"Reform! Not 'alf. No, Faversham; I'm going to have the time of my life. I'm going to—but—I say, have you been here ever since you thought you came in for the old man's whack?"
"Yes; why?"
"You are a plaster saint. By gosh, you are! But you don't see me burying myself in this hole. Of course it's very grand, and all that sort of thing; but, no, thank you! Tony Riggleton is going the whole hog. What's the use of money else? Of course I shall use the place now and then. When I feel my feet a bit I shall get some music-hall people down here for week-ends, and all that sort of thing. But, as for living here like Bidlake says you have!—no, thank you. London's my mark! I tell you, I mean to paint the town red. And then, if I can get passports and that sort of tommy-rot, I'll do Paris and Madrid and Rome. You don't catch me burying myself like a hermit. Not a little bit. Now I've got the money, I mean to make it fly. I should be a fool if I didn't!"
The man was revealing himself by every word he spoke. His tastes and desires were manifested by his sensual lips, his small, dull eyes and throaty voice.
"Now, look here, Faversham," he went on, "I'll admit you are different from what I expected you to be. I was prepared for a bit of a shindy, and that's straight. But you've taken a knock-down blow in a sporting way, and I want to do the thing handsome. Of course I own this show just as I own all the rest of the old man's estates; but there's nothing mean about me. Live and let live is my motto. You can stay on here for a week or a fortnight if you like. I don't want to be hard. For that matter, although I'm going back to town to-night, I'll come back on Saturday and bring some bits of fluff from the Friv, and we'll make a week-end of it. I expect you've plenty of fizz in the house, haven't you?"
Dick was silent. The conversation, only a part of which I have recorded, so disgusted him that, although he was not a Puritan by nature, he felt almost polluted by the man's presence. It seemed like sacrilege, too, that this fellow should turn Wendover Park into a sty, as he evidently meant to do, and he found himself wondering whether, after all, he would not have been justified in accepting Romanoff's offer.
"Come, what do you say?" went on Riggleton. "I tell you——" and then he went on to give details of his programme. "There's no need for you to be so down in the mouth," he concluded. "There's plenty of money, as you know, and I'll not be hard on you."
The fellow was so coarsely patronising that Dick with difficulty kept himself from starting up and rushing from the room. At that moment, however, a servant entered and brought him a telegram, and a moment later his brain seemed on fire as he read:
"Riggleton's claim undoubtedly valid, but can still save situation if you accept my terms.—Romanoff, Hotel Cosmopolitan."
The words burnt into his brain; he felt as he had felt a few nights before when Romanoff had placed the paper before him to sign.