“Well, he is to be your charge, so I hope you may find him more amusing than he looks,” she answered.
It was an early dinner, to be followed by a visit to a popular theatre. A few hours ago Trent was looking forward to his evening with the keenest pleasure—now he was dazed—he could not readjust his point of view to the new conditions. He knew very well that it was his wealth, and his wealth only, which had brought him as an equal amongst these people, all, so far as education and social breeding was concerned, of so entirely a different sphere. He looked around the table. What would they say if they knew? He would be thrust out as an interloper. Opposite to him was a Peer who was even then engaged in threading the meshes of the Bankruptcy Court, what did they care for that?—not a whit! He was of their order though he was a beggar. But as regards himself, he was fully conscious of the difference. The measure of his wealth was the measure of his standing amongst them. Without it he would be thrust forth—he could make no claim to association with them. The thought filled him with a slow, bitter anger. He sent away his soup untasted, and he could not find heart to speak to the girl who had been the will-o'-the-wisp leading him into this evil plight.
Presently she addressed him.
“Mr. Trent!”
He turned round and looked at her.
“Is it necessary for me to remind you, I wonder,” she said, “that it is usual to address a few remarks—quite as a matter of form, you know—to the woman whom you bring in to dinner?”
He eyed her dispassionately.
“I am not used to making conversation,” he said. “Is there anything in the world which I could talk about likely to interest you?”
She took a salted almond from a silver dish by his side and smiled sweetly upon him. “Dear me!” she said, “how fierce! Don't attempt it if you feel like that, please! What have you been doing since I saw you last?—losing your money or your temper, or both?”
He looked at her with a curiously grim smile.