, movement of repugnance. He was a man who was temperamentally well-bred, born into a certain cla.s.s of life. He might make a huge income by writing for housemaids at sixpence, but old training and habit became alive. One did not listen to intimate talk about other men's wives.
But the impulse was only momentary, a result of heredity. His interest was too keen for it to last.
”Yes?”
”Lothian doesn't care a bit for his wife--he can't. I know all about it, and I've seen it. He's doing a most blackguardly thing. He's running after a girl. Not any sort of girl, but a _lady_.”--
Toftrees grinned mentally, he saw how it was at once with the lad.
”No?” he said.
”Indeed, yes. She's a sweet and innocent girl whom he's getting round somehow or other by his infernal poetry and that. He's compromising her horribly and she can't see it. I've, I've seen something of her lately and I've tried to tell her as well as I could. But she doesn't take me seriously enough. She's not really in love with Lothian--I don't see how any young and pretty girl could really be in love with a man who looks like he's beginning to look. But they write--they've been about together in the most dreadfully compromising way. One never knows how far it may go. For the sake of the nicest girl I have ever known it ought to be put a stop to.”
Toftrees smiled grimly. He knew who the girl was now, and he saw how the land lay. Young Ingworth was in love and frightened to death of his erstwhile friend's influence over the girl. That was natural enough.
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