"Boys will be boys."
And so the reputation of the young Marquis of Arondelle suffered and continued to suffer from the evil doings of his double.
John Scott kept one part of his compact with the duke; he avoided the family; even when he could not keep away from Lone, he contrived to keep out of sight of the duke, the duchess, and the marquis.
The young Marquis of Arondelle, indeed, was very little seen at Lone. He was at Cambridge, or on his grand tour, nearly all the time of the family's residence in the Highlands.
John Scott left the university without honors. This was a disappointment to the duke, who did not, however, reproach his wayward son, but only wrote and asked him if he would now take a commission in the army. But the young man, who had lost all his youthful military ardor, and contracted a roving habit that made him averse to all fixed rules and all restraints, replied by saying that his income was sufficient for his wants, and that he preferred the free life of a scholar.
The duke wrote again, and implored him to choose one of the learned professions, saying that it was not yet too late for him to enter upon the study of one.
The hopeful son replied that he was not good enough for divinity, bad enough for law, or wise enough for medicine; that, therefore, he was unsuited to honor either of the learned professions; and begged his guardian to disturb himself no longer on the subject of his ward's future.
Then the duke let him alone, having, in fact, troubles enough of his own to occupy him—a life of superficial splendor, backed by a condition of hopeless indebtedness.
We have already, in the earlier portions of this story, described the short, glorious, delusive reign of the Herewards at Lone, and the culminating glory and ruin of the royal visit, so immediately to be followed by the great crash, when the magnificent estate, with all its splendid appointments, was sold under the hammer, and purchased by the wealthy banker and city knight, Sir Lemuel Levison. We have told how the noble son—the young Marquis of Arondelle—sacrificed all his life-interest in the entailed estate, to save his father, and how vain that sacrifice proved. We have told how the duchess died of humiliation and grief, and how the duke and his son went into social exile, until recalled by the romantic love of Salome Levison, who wished to bestow her hand and her magnificent inheritance upon the disinherited heir of Lone.
We have now brought the story of John Scott up to the night of the banker's murder, and his own unintentional share in the tragedy.