"Yes. I'll tell you what I know. Wallace saw Gerald in London—he told us that—and we all know that Gerald couldn't pay his debts a little while ago. You remember he came down to Kendall and went on and stayed the next night with the Claytons. It isn't astonishing that he didn't come here, after the row there was on the last occasion."
"Go on," prompted Evelyn impatiently. "What has his visit to the
Clayton's to do with it?"
"Well, you don't know that I saw Gerald in the afternoon. After all, he's the only brother I've got; and as Jim was going to the station with the trap I made him take me. The Claytons were in the garden; we were scattered about, and I heard Frank and Gerald, who had strolled off from the others, talking. Gerald was telling him about some things he'd bought—they must have been expensive, because Frank asked him where he got the money. Gerald laughed and said he'd had an unexpected stroke of luck that had set him straight again. Now, of course Gerald got no money from home, and if he'd won it he would have told Frank how he did so. Gerald always would tell a thing like that."
Evelyn was filled with confusion and hot indignation. She had little doubt that Mabel's surmise was correct.
"I wonder whether he has told anybody; though it's scarcely likely."
Mabel laughed.
"Of course he hasn't. We all know what Gerald is. Before I came home, I asked him what he thought of Wallace. He said he was a good sort, or something like that, and I saw that he had a reason for saying it; but he must go on in his patronizing style that Wallace was rather Colonial, though he hadn't drifted too far—not beyond reclamation. After all, Wallace was one of—us—before he went out; and if Carroll's Colonial he's the kind of man I like. I was so angry with Gerald I wanted to slap him!"
There was no doubt that Mabel was a staunch partizan, and Evelyn sympathized with her. She was, of course, acquainted with her brother's character, and she was filled with indignant contempt for him. It was intolerable that he should have allowed Vane to discharge his debts and then have alluded to him in terms of indulgent condescension.
"It strikes me Wallace ought to get his money back, now that you have sent him away," Mabel added. "But of course that's most unlikely. It wouldn't take Gerald long to waste it."
Evelyn rose and, making some excuse, left the room. She could feel her face growing hot, and Mabel had unusually keen eyes and precocious powers of deduction. A suspicion which had troubled her more than Gerald's conduct had lately crept into her mind, and it now thrust itself upon her attention; several things pointed to the fact that her father had taken the same course her brother had done. She felt that had she heard Mabel's information before the interview with Vane, she might have yielded to him in an agony of humiliation. Mabel had summed up the situation with stinging candor and crudity—Vane, who had been defrauded, was entitled to recover his money. For a few moments Evelyn was furiously angry with him, and then, growing calmer, she recognized that this was unreasonable. She could not imagine any idea of a compact originating with the man, and he had quietly acquiesced in her decision.