"The whole story about your brother, and why you deny him. I am sure it will be most interesting. Go on, please, I am waiting."
Mr. Scarse looked at his tyrant savagely. He would dearly have liked to refuse, but he realized that he was on perilous ground. Van Zwieten knew just enough to be dangerous. He must not be allowed to make use of his knowledge, even if he had to be told more. Besides, Mr. Scarse was satisfied that for Brenda's sake he would keep quiet. Therefore he made a virtue of necessity and launched at once into a family history, of which in no other circumstances would he have spoken to any living soul. It was the very fact of the Dutchman's having it in his power to force his confidence that angered him. No man likes to be coerced.
"I don't think the story will interest you much," he said, sulkily; "but such as it is, I will relate it. Robert Scarse is my twin brother, and is as like me as it is possible for one man to be like another. His appearance deceived young Burton and the Chippingholt folk."
"I know they took him for you. And on account of that scarf they paid you the compliment of thinking you were out of your mind."
Mr. Scarse shrugged his shoulders. "As if I cared," he said contemptuously. "My speeches in the House prove that I am sane enough. Well, Robert is my brother, and I was--I am--very fond of him. My sister Julia--Mrs. St. Leger, you know--never liked him, and when we cast him off she made up her mind to regard him as dead. She never even admits that she has a brother. I am her only relative--at least the only one she acknowledges."
"And why, pray, was Robert cast off thus, and by his affectionate twin?"
"Don't be sarcastic, Van Zwieten, it does not suit you," snapped Scarse. "My brother was a bad lot. At school and college he led the authorities a devil of a dance until he was expelled. When he came to London he took to gambling and drinking. I was never like that. My one desire was to get into Parliament, where my father had been before me, and serve my country. My sister married St. Leger--he was a subaltern then--and went out to India. My mother died, and there was no one to check Robert's pranks. My father paid his debts so often that we became quite impoverished. That is why I am so poor."
"Are you poor?" asked Van Zwieten, thinking regretfully that Brenda--sweet as she was--would have no dowry.
"As poor as a church mouse. I married a woman with six hundred a year, and out of that Brenda has two hundred a year. I can't touch it. What with the other four hundred and my own money I have but a thousand a year all told--little enough for a man of my position. Of course, when I die, my thousand a year will go to Brenda."
"Ah!" said Van Zwieten, with much satisfaction. He was sufficiently Dutch to be very fond of money.