“Have you any brothers or sisters?”
“One brother.” As the admission escaped him all his old bitterness against his junior returned with ten-fold force.
“Living?”
“Yes, he is living.”
“Surely I have heard something about him lately?” Sir Bernard said reflectively. “What is he called?”
“Lord Alistair Stuart.”
The words might have been red-hot coals on the Duke’s lips and not have given him a greater wrench to utter.
Sir Bernard Vanbrugh laid down his paper and leant back in his chair.
“I cannot congratulate you on your family history,” he said gravely.
“Surely, sir, you will not hold me responsible because I had an unworthy father, and have a brother who takes after him? I am not like them. Ask anyone who has ever known me, and they will tell you that my life has been absolutely free from reproach. I neither drink nor gamble; I have never indulged in any kind of vice——”