"I might retort in kind, sir," returned Adrien, pulling his scattered thoughts together, and smiling faintly.
"Ah! I am old," said his father. "Age has its penalties as well as its privileges; and the freedom to speak plainly is one of the latter. Come, my boy, what is wrong? At your age I was happy enough; but you seem to have taken the troubles of the world on your shoulders. Are you ill?"
"No, sir, I am well enough," returned Adrien quietly.
"Then are you worrying over your debts through that unlucky horse? Because, although, as you know, I do not interfere with your money matters as a rule, you are quite at liberty to draw on my bank if you care to do so."
His son turned to him affectionately.
"No, no, sir," he said gratefully. "I don't suppose they are as bad as all that. Jasper will see to them."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he regretted them. His father's face darkened; his eyes grew fierce.
"Jasper! always Jasper," he snarled, even as Mortimer Shelton had done. "It's a pity he didn't break his neck this morning, instead of his miserable tool."
Adrien uttered a protesting exclamation; he would have sacrificed anything sooner than have given his father this opportunity to revile his friend.
"You must be blind, sir," continued Lord Barminster, now working himself up into a rage. "Did not you see and hear enough from that jockey this morning to make you realise what that precious friend of yours had done? I tell you, Adrien, that Jasper Vermont bribed that miserable man to rope your horse. For him, you have allowed your friends, my guests, to be swindled out of their money."