The Pomp of Yesterday

by Joseph Hocking

'He was called Carbis before he was made a peer,' she replied. 'I suppose he was largely influenced to buy the Carbis estates by the fact that they bore his own name.'

'So that my friend is called Jack Carbis. There is so much topsy-turvyism in it that I can hardly realize it.'

'I think Paul Edgecumbe is a much nicer name,' she said suddenly. 'I hope—I hope——; but if—if——'

'Do you realize,' I said, 'what it will mean to him if he stands by what he said at that meeting the other night?'

'Yes, he will still be a poor man, I suppose. But what then? Isn't he a thousand times bigger man now than he was as the fashionable Captain Jack Carbis?'

'Perhaps you don't realize how he would wound his father,—-destroy all his hopes and ambitions.'

'Yes, that would be rather sad; but doesn't it depend what his father's hopes and ambitions are?'

'Lorna,' I said, 'are you and Springfield engaged?'

She did not answer me for a few seconds; then, looking at me steadily, she said, 'Why do you ask that?'

For the moment I almost determined to tell her what I believed I knew about Springfield, and about the things of which I had accused him. But I felt it would not be fair. If that time ever came, he must be there to answer my accusations.