Val was glad to leave on this account, but he troubled to go solely because matters had slipped gradually into rather a tangle between Mark and himself. Val had always feared this, for he was above all else sensible, and he had foreseen the time when Mark would resent his interference and the fact of his trusteeship. How or why the bad feeling on Mark’s side toward himself had arisen first Val did not know, save that he imagined the younger man had resented certain plain words he had been compelled to speak.
The fact was that Sir Mark, being a very handsome young fellow, with very little mental ballast to keep him from follies, had quickly shown a disposition to lead a life that Val held to be objectionable in every sense of the word.
It was not merely that excitement and dissipation was bound to help the young man on the road to a fatal end; it was because Val considered there was very much indeed that his cousin could have found to occupy him in connection with the various properties in and about Dynechester, and in other places as well.
Val was as lenient as most men over the question of amusement, but duty always came first with him, and Mark most assuredly neglected his duties in the most pronounced way.
There were other things that made Val grave and anxious. Mark had a predilection for the most questionable company, and already Dynechester was beginning to look a trifle askance at the young man.
Grace of course was not enlightened as to the cause of the very sharp quarrel that had taken place between her brother and Sir Mark, just before they started abroad, but she felt without knowing anything that Val must have been in the right.
It had been, as a matter of fact, a very nasty quarrel, and Mark had said many hurtful things.
Up to this time Val had never breathed to his cousin that grim truth about the mother whom Mark knew only as a memory; but when he saw how fast Mark was drifting to the same miserable fate, he felt, cruel as it was, that he must speak out.
The story he had to tell infuriated Mark Wentworth.
“I see your drift,” he said to Val, with a sneer; “finding you can’t interfere with me and my amusements, and being frightened to death of my getting married, you tell me this abominable thing simply to work in your plan better. Of course a child could understand you! If I die unmarried you come into my title and place through your mother’s right, and so you are determined to keep me unmarried. Oh! I can see right through you, my dear Cousin Val, and all your righteous disposal of the present state of things is just a proof of your beastly selfishness. I tell you frankly that if you say much more, I will make this woman you are kicking up such a fuss about my wife to-morrow!”