Baldwin said after a pause: “You’ll get yourself, or other people, into a fine mess before you’ve done with all this. Why, wasn’t it something of the kind that you were spouting when it was a question of your career?”
Stuart laughed:
“Yes. Something of the kind....”
His uncle paced the room uneasily; he could not forget that he had grave responsibilities of guardianship to discharge towards this young son of Graham Heron. Graham Heron, whose death had occurred when Stuart was a boy of fifteen, had founded the great diamond business, on which had been built up the family’s immense fortune; had taken into partnership his elder and younger brothers, Derwent and Arthur, not so brilliant as himself; later, had admitted Baldwin Carr to the firm. Graham owned a personality which established him in general regard as head of the family, and his only son succeeded naturally to the same central position; more especially as Derwent’s progeny were all girls, and Arthur elected to remain a bachelor. And when school and college reported one brilliant success after another for Graham’s son, then Graham’s brothers and Graham’s widow foresaw a triumphant future in whatsoever public career the lad chose to follow up. Consideration of money there need never be; a steady flow of good luck continued to attend the firm of Heron and Carr; it seemed that the trio of diamond merchants could do no wrong. Stuart, struck by the Arabian-Nights’-like quality of their glittering trade, had nicknamed them: the Khalif, the Vizier, and the One-eyed Calendar; the last-named, unblessed by a sense of humour, was never clear why he should thus be linked to such eccentricities as almanacks and defective optics; but Stuart, even in his insolent schoolboy days, went idolized and uncensured.
When he finally came down from Oxford, three years previously, it was to find his future stretching before his feet, a veritable slope of roses. He had been reading for the Bar, and Mrs. Heron already visioned him as the Lord Chief Justice.
“But I’m going to chuck the law,” said Stuart.
His Uncle Derwent reminded him that strings had already been pulled, enabling him to devil for Sir Blair Tomlinson, foremost barrister of the day; and that a more promising start could be assured to no man.
“Quite so,” Stuart agreed. And: “I’m going to chuck the law.”
The next few weeks proved but repetitions of this incident, under various guises. Stuart had but to mention a profession—army, navy, political, diplomatic; and Uncle Derwent or Uncle Arthur or Uncle Baldwin was able speedily to procure such influence in that particular quarter, as to ensure their nephew a clear path to the very summit of ambition. And Uncle Derwent or Uncle Arthur or Uncle Baldwin had but to mention such influence procured, and Stuart speedily abandoned all idea of that particular career. The climax was reached when, by way of a test, the young man averred longings for stage laurels; and Uncle Baldwin, two evenings later, strolled into the billiard-room in Carlton House Terrace, with the triumphant tidings that London’s leading actor-manager, Sir Michael Forrest—“I used to know him very well”—had avowed himself delighted to give Mr. Stuart Heron a part in the next big autumn production, and the under-study of juvenile lead.
“I told him what they said about your Greek performance in the O.U.D.S.,” finished Baldwin Carr.