I must have shown my amazement. This was not the Alfred Gillespie I had met the night before.
"I have heard that everything was not quite smooth with him. I know I haven't seen him around lately, crushing pillows and making us all look vulgar in contrast to his calm and almost insulting impassibility. I wonder what he will do with the three or four millions which will fall to his share."
"Marry," I suggested, fillipping a fly from my coat-sleeve.
"He? Alph? I don't believe he could hold himself erect long enough to go through the ceremony. Besides, it would be such a bore. That's my idea of Alph."
It was not mine. Either he had greatly changed, or Sam Underhill's knowledge of him was of the most superficial character. As I wavered between these two conclusions I began to experience a vague sensation of dread. If love could effect such a transformation in so unlikely a subject as the man we were discussing, what might it not effect in an ardent nature like my own?
I hastened to change the subject.
"The third brother is already married, I believe."
"Leighton? Oh, he's a widower; has been a widower for years. He was unfortunate in the marriage he made. After the first year no one ever saw young Mrs. Gillespie in public. I don't think the old gentleman ever forgave him that match."
"What was the trouble? He seems to have a dear little girl. I saw her when I saw her uncle."
"Oh, the child. She's well enough, but the mother was—well, we will be charitable and say erratic. Common stock, I've heard. No mate at all for a man like him. Not that he's any too good either for all his hypocritical ways. I have no use for Leighton. I cannot abide so-called philanthropic men whose noses are always in the gutter. He's a sneak, is Leighton, and so inconsistent. One day you hear of him presiding at some charity meeting; the next night you find him behind the scenes at a variety theatre. And as for money—not one of Mr. Gillespie's sons spends so much. He has just drained the old man's purse, or so I've heard; and when asked to give an account of himself mentions his charities and many schemes of benevolence—as if the old man himself didn't spend thousands in just such lines."