“Save me!—yes, I suppose that is how you would put it to yourself. You have been trying to save me from disgracing you, as you call it. Has it ever occurred to either of you that the whole of our joint lives has been one long persecution of me by you, Trent?”
“Persecution! What do you mean?”
“I am going to tell you what I mean. I dare say I shall never have another opportunity. We are not likely to see much more of one another. I am going abroad.”
The unexpected announcement on his brother’s part that he was preparing to take the very step that Trent almost despaired of making him take was so welcome that the Duke found himself listening patiently to what followed.
“Have you ever asked yourself why I am different from you—why I lead a different life from the one you lived? To begin with, you are the Duke of Trent and Colonsay; I am a younger son. Do you blame me for that? Do you blame me for not being a Duke, like you?”
“Of course not. It is nonsense to suggest it.”
“I do not think it is nonsense. On the contrary, I think a great many people in your position blame people in mine. Not in so many words, perhaps, but in their whole attitude towards them. You blame a man for not being a gentleman when you call him a cad. But if he was born a cad, what fault is it of his? Every time we who are well born boast of our good blood, surely we are blaming the people who had the bad luck to be born without pedigrees. And yet we cannot all belong to the Royal Family.”
“I am not aware that I ever put on side on account of my family,” protested Trent.
“No. But you would be very much surprised and offended if a tradesman offered to shake hands with you over the counter. Let us pass on. You have nearly forty thousand a year; I am a pauper. You must admit that you have blamed me for that.”
“I? Never! I have blamed you for spending more than your allowance, that is all.”