When he liked to be so, Lucian was the most candid of men. He laid bare his soul to Sprats on occasions like these in a fashion which would greatly have edified a confessor. He kept nothing back; he made no excuses; he added no coat of paint or touch of white-wash. He set forth a plain, unvarnished statement, without comment or explanation; it was a brutally clear and lucid account of facts which would have honoured an Old Bailey lawyer. It was one of his gifts, and Sprats never had an instance of it presented to her notice without wondering how it was that a man who could marshal facts so well and put them before others in such a crisp and concise fashion should be so unpractical in the stern business of life.
‘And that’s just how things are,’ concluded Lucian, ‘What do you advise me to do?’
‘There is one thing to be done at once,’ she answered, without hesitation. ‘You must get out of debt to Darlington; you must pay him every penny that you owe him as quickly as possible. You say you owe him nearly nine thousand pounds: very good. How much have you got towards paying that off?’
Lucian sighed deeply.
‘That’s just it!’ he exclaimed. ‘I don’t exactly know. Let me see, now; well, look here, Sprats—you won’t tell, of course—Mr. Pepperdine owes me a thousand—at least I mean to say I lent him a thousand, but then, don’t you know, he has always been so good to me, that——’
‘I think you had better chuck sentiment,’ she said. ‘Mr. Pepperdine has a thousand of yours. Very well—go on.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he continued, ‘that I might now ask him for the money which my father left me. He has had full charge of that, you know. I’ve never known what it was. I dare say it was rather heavily dipped into during the time I was at Oxford, but there may be something left.’
‘Has he never told you anything about it?’ asked Sprats.
‘Very little. Indeed, I have never asked him anything—I could trust him with everything. It’s quite possible there may not be a penny; he may have spent it all on me before I came of age,’ said Lucian. ‘Still, if there is anything, it would go towards making up the nine thousand, wouldn’t it?’
‘Well, leave it out of the question at present,’ she answered. ‘What else have you coming in soon?’