Thorpe slowly thought of something that had not occurred to him before, and seized upon it with a certain satisfaction.
“That day that you took me shooting,” he said, with the tone of one finally exposing a long-nursed grievance, “you stayed in bed for hours after you knew I was up and waiting for you—and when we went out, you had a servant to carry a chair for you, but I—by God!—I had to stand up.”
“Heavens above!” ejaculated Plowden, in unfeigned amazement.
“These are little things—mere trifles,” continued Thorpe, dogmatically, “but with men of my temper and make-up those are just the things that aggravate and rankle and hurt. Maybe it's foolish, but that's the kind of man I am. You ought to have had the intelligence to see that—and not let these stupid little things happen to annoy me. Why just think what you did. I was going to do God knows what for you—make your fortune and everything else,—and you didn't show consideration enough for me to get out of bed at a decent hour—much less see to it that I had a chair if you were going to have one.”
“Upon my word, I can't tell how ashamed and sorry I am,” Lord Plowden assured him, with fervent contrition in his voice.
“Well, those are the things to guard against,” said Thorpe, approaching a dismissal of the subject. “People who show consideration for me; people who take pains to do the little pleasant things for me, and see that I'm not annoyed and worried by trifles—they're the people that I, on my side, do the big things for. I can be the best friend in the world, but only to those who show that they care for me, and do what they know I'll like. I don't want toadies about me, but I do want people who feel bound to me, and are as keen about me and my feelings and interests as they are about their own.”
“It is delightfully feudal—all this,” commented the nobleman, smilingly addressing the remark to nobody in particular. Then he looked at Thorpe. “Let me be one of them—one of the people you speak of,” he said, with directness.
Thorpe returned his look with the good-natured beginnings of a grin. “But what would you be good for?” he queried, in a bantering tone. “People I have about me have to be of some use. They require to have heads on their shoulders. Why—just think what you've done. I don't mean so much about your letting Tavender slip through your fingers—although that was about the worst I ever heard of. But here in this room, at that desk there, you allowed me to bounce you into writing and signing a paper which you ought to have had your hand cut off rather than write, much less sign. You come here trying to work the most difficult and dangerous kind of a bluff,—knowing all the while that the witness you depended entirely upon had disappeared, you hadn't the remotest idea where,—and you actually let me lead you into giving me your signature to your own declaration that you are blackmailing me! Thinking it all over—you know—I can't see that you would be of much help to me in the City.”
Lord Plowden joined perforce in the laughter with which the big man enjoyed his own pleasantry. His mirth had some superficial signs of shamefacedness, but it was hopeful underneath. “The City!” he echoed, with meaning. “That's the curse of it. What do I know about the City? What business have I in the City? As you said, I'm the amateur. A strong man like you can make me seem any kind of a ridiculous fool he likes, with the turn of his hand. I see that right enough. But what am I to do? I have to make a shot at something. I'm so rotten poor!”
Thorpe had retired again behind the barrier of dull-eyed abstraction. He seemed not to have heard this appealing explanation.