Rupert Colchester now completely changed his manner. He had an expressive face, capable of almost any emotion. He had been sad, he had been jocular, in Annie’s presence during this short interview. Now he looked as if despair had seized him. His face changed color, it lengthened, and seemed to grow thinner and more haggard each moment.
“Then I cannot help it,” he said. “I suppose there is nothing further to say. You did your best, and you can do no more. I’ll be locked up; I have got into a scrape which I cannot explain to you. There is a fellow to whom I owe twenty pounds, and if I don’t get it I’ll be locked up. Think what you will feel when you have to go to the police court to give evidence against your brother.”
“But, oh, Rupert! Rupert! how can you go in for such bad ways? Oh, if only mother were alive!”
“Look here, Annie, none of that,” said Colchester, his voice becoming so stern that poor Annie nearly shook. “There,” he added, instantly changing his tone when he saw that she shivered and shrank from him. “I know you will help me if you can. You’ll just think it over, and let me know when next we meet. Where did you say you were going to stay—at No. 30? Who lives at No. 30 Newbolt Square?”
“People of the name of Acheson.”
“But who are they?”
“I don’t know, Rupert.”
“They live in a respectable house, and must be well off,” said Rupert. “I tell you what you’ll do, Annie. You get Mrs. Acheson to lend you twenty pounds. Now, see you do it, and be quick about it. She’ll lend it fast enough if you pull a long face, and make up a pitiable story, and I’ll meet you somehow or other to-morrow. Oh, yes, I’ll manage; I need not enter into particulars just now. You will tell me what you can do when we meet. That is all I require for the present. If you get me that twenty pounds I’ll let you alone—I promise I will—for a month or two.”
“But, Rupert, I don’t know anything whatever about Mrs. Acheson. I have never even seen her. Belle, her daughter, is a very odd, clever creature; but I am quite certain the Achesons are not rich.”
“Is this Belle one of the St. Wode’s undergraduates?”