“I would have no buts; abolish the whole of them!” exclaimed Lancaster—“even the rich uncles and the pretty cousins. Take a leaf from the book of animals, and let each human creature stand on his own basis and do the best he can with it. When I found a republic there shall be no genealogies and no families. So long as they exist we shall never know what we are really made of.”
“The Bendibow Bank is, however, a highly prosperous and trustworthy concern?”
“You must get my uncle to sing its eulogies for you; I know nothing. But I am of opinion that Miss Marion Lockhart has an intuition for detecting humbugs. That Charles Grantley affair ... is none of mine. But Sir Francis had two sides to him in his youth, and there may be some passages in his account book that he would deprecate publishing.”
“Ah! I had contemplated calling at the bank to-morrow—”
“Oh, don’t interpret my prejudices and antipathies as counsel!” interrupted the young man, throwing back his hair from his forehead and smiling. “The bank is as sound as the Great Pyramid, I doubt not. Bless your heart, everybody banks there! If they ruin you, you will have all the best folks in London for your fellow-bankrupts. I’m afraid I’ve bored you shamefully, but a little brandy goes a long way with me.”
“You have said nothing that has failed to interest me,” returned the old gentleman courteously. “As you may conceive, I find myself somewhat lonely. In twenty years such friends as may have been mine in England have disappeared, and the circumstances in which those years have been passed—in India—have precluded my finding others. At your age one can afford to wish to abolish kindred, but by the time you have lived thirty years longer you may understand how I would rather wish to create new kindred in the place of those whom fate has abolished for me. Human beings need one another, Mr. Lancaster. God has no other way of ministering to us than through our fellow-creatures. I esteem myself fortunate, therefore, in having met with yourself and with these kind ladies. You cannot know me as the vanished friends I spoke of would know me—my origin, my early life, my ambitions, my failures; but you can know me as an inoffensive old gentleman whose ambition for the rest of his life is to make himself agreeable to somebody. If you and I had been young men together in London thirty years ago, doubtless we might have found ourselves in accord on many points of speculation and philosophy wherein now I should be disposed to challenge some of your conclusions. But intellectual agreement is not the highest basis of friendship between man and man. I, at all events, have been led by experience to value men for what I think they are, more than for what they think they are. I will make no other comment than that on the brilliant and ingenious ... confidence, shall I call it?—with which you have honored me to-night. If it should ever occur to you to present me to your friend Yorke, under his true name, I am sure that I should enjoy his acquaintance, and that I should recognize him from your description. Perhaps he might be able to reinforce your invention as to the Marquise Perdita. Well, well, I am detaining you. Good-night!”
Lancaster colored a little at the latter sentence and a cloud passed over his face, but in another moment his eyebrows lifted with a smile. “God knows what induces me to masquerade so,” he said. “I care to conceal myself only from those who can see nothing on any terms—which is certainly not your category. Let Yorke and Lancaster be one in future. As for Perdita ... there goes twelve o’clock! I was startled at hearing her name to-night; she has just returned to London in the capacity of widow. It only needed that ... however, what is that to you? Good-night.”
“Perdita, a pretty name, is it not?” said Mr. Grant musingly, as he followed the other to the door. “It makes one hope there may be some leaven of Shakspeare’s Perdita in her, after all.”
“ ’Tis an ominous name, though—too ominous in this case for even Shakspeare to save it, I’m afraid,” returned Lancaster. With that he went out and left Mr. Grant to his meditations.