In short, Hugo was so urgent and so plausible, that his victim was persuaded and carried away by eloquence and old memories, accompanied de Montfort to a writing-table, where he signed O. St. J. Wynyard—and repented himself before his signature had been blotted!
Two days later Owen received a beautiful silver cigarette-case, inscribed, as a token of friendship from de Montfort, and this was succeeded by an alarming silence. When the time approached for the bill to fall due, Wynyard wrote anxious epistles to his old schoolfellow—who appeared to be one of the crowd who believe that letters answer themselves! Then he went up to town and sought him at his rooms and club; no one could give him any tidings of Hugo beyond the fact that he was abroad—a wide and unsatisfactory address. He sent distracted telegrams to some of the runaway’s former haunts; there was no reply. The fatal day arrived, and Owen was compelled to interview his uncle and make a clean breast of the whole business; and his uncle was furious to the verge of apoplexy.
“They used to say,” he shouted, “put the fool of the family into the army; but my fool shall not remain in the Service! I’ll pay up the two thousand you’ve been robbed of for the sake of my name—and out you go! Send in your papers to-day!”
Lady Kesters was contemplating her face in the overmantle, which also reflected her brother’s unusually grave visage.
“Owen,” she said, “what a pity it is that I hadn’t your looks and you my brains.”
They presented a contrast, as they examined one another in the glass. The woman’s dark, irregular face, her keen, concentrated expression; the man with clear-cut features, sleepy, deep-set grey eyes, and close-cropped light brown hair.
“I think you are all right as you are, Sis,” he remarked, after a reflective pause.
“But you are not,” she snapped. “Now, if you had my head. Oh, how I long to be a man! I’d have gone into Parliament. I’d have helped to manage the affairs of a nation instead of the affairs of a family. I’d have worked and slaved and made myself a name—yes, and gone far!”
“What’s the good of going far?” he asked, in a lazy voice.