Matters were not so pleasant, though, with the four occupants of the dining-room as Humphrey Lloyd believed. Vanleigh had his skeleton in the cupboard and was very impecunious; Sir Felix had wealth, but he was constantly feeling that his friend Vanleigh was an incubus whom he would give the world to shake off, but wanted the moral courage; Pratt suffered from poverty, and now told himself that he must be bored by his friend’s affairs; lastly, Trevor had come down to his old home thinking it would be a bower of roses, and it was as full of thorns, as it could possibly be.
The dinner had been a failure. At every turn the influence of Mrs Lloyd was perceptible, and proof given that so far she had been sole mistress of the house.
“By the way, Vanleigh, try that claret,” said Trevor, in the course of the dinner. “Lloyd, the claret to Captain Vanleigh.”
The Captain tasted it, and set down his glass.
Pratt took a glass, and made a point of drinking it.
Trevor saw there was something wrong.
“Bring me that claret,” he said.
The butler poured him out a glass of very thin, poor wine.
Lloyd was then proceeding to fill Sir Felix’s glass, but he declined.
“I thought we had some good old claret,” said Trevor, fuming.