“Good lord, I was only fooling with her!” Clay said.
“I’m sure!” Eugene retorted. “The point, thickhead, being that Bart isn’t.”
“What on earth do you mean? You can’t mean that Bart’s serious about her?”
“Can’t I? Well, you trespass on his preserves, and you’ll find out,” said Eugene.
Clay looked very much astonished, but as Jimmy the Bastard came up the backstairs at that moment, with an armful of boots, he questioned Eugene no further.
Jimmy, whose ears were extremely sharp, had heard every word of the brief conversation. It confirmed his own suspicions, and he was pleased, seeing a way of revenge on Bart. His countenance, however, betrayed no emotion whatsoever, and he met Eugene’s narrowed eyes without blanching. Clay went off, whistling, but Eugene lingered to say: “You have quite a genius for turning up where you are least expected, haven’t you. Jimmy?”
Jimmy looked sullenly at him. He recognised an intelligence superior to his own, and resented it. The other Penhallows despised him, and generally ignored him, so that he was able to spy upon their doings pretty well as he chose; but Eugene, he knew, was fully alive to his activities, and, therefore, rather dangerous. He said defensively: “I was bringing your shoes up.”
“Kind of you,” said Eugene. “Do you know, Jimmy, that if I were you I’d be very careful how I trod? Somehow I feel that one of these days, when your natural protector is removed, an evil fate may befall you.”
“I haven’t done any of you any harm,” Jimmy muttered, turning away. But he knew that Eugene was right, and that if Penhallow were suddenly to die he would be kicked out of the house without ceremony or compunction; and he began to think that he would do well to make provision against an uncertain future. He thought he would rather like to go to America. His knowledge of that vast country having been culled solely from the more lurid films dealing with the underworld of bootleggers and racketeers, he was strongly attracted to a land where it seemed that his own buccaneering talents would find ample scope. His only day-dream consisted of an agreeable vision of himself as the chief of a gang, living in an opulent apartment with one of those glamorous blondes who apparently abounded in gangster circles. But he was a practical youth, and he knew that the achievement of his ambition depended largely on his amassing some initial capital. He wondered whether Penhallow would leave him any money in his will, but was inclined to doubt it. Penhallow, he knew quite well, encouraged him partly because it amused him to do so, and partly to annoy his family, and was not in the least likely to leave his money away from his legitimate offspring.
He placed the boots he had brought upstairs in their respective owners’ rooms, and went slowly back to the kitchen, where, since Sybilla was baking, he thought he would pick up one of her saffron cakes. But before he had traversed more than half the length of the stone passage, Martha came out of the still-room, and informed him that Master was shouting for him, and he had better go to him at once, or he would learn what was what.