"I know, old chap, but you must forgive me. I have been too miserable—too ashamed. I only wanted to creep away and to be forgotten."
"Your father died in Paris, didn't he?"
"Yes, luckily I was with him. It was just after I had taken Amy to Charleroi. He was a broken-hearted man. He never got over the mess I had made of my life and Wilmersley's marriage was the last straw. He brooded over it continually."
"Why had your father been so sure that Lord Wilmersley would never marry? He was an old bachelor, but not so very old after all. He can't be more than fifty now."
"Well, you see, Wilmersley has a bee in his bonnet. His mother was a Spanish ballet dancer whom my uncle married when he was a mere boy. She was a dreadful old creature. I remember her distinctly, a great, fat woman with a big, white face and enormous, glassy, black eyes. I was awfully afraid of her. She died when Wilmersley was about twenty and my uncle followed her a few months later. His funeral was hardly over when my cousin left Geralton and nothing definite was heard of him for almost twenty-five years. He was supposed to be travelling in the far East, and from time to time some pretty queer rumours drifted back about him. Whether they were true or not, I have never known. One day he returned to Geralton as unexpectedly as he had left it. He sent for me at once. He has immense family pride—the ballet dancer, I fancy, rankles—and having decided for some reason or other not to marry, he wished his heir to cut a dash. He offered me an allowance of £4000 a year, told me to marry as soon as possible, and sent me home."
"Well, that was pretty decent of him. You don't seem very grateful."
"I can't bear him. He's a most repulsive-looking chap, a thorough Spaniard, with no trace of his father's blood that I can see. And as I married soon afterwards and my marriage was not to his liking, he stopped my allowance and swore I should never succeed him if he could help it. So you see I haven't much reason to be grateful to him."
"Beastly shame! He married Miss Mannering, Lady Upton's granddaughter, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"She is a little queer, I believe."