He studied his knuckles with rapt interest. “No. Mind, I don’t say I ought to have taken it from my mother’s case, but — it was my own!”
“Well, naturally you ought not!” said Sophy. “I daresay she would be vexed with you, so we must recover it at once.”
“I wish I might, but there’s no chance of that now! I don’t know what to do! When that horse failed, I was ready to blow my brains out! I shan’t do so, because I don’t suppose it would mend matters, besides creating a dashed scandal.”
“What a good thing you told me the whole! I know exactly what you should do. Make a clean breast of the business to your brother! He will very likely give you a tremendous scold but you may depend upon his helping you out of this fix.”
“You don’t know him! Scold, indeed! Depend upon it, he would make me come down from Oxford, and thrust me into the army, or some such thing! I’ll try everything before I apply to him!”
“Very well, I will lend you five hundred pounds,” said Sophy.
He flushed. “You’re a great gun, Sophy — no, I don’t mean that — a capital girl! I’m devilish grateful, but of course I could not borrow money from you! No, no, pray don’t say any more! It is out of the question! Besides, you don’t understand! The old bloodsucker made me sign a bond to pay him fifteen per cent interest a month!”
“Good God, you never agreed to such an iniquitous thing?”
“What else could I do? I had to have the money to pay my gaming debts, and I knew it was useless to go to Howard and Gibbs, or any of those fellows, for they would have shown me the door.”
“Hubert, I am persuaded there is nothing he can do to extort one penny of interest from you! Why, in law he could not even recover the principal! Only let me lend you five hundred pounds, and take it to him, and insist upon his restoring to you the bond you signed, and your ring! Tell him that if he does not choose to accept the principal he may do his worst!”