“I sent my son to Dr. Randall’s,” he began, sinking his voice to a confidential whisper, “not because he was backward in his studies—for such is not, I believe, the case—but because he has unfortunately inherited a very deplorable taste. I found it out only by accident, and it was a very great shock to me. Leonard is fond—too fond—of playing cards for money. I thought that at Borden Tower he would have no opportunity for indulging this lamentable weakness; but from what I have recently heard about Dr. Randall, it has occurred to me that he is perhaps a little too much of the student and too little of the schoolmaster. You understand me? I mean that he is perhaps so closely wrapped up in his private work, that after the hours which he gives to his pupils for instruction they may secure almost as much liberty as though they were at college.”
“That’s just it,” I answered: “and, M. de Cartienne, now that you have spoken to me of it, I will tell you something. Your son does play a good deal with Lord Silchester. I know that this is so, for I have played myself occasionally.”
“And Lord Silchester wins, I presume?”
Something in the Count’s tone as he asked the question, and something in his face as I glanced up, did not please me. Both seemed to tell the same tale, both somehow seemed to imply that his question to me was altogether sarcastic, and that he knew the contrary to be the case.
It was the first gleam of mistrust which I had felt towards my new acquaintance, and it did not last, for the expression of deep concern and annoyance with which he heard my answer seemed too natural to be assumed.
“On the contrary, your son always wins,” I told him drily.
His finely-pencilled dark eyebrows almost met in a heavy frown, and he threw his cigarette away impatiently.
“I’m very much obliged to you, Mr. Morton, for answering my question,” he said; “but I needn’t tell you that I’m very sorry to hear what you say. Something must be done with Mr. Leonard at once.”
He lit another cigarette and threw himself back in a corner of the divan. Then I made up my mind to speak to him on the subject which was uppermost in my mind.
“You know a Mr. Marx, I believe? I was inquiring for him at the hotel office this afternoon, and they told me that you were forwarding his letters. Could you give me his address?”