Then he recalled the cold terms of that letter in which her father—a hard and heartless, frivolous and luxurious man of the world, with much of aristocratic snobbery in his composition—had bluntly informed him that the engagement between him and Clare was ended for ever, and why; and he resolved that neither at the baronet's club nor anywhere else would he waste a calling card upon him; and in this pleasant mood of mind he hailed a hansom and drove to the rooms of his friend Jerry Vane.
CHAPTER V.
HOW WILL IT END?
If Jerry Vane was not very contented in mind, his rooms, the windows of which overlooked a fashionable square, bore evidence that he was surrounded by every luxury, that he was behind the young fellows of his set in nothing; while the velvet and silk cases for cigars or vestas that littered the table and mantelpiece, even the slippers and smoking-cap he wore, all the work of feminine fingers, seemed to hint of the many fair ones who were ready to console him.
Possessed of means ample enough to indulge in every whim and fancy, the mantelpiece and the tables about him were littered by the 'hundred and one' objects with which a young man like Jerry is apt to surround himself.
There were pipes of all kinds, whips, spurs, fencing-foils, revolvers, Derringer pistols, Bohemian glass, and gold-mounted bottles full of essences, statuettes pell-mell with soiled kid gloves, soda-water bottles, pink notes, faded bouquets, and French novels in their yellow covers.
The hangings and furniture were elegant and luxurious, on the walls were some crayons of very fair girls in rather décolleté dress, while on a marble console lay a gun-case, hunting-flasks, and many other things that were quite out of place in a drawing-room, and a Skye terrier and an enormous St. Bernard mastiff were gambolling together on a couple of great tiger-skins, the spoil of Trevor Chute's gun in some far Indian jungle.
The day was far advanced, yet Jerry had not long breakfasted, and lay, not fully dressed, in a luxurious dressing-robe, tasselled and braided, on the softest of sofas, enjoying the inevitable cigar, when Chute was ushered in, and he sprang up to receive him.
It may easily be supposed that Vane was most impatient to hear all the details of his friend's remarkable visit to the Collingwoods—remarkable, at least, under all circumstances—but he could not fail to listen with emotions of a somewhat mingled cast to the account of Ida's undoubted grief for his supplanter—an account which he certainly, with that love of self-torment peculiar to some men, wrung from Trevor Chute by dint of much industrious cross-questioning.
Could he blame her for it?