"Is it though?" his father commented. "Good fellow at heart," he added to himself. "Displays very proper feeling. Always was a good-hearted fellow."
"I can only tell you I've been awfully wretched about it for the last three months."
"Have you though?" said Lord Fallowfeild, with sympathy.
"I got just about as low as I well could. I felt I was nothing but a nuisance and encumbrance. It was beastly to think of fleecing the girls, don't you know. I came precious near cutting my throat—only that seemed rather a dirty way of getting out of it all."
"So it is—poor boy—quite right. Nasty mean way of shirking your responsibilities. Quite agree with you. I have never had any opinion of a man who cut his throat. Never mention such a thing, Shotover." He blew his nose resonantly.—"Never talk of such a thing," he repeated. "And—poor boy—I—I'll pay your debts. Only I tell you this really is the last time. There must be no misunderstanding about that. You must reform, Shotover, if it's only on account of your sisters. I don't want to take an unfair advantage of you in alluding to your sisters. Only you must understand clearly this is the last time. You see it's becoming too frequent. I don't want to press the case unduly against you, but you recollect—I'm sure you do—I paid your debts in fifty-eight, and again in sixty-two, or sixty-three, was it? Yes, it must have been sixty-three, because that was the year my poor friend Tom Henniker died. Good fellow Henniker—I missed Henniker. And they wanted me to take over the hounds. Nice fellow in the hunting-field, Henniker. Never saw him lose his temper but once, and that was when Image rode over the hounds on the edge of Talepenny Wood."
"Rather coarse sort of brute, Image," put in Lord Shotover.
"And Henniker had such an excellent manner with the farmers, genial and cheery, very cheery at times and yet without any loss of dignity. Great test of a man's breeding that, being cheery without loss of dignity. Now my poor friend, Henniker—oh! ah! yes, where was I though? Your debts now, Shotover. Yes, it must have been sixty-three, because they all wanted me to succeed him as master, and I had to tell them I could not afford it, so it must have been just after I cleared you."
He looked at his erring son with the most engaging air of appeal and remonstrance.
"Really it won't do, Shotover," he repeated. "You must reform. It's becoming too frequent. You'd better travel for a time. That's the proper thing for a man in your position to do when he's in low water. Not scuttle, of course. I wouldn't on any account have you scuttle. But, three weeks or a month hence when things are getting into shape, just travel for a time. I'll arrange it all for you. Only never talk of cutting your throat again. And you quite understand this is positively the last time. I am very much in earnest, my dear boy, nothing will move me. This settlement is final. And we'll just run up quietly to town to-morrow and have a talk with my lawyers, Fox and Goteway. Very civil and accommodating fellow, Goteway—he may be able to make some suggestions. Very nice, confidential-mannered person, Goteway. Knows how to hold his tongue and doesn't ask unnecessary questions—useful man, Goteway——"
Which things coming to the knowledge of Lady Louisa Barking moved her at once to wrath, and to deepened conviction that the moment for decisive action had arrived. It appeared to her that her father had put himself out of court. His weakness regarding his eldest son had practically delivered him into her hand. She congratulated herself upon the good which is thus beneficently permitted to spring out of evil. Yet while recognising that a just Providence sometimes, at all events, overrules human folly to the production of happy results, she was by no means disposed to spare the mortal whose individual foolishness had given the divine wisdom its opportunity. Therefore when, some few days later, Lord Fallowfeild called on her, after a third or fourth interview with Messrs. Fox and Goteway—beaming, expansive, from the sense of a merciful action accomplished—she received him in a distinctly repressive manner. The great, white and gold drawing-rooms in Albert Gate were not more frigid or unbending than the bearing of their mistress as she suffered her father's embrace. And that amiable nobleman, notwithstanding his large frame and exalted social position, felt himself shiver inwardly in the presence of his daughter, even as he could remember shivering when, as a small schoolboy, he had been summoned to the dread presence of the headmaster.