Sir Gilbert Clare\'s deliberate announcement, evidently not made without a purpose, that the family estates were no longer entailed, was one which carried dismay to the heart of Captain Verinder. His face fell on the instant, and for a little while the ruddy colour faded out of his cheeks. Although aware that the baronet\'s eyes were glancing keenly from him to Giovanna, and then back, he could not for the life of him help showing that the blow had struck home.
Sir Gilbert smiled grimly to himself.
"As I thought, this fellow is at the bottom of the business," he murmured, but this time not aloud. "It is he who has found me out and induced his niece to lay her case before me, evidently in the expectation of being able to feather his nest out of her, or me, or both of us. Well, we shall see. As regards his niece, I am more than ever inclined to believe in her. The story she told me was remarkably clear and straightforward. But festina lente must still be my motto."
Then he rose. "And now, my dear madam," he said, addressing himself pointedly to Giovanna and wholly ignoring the Captain, "I must ask you to excuse me till to-morrow, when I shall expect to see you here, accompanied by your son, at the same hour as to-day. I would not have quitted you so abruptly but that I have a couple of my tenant farmers waiting all this time to see me about some repairs. But you must not leave the Chase without partaking of some refreshment. Pardon me if I insist. I cannot sit down with you myself, I am sorry to say, for I am under the strictest dietetic regimen. They are terrible tyrants, these doctors. Till to-morrow at eleven, then."
Therewith he shook hands cordially with Giovanna, but the Captain he merely favoured with a curt nod, as it might be a nod of dismissal to one of his dependents; and, indeed, he had already made up his mind that he had seen quite enough of Captain Verinder.
Presently a servant appeared with a liberally appointed luncheon tray, at sight of which the Captain brightened visibly, for he was one of those men to whom the good things of the table never appeal in vain.
It was not till they were jogging back to the station in their fly, which had been kept waiting for them, that Giovanna said: "I am not sure that I quite got at the meaning of Sir Gilbert\'s speech about what he called the entail. Does it mean that---- But perhaps you had better tell me what it does mean."
The Captain drew down the corners of his mouth. "Oh, there\'s no possible mistake about his meaning. It seems that your husband was so unspeakably foolish as, in return for the sum of six thousand pound, to deprive himself and his heirs of what otherwise would have been their undoubted birthright. Thus the estate of Withington Chase, and other estates into the bargain, for anything I know to the contrary, instead of descending through the law of entail to Sir Gilbert\'s grandson (whom we hope to have the pleasure of introducing to him to-morrow), have, as the result of that act, become the baronet\'s sole and personal property, to sell, or give away, or do what the dickens he likes with. I wish with all my heart that John Alexander Clare had been at the bottom of the Red Sea before putting his hand to any such iniquitous document."
"Then, if Sir Gilbert chooses to adopt Luigi as his grandson it does not follow that he will come into the property?"
"It certainly does not follow that he will; but neither does it follow that he won\'t. Everything hinges on how Sir Gilbert takes to him. If Luigi plays his cards skilfully, there\'s no reason why he should not come in for everything when the old gentleman dies. On the other hand, if he plays them badly, he may be left without a shilling."
"And the title?" queried Giovanna.
"Oh, the title can\'t be cut off as the entail has been. That descends to the next heir, whoever he may be, and nothing can deprive him of it. But where would be the good of the title, I should like to know, without the means to keep it up? It would be a white elephant--worse than useless. Everything depends on Luigi."
"He seems to me a rather clever young man."
"Oh yes, he\'s clever enough in his way," said the Captain with a short laugh. "The question is whether he\'s not a little bit too clever. There lies our danger."
This was rather beyond Giovanna; but, as their fly drew up next minute at the station, nothing more was said; and as there were several other passengers in the compartment by which they travelled up to town, all further private conversation was deferred till they reached Giovanna\'s rooms, where they found Luigi impatiently awaiting their arrival.
The young Italian was a rank coward both morally and physically, and when told that he would have to face Sir Gilbert Clare on the morrow in his assumed r?le of grandson to the baronet, his cheeks blanched and a nervous trembling took possession of him, which was not allayed till the Captain had administered to him a tolerably stiff dose of brandy.
As already stated, Luigi was a fairly good-looking young man. He was tall and slender, with a pale olive complexion and clear cut features of an almost purely Greek type. His eyes were large, black and expressive, and the knowledge of how to make the most of them had come to him by intuition, as it does to the majority of his race. Jet black, soft and silky were his hair and moustache. He was very proud of his long tapering hands, and his carefully trimmed nails. Some of his friends said they were the hands of an artist, others, less complimentary, averred that he had the digits of a pickpocket. Both statements went beyond the mark, as the generality of extreme statements do, for although Luigi Rispani was a fairly clever drawing-master, he was entirely lacking in the creative faculty, and although he had no moral scruples whatever in lending himself to a scheme for defrauding Sir Gilbert Clare, nothing less than hard compulsion--a twinge of starvation, for instance--would have induced him to insert his hand into another man\'s pocket and abstract therefrom a watch or purse. In the opinion of some people a transaction of the latter kind would have been much more venial than the one to which he had given his assent, but such was not Luigi Rispani\'s way of thinking, and such is not the way of thinking of thousands of others.
Our three conspirators did not separate till a late hour, for, on the strength of his coming good fortune, Luigi had already thrown up his post at the theatre. As a matter of course, the Captain was spokesman-in-chief. He it was who thought out every detail and strove to foresee and provide against every contingency which might unexpectedly crop up at the morrow\'s interview. The others had little to do beyond listening and assenting and trying to fix in their memory, so that they might be available at the right moment, the different points enumerated by him.
In matters of business Captain Verinder was punctuality itself, and our little party of three pulled up at the door of Withington Chase as the turret clock was striking eleven. Having been ushered into the morning room as before, they were left to themselves for a few minutes. Then the footman reappeared with a request that "the lady and the young gentleman" would be good enough to follow him. Before quitting the room he rather ostentatiously placed a couple of newspapers on the centre table.
Captain Verinder was left alone; he realised the fact unpleasantly. Starting to his feet, he began to pace the room with anything but placid strides. His face turned a purplish red, he shook his clenched hands at an imaginary foe, and anathematised Sir Gilbert in tones not loud but deep. He was quite aware that the baronet had conceived an unaccountable dislike for him, but he had not thought it would take a form of such active hostility as had now evinced itself. It was more than a slight--it was an insult--as he fumingly told himself: but all the same, it was one which he was not in a position to resent.
After all, as he assured himself when he had in some measure calmed down, it was really a matter of little moment, even if Sir Gilbert should continue to ignore him; he might feel sore at the time, but he would soon get over that. The great point was that the scheme he had so carefully elaborated was on the high road to success; the rest, as far as he was concerned, was a trifling matter indeed. Let but Luigi and Vanna attain to the positions he had designated them for, and henceforth with him--Augustus Verinder--all would go well. Farewell, then, to his existence of semi-genteel pauperism, and to his long struggle against a fate which had so persistently turned a cold shoulder to him, and would have none of his wooing! For the rest of his days he would be able to live as a gentleman ought to live.
On leaving the morning-room, Giovanna and Luigi were conducted to the library, where they found Sir Gilbert awaiting them. The baronet received them with that frigid ce............