“Think so? Oh, yes, Hilton. You cannot imagine how happy you make me by the way you are casting behind you your old weaknesses, and are devoting yourself to Parliamentary study.”
“For which I fear I am very unfit,” said Sir Hilton; and he turned cold directly after at a horrible thought which seemed to stun him.
Suppose she should say, “Well, give it up,” and want to withdraw that balance at the bank! “What an idiot I was to say that!” he thought. But relief—partial relief—came the next minute.
“That is your modesty, my dear,” said Lady Lisle. “I flatter myself that I know your capabilities better than you know them yourself. Hilton, I shall devote myself to the task of being your Parliamentary secretary, and I mean that you shall shine.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said the unhappy man, sadly, as he thought of the daring venture he had set in commission, and began to repent as he walked to the window and looked out.
“I ought not to have risked that money, though. Suppose the mare lost,” he mused. “Bah! I know her too well. There isn’t a horse can touch her in the straight, and it will regularly set me up. I shan’t have to go begging for a cheque, and then have ‘What for, darling?’ ringing in my ears. Hang it all! It makes a man feel so small. Why, the very servants pity me—I know they do. And as for that old scoundrel Trimmer—oh, if I could only give him something, even if it were only a wife to keep him short!”
“Suppose—” he thought again, and could get no farther than that one word, which, like the nucleus of a comet, sent out behind or before it a tail of enormous proportions—a sort of gaseous mist of horrible probabilities concerning that four thousand pounds.
“If I could get a message to him and stop it all,” he muttered, as he watched Jane rapidly clear the table of the tardy breakfast things.
“Yes, my love, Parliament must be the goal of your ambition,” said Lady Lisle, with her eyes brightening, as soon as they were alone. “If I had been a man how I should have gloried in addressing the House!”
“Ah! there’s a deal of talk goes on there, my dear,” replied Sir Hilton.