"Rather. I should like to hear it."
"Well, this is almost exactly as he told it me, from the beginning. He was a twin of my grandfather's; there's a piece of bad luck to start with, and being just half a minute late about coming into the world, he is a younger son, which is no fun, I can tell you, in our impoverished family."
"That may happen to anybody," said Geoffrey; "I'm a younger son myself, but I don't scream over that."
Harry laughed.
"Nor does he. Don't interrupt, Geoff. Then he married a very rich girl, who died three years afterward, childless, leaving all her money back to her own relatives. It was a most unhappy marriage from the first; but don't aim after cheap cynicism, and say that the real tragedy there was not her death, but the disposition of her property. I can tell you beforehand that this was not the case. He was devoted to her."
"Well?"
Harry's voice sank.
"And then, twenty-two years ago, came that awful affair of young Harmsworth's death. Did you ever hear it spoken of?"
Geoffrey was silent a moment.