"There's nothing to tell, Alice," said Robert with a forced laugh, rising from his chair; "you've made a pretty story for yourself, nurse, but I'm too old now to be amused at it even, much less to think of taking one of the characters. I'm a little overdone with business, that's all."
"Is it?" said the old woman shortly. "Well,--if it's business, that's all right. But it's the first time since ever I've been connected with the house of Streightley and Son, and that's nigh fifty year, that I heard it was necessary to forward the business of the house, or to captivate the brokers and the shipping-agents and that like, by dressing oneself up in fal-lal clothes, and by dancing attendance at opera and play houses (I found the papers of them in your pockets) until all hours in the morning. And I'm thinking that if that is the way, your father made but a poor hand at it, Master Robert; and it's a great mercy that he didn't ruin the whole concern." And so saying, and with a sniff of great meaning, the old lady retired from the room.
By no means reassured or made more comfortable even by this short interview--for he was a nervous man in some things and very much disliked what he called "being upset"--Robert Streightley pushed the breakfast things away from him, and started off for town. He had dropped the omnibus long since, and took a cab as a matter of course; and as he journeyed along he could not help contrasting the splendour of the house he had yesterday visited with the meanness of that one which he had just left. Both were his own, and both were to a certain extent typical of his life: in the latter with frugal commonplace people his money had been made; in the former with one bright being it should be spent. Yes; he had had enough of this daily grind of business, this sordid strife; and he had determined that henceforth--if his hopes were realised--he would live a different life. If his hopes were realised? what forbade their realisation? This man,--this Gordon Frere, was younger it is true, better-looking, more of a "lady's man" than he; but he himself was not so old, not so hideous, not so--Ah! good God! What a fool he was for arguing the question in this way, even to himself! He felt that he loved this girl, and that on that deep love and earnest devotion alone must he rely for the success of his suit.
He found Mr. Guyon awaiting him in the dining-room, with the Morning Post on the very verge of the table; and a large blotting-book, a portentous inkstand, and a perfect armoury of steel pens close in front of him. The flavour of Turkish tobacco hung round the apartment, and a cut-glass goblet containing the remains of a draught that looked suspiciously like brandy and soda-water stood on the velvet mantelpiece. Mr. Guyon himself, dressed in the loose lounging jacket and the Turkish trousers, lay on the sofa with the butt-end of a cigarette in his mouth, and extended his hand to his friend in cordial greeting.
"I take this doosid kind of you, my dear Streightley, coming round in this way when I asked you. Doosid kind!" said Mr. Guyon; "and I show my appreciation of it by receiving you without the least ceremony or the least humbug--which is the greater compliment. When one says to a fellow, 'I want to see you on a matter of business,' the fellow who's good enough to come round naturally expects to see the fellow who sent for him in a state of business--stiff shirt-collar, and almanac, and all that kind of thing. That's what I myself should do to some fellows; but I don't to you. I say to myself, 'He's above all that sort of dodgery. He's a real man of business, and would see through it at once. Let him take me as I am. I'm an idle, nothing-doing, pleasure-seeking son of a gun: he knows it; why should I attempt to disguise my natural self from him and prove myself to be somebody else? Let him see me as my natural self."
Here Mr. Guyon paused for an instant to take a sip from the cut-glass goblet and to throw away the butt-end of the cigarette. Feeling it incumbent on him to say something, Robert Streightley murmured, "Very kind!"
"No," said Mr. Guyon, raising himself on his elbow, and looking lazily across the table at his visitor, "not very kind. Shrewd, perhaps, but not kind. When a man is in want of serious advice, and goes to the fountain-head for--that kind of thing--boldly and without scruple, he may be said to be shrewd. Now, that's my case; and I come to you."
This, so far, was so like the commencement of Mr. Guyon's conversations when loans were in question that Streightley had made up his mind that more money was required; he changed his opinion, however, as his host proceeded.
"Now, my dear Robert,--you'll forgive an old fellow's familiarity, won't you? I don't often indulge in a fancy, but when I do I'm like the--ivy, damme, I cling. You can see, you must have seen plainly enough long since, that I'm not a man of business. In three words, I hate it. If I had been a rich man, I'd have had a fellow to do all my business for me while I smoked my cigarette and looked on; and hitherto whenever it's been a question of business, money, and all those horrible details arising from the want of it, I've shirked it as long as I could, and then stumbled through it in a devilish blind, stupid, haphazard kind of manner. That's been all very well so far; but now another question arises,--a very different question--one touching the heart and that kind of thing, and the welfare of a person who--however, I'll go into that by and by;--a question on which, I feel so deeply, that I've determined to be guided by the advice of the clearest-headed man of my acquaintance--and so I've sent for you."
Robert Streightley bowed, and murmured a few words of incoherent thanks. Not money! Question on which he felt so deeply! What was Mr. Guyon driving at?