Bertram certainly liked his father, and was at ease in his company; but, in spite of this, he was ashamed of him, and was sometimes very sorrowful. He was young, full of vivacity, and without that strength of character which should have withstood the charm of Sir Lionel's manner; but he knew well that he would fain have had in his father feelings of a very different nature, and he could not but acknowledge that the severity of his uncle's tone was deserved.
It had been George's intention to stay a week only at Constantinople, but his father had persuaded him to remain four. He had boasted that when he returned to England he would be in a position to give back to his uncle the three hundred pounds which Pritchett had placed to his account. But he would not now be able to do this: his father lived expensively; and even here, where Sir Lionel was now at home, George paid more than his own share of the expense.
One of their chief subjects of conversation, that, indeed, which Sir Lionel seemed to prefer to any other, was the ultimate disposal of his brother's money. He perceived that George's thoughts on this subject were by far too transcendental, that he was childishly indifferent to his own interests, and that if not brought to a keener sense of his own rights, a stronger feeling as to his position as the only nephew of a very wealthy man, he might let slip through his fingers a magnificent fortune which was absolutely within his reach. So thinking, he detained his son near him for awhile, that he might, if possible, imbue him with some spark of worldly wisdom.
He knew how useless it would be to lecture a young man like George as to the best way in which he could play tuft-hunter to his uncle. From such lectures George would have started away in disgust; but something, Sir Lionel thought, might be done by tact, by finesse, and a daily half-scornful badinage, skilfully directed towards the proper subject. By degrees, too, he thought that George did listen to him, that he was learning, that he might be taught to set his eyes greedily on those mountains of wealth. And so Sir Lionel persevered with diligence to the end.
"Say everything that is civil from me to my brother," said the colonel, the day before George left him.
"Uncle George does not care much for civil speeches," said the other, laughing.
"No, I know he does not; he'd think more of it if I could send home a remittance by you to pay the bill; eh, George? But as I can't do that, I may as well send a few civil words." Uncle George's bill had gradually become a source of joke between the father and son. Sir Lionel, at least, was accustomed to mention it in such a way that the junior George could not help laughing; and though at first this had gone against the grain of his feelings, by degrees he had become used to it.
"He expects, I fancy, neither money nor civil words," said George the younger.
"He will not, on that account, be the less pleased at getting either the one or the other. Don't you believe everything that everybody tells you in his own praise: when a man says that he does not like flattery, and that he puts no value on soft words, do not on that account be deterred from making any civil speeches you may have ready. He will not be a bit stronger than another because he boasts of his strength."
"I really think you would find it difficult to flatter your brother."