In spite of Sprats’s sermon in the little café-restaurant, Lucian made no effort to follow her advice. He was at work on a new tragedy which was to be produced at the Athen?um in the following autumn, and had therefore no time to give to considerations of economy, and when he was not at work he was at play, and play with Lucian was a matter of as much importance, so far as strenuous devotion to it was concerned, as work was. But there came a morning and an occurrence which for an hour at least made him recall Sprats’s counsel and ponder rather deeply on certain things which he had never pondered before.

It was ten o’clock, and Lucian and Haidee were breakfasting. They invariably spent a good hour over this meal, for both were possessed of hearty appetites, and Lucian always read his letters and his newspapers while he ate and drank. He was alternately devoting himself to his plate and to a leading article in the Times, when the footman entered and announced that Mr. Pepperdine wished to see him. Lucian choked down a mouthful, uttered a joyous exclamation, and rushed into the hall. Mr. Pepperdine, in all the glories of a particularly horsy suit of clothes, was gazing about him as if he had got into a museum. He had visited Lucian’s house before, and always went about in it with his mouth wide open and an air of expectancy—there was usually something fresh to see, and he never quite knew where he might come across it.

‘My dear uncle!’ cried Lucian, seizing him in his arms and dragging him into the dining-room, ‘why didn’t you let me know you were coming? Have you breakfasted? Have some more, any way—get into that chair.’

Mr. Pepperdine solemnly shook hands with Haidee,{141} who liked him because he betrayed such ardent and whole-souled admiration of her and had once bought her a pair of wonderful ponies, assured himself by a careful inspection that she was as pretty as ever, and took a chair, but not at the table. He had breakfasted, he said, at his hotel, two hours earlier.

‘Then have a drink,’ said Lucian, and rang the bell for whisky and soda. ‘How is everybody at Simonstower?’

‘All well,’ answered Mr. Pepperdine, ‘very well indeed, except that Keziah has begun to suffer a good deal from rheumatism. It’s a family complaint. I’m glad to see you both well and hearty—you keep the roses in your cheeks, ma’am, and the light in your eyes, something wonderful, considering that you are a townbird, as one may say. There are country maidens with less colour and brightness, so there are!’

‘You said that so prettily that I shall allow you to smoke a cigar, if you like,’ said Haidee. ‘Lucian, your case.’

Mr. Pepperdine shook his head knowingly as he lighted a cigar and sipped his whisky and soda. He knew a pretty woman when he saw her, he said to himself, and it was his opinion that Mrs. Lucian Damerel was uncommonly pretty. Whenever he came to see her he could never look at her enough, and Haidee, who accepted admiration on principle, used to smile at him and air her best behaviour. She was sufficiently woman of the world to overlook the fact that Mr. Pepperdine was a tenant-farmer and used the language of the people—he was a handsome man and a dandy in his way, and he was by no means backward, in spite of his confirmed bachelorhood, of letting a pretty woman see that he had an eye for beauty. So she made herself very agreeable to Mr. Pepperdine and told him stories of the ponies, and Lucian chatted of various things, and Mr. Pepperdine, taking in the general air of comfort and luxury which surrounded these young people, felt that his nephew had begun life in fine style and was uncommonly clever.{142}

They went into Lucian’s study when breakfast was over, and Lucian lighted a pipe and began to chat carelessly of Simonstower and old times there. Mr. Pepperdine, however, changed the subject somewhat abruptly.

‘Lucian, my boy,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you what’s brought me here: I want you to lend me a thousand pounds for a twelvemonth. Will you do that?’

‘Why, of course!’ exclaimed Lucian. ‘I shall be only too pleased—for as long as ever you like.’

‘A year will do for me,’ answered Mr. Pepperdine. ‘I’ll explain matters,’ and he went on to tell Lucian the story of the Bransby defalcations, and his own loss, and of the late Lord Simonstower’s generosity. ‘He was very good about it, was the old lord,’ he said: ‘it made things easy for me while he lived, but now he’s dead, and I can’t expect the new lord to be as considerate. I’ve had a tightish time lately, Lucian, my boy, and money’s been scarce; but you can have your thousand pounds back at the twelvemonth end—I’m a man of my word in all matters.’

‘My dear uncle!’ exclaimed Lucian, ‘there must be no talk of that sort between us. Of course you shall have the money at once—that is as soon as we can get to the bank. Or will a cheque do?’

‘Aught that’s of the value of a thousand pounds’ll do for me,’ replied Mr. Pepperdine. ‘I want to complete a certain transaction with the money this afternoon, and if you give me a cheque I can call in at your bank.’

Lucian produced his cheque-book and wrote out a cheque for the amount which his uncle wished to borrow. Mr. Pepperdine insisted upon drawing up a formal memorandum of its receipt, and admonished his nephew to put it carefully away with his other business papers. But Lucian never kept any business papers—his usual practice was to tear everything up that looked like a business document and throw the fragments into the waste-paper basket. He would treasure the most obscure second-hand bookseller’s catalogue as if it had{143} been a gilt-edged security, but bills and receipts and business letters annoyed him, and Mr. Pepperdine’s carefully scrawled sheet of notepaper went into the usual receptacle as soon as its writer had left the room. And as he crumpled it up and threw it into the basket, laughing at the old-fashioned habits of his uncle, Lucian also threw off all recollection of the incident and became absorbed in his new tragedy.

Coming in from the theatre that night he found a little pile of letters waiting for him on the hall table, and he took them into his study and opened them carelessly. There was a long epistle from Mrs. Berenson—he read half of it and threw that and the remaining sheets away with an exclamation of impatience. There was a note from the great actor-manager who was going to produce the new tragedy—he laid that open on his desk and put a paper-weight upon it. The rest of his letters were invitations, requests for autographs, gushing epistles from admiring readers, and so on—he soon bundled them all together and laid them aside. But there was one which he had kept to the last—a formal-looking affair with the name of his bank engraved on the flap of the envelope, and he opened it with some curiosity. The letter which it enclosed was short and formal, but when Lucian had read it he recognised in some vague and not very definite fashion that it constituted an epoch. He read it again and yet again, with knitted brows and puzzled eyes, and then he put it on his desk and sat staring at it as if he did not understand the news which it was meant to convey to him.

It was a very commonplace communication this, but Lucian had never seen anything of its sort before. It was just a brief, politely worded note from his bankers, informing him that they had that day paid a cheque for one thousand pounds, drawn by him in favour of Simpson Pepperdine, Esquire, and that his account was now overdrawn by the sum of ￡187, 10s. 0d. That was all—there was not even a delicately expressed request to him to put the account in credit.{144}

Lucian could not quite realise what this letter meant; he said nothing to Haidee of it, but after breakfast next morning he drove to the bank and asked to see the manager. Once closeted with that gentleman in his private room he drew out the letter and laid it on the desk at which the manager sat.

‘I don’t quite understand this letter,’ he said. ‘Would you mind explaining it to me?’

The manager smiled.

‘It seems quite plain, I think,’ he said pleasantly. ‘It means that your account is overdrawn to the amount of ￡187, 10s. 0d.’

Lucian sat down............