"And live on your wits, I suppose, or on your wife. You're quite capable of it."
Things were not going to Gerald's liking at all. The cheque he had promised himself was vanishing rapidly. So he made no retort to the Major's last remark, and submitted with the best grace he could muster, to the lecture that warrior did not hesitate to administer to him. Then, having promised and vowed everything that was demanded of him in the future, he made so bold as to ask for a trifle of fifty pounds, and was straightway refused.
The Major had been subject to discipline all his life, and was not one to relax it, more especially in the case of such a man as his cousin. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was a precept upon which he had always laid the greatest stress. Gerald had been spared—and spoiled.
From the bottom of his heart he pitied Miriam. "How awfully things have gone askew," he said to himself, as he spun east in a quick-going hansom. What would he not give to be in that young rascal's shoes—yes, even without the Manor House and its five thousand a year.
By the time he reached the Soudan Hotel he was getting horribly sentimental. But he looked with confidence to his wife to dispel all weakness of that sort. Where Hilda was, he knew, sentiment could not be.
He dismissed his cab, and inquired if his wife was at home. He was somewhat surprised to hear that she was not. He presumed she must have gone to pay a call. But the porter informed him that a boy was waiting to see him—a boy, who it appeared, had called already once or twice during the week when he had been out. He had not the least idea who it could be, the genus puer being one in nowise affected by the Major. However, he would seem to be a youth of no little pertinacity, so he gave orders for him to be shown in.
A few moments later the lad appeared—a short, squat, leering creature, somewhere in his teens, and clothed in a tweed suit of aggressively severe design. There was upon his face an expression of extreme sanctimony, which was horribly repellent to the Major. He recognised him at once as Gideon Anab, alias Shorty.
"Well, what is it?" he asked sharply. "What can I do for you, lad?"
"I ain't arter you're doin' nuffin' fur me, sir; but I ken do a 'eap fur you!"
"What the deuce do you mean, you——?"