"Yes, sir," said Lord Fitz, looking down at his boots nervously, and then up at the ceiling. "I wanted to ask you if you could let me have a couple of hundred pounds beyond my allowance to—to—pay a few debts, which—which, of course, I could not help running into while I was in Paris."
Lord Lackland walked to the bureau, and took out a bundle—a very small bundle—of banknotes; from this he counted out a hundred pounds' worth, and, holding them in his hand, said:
"Here are a hundred pounds; I cannot give you any more, for a very good reason, I cannot afford to do so."
Lord Fitz looked up with a simple stare which extended his mouth as well as his eyes.
"I cannot afford to do so," said the metallic voice. "It is quite time that you should be placed in possession of the truth as regards my—I may say our—pecuniary position. I ought, perhaps, to have informed you of the condition of my affairs long earlier, but consideration for your feelings deterred me. Fitz, the estates in London, in Italy, in England, are mortgaged to their fullest extent. The revenue is nearly swallowed up by the interest, and there is so little ready money in the house that if the servants were to demand their wages I should not be in a position to pay them."
Lord Fitz stared, pale and aghast.
The skeleton was out grimly walking before him. For the first time Lord Boisdale learned that he was heir to a rich crop of embarrassments, and that the great Earl of Lackland, his father, was a poor man.
"Great Heaven!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean to say that, sir!" unlike his father, showing his emotion unmistakably.
"I have said it," replied the earl, "and now you know my—our—real position. Credit, Fitz, has kept our heads above water for a great many years—credit alone. How much longer it may do so I cannot say, but I can estimate if your bills for necessaries amount to the sums which they here represent."
"What—what's to be done?" asked Lord Fitz, staring at his calm parent with bewildered horror. "We must sell some of the places, the horses, the diamonds, by jingo!—the—the—everything!"