It was all very well to talk about John Treverton’s liberality in settling the entire estate upon his wife. No doubt they had their private understanding duly set forth in black and white. The husband was to have his share of the fortune, and squander it how he pleased in London or Paris, or any part of the globe that seemed best to him.
‘There never was such confounded luck,’ exclaimed Edward, angry with Fate for having given this man so much and himself so little; ‘a fellow who three months ago was a beggar.’
In his idle reverie he found himself thinking what he would have done in John Treverton’s place, with, say, seven thousand a year at his disposal.
‘I would have chambers in the Albany,’ he thought, ‘furnished on the purest æsthetic principles. I’d keep a yacht at Cowes, and three or four hunters at Melton Mowbray. I’d spend February and March in the South, and April and May in Paris, where I should have a pied à terre in the Champs Elysées. Yes, one could lead a very pleasant life, as a bachelor, on seven thousand a year.’
Thus it will be seen that, although Mr. Clare had been seriously in love with Miss Malcolm, it was the loss of Jasper Treverton’s money which he felt most keenly, and it was the possession of that fortune for which he envied John Treverton.
One afternoon in February, one of those rare afternoons on which the winter sun glorifies the gloomy London streets, Mr. Clare called at the office of a comic periodical, the editor of which had accepted some of his lighter verses—society poems in the Praed and Locker manner. Two or three of his contributions had been published within the last month, and he came to the office with the pleasant consciousness that there was a cheque due to him.
‘I shall treat myself to a careful little dinner at the Restaurant du Pavillon,’ he told himself, ‘and a stall at the Prince of Wales’s to wind up the evening.’
He was not a man of vicious tastes. It was not the aqua fortis of vice, but the champagne of pleasure that he relished. He was too fond of himself, too careful of his own well-being, to fling away youth, health, and vigour in the sloughs and sewers of evil living. He had a refined selfishness that was calculated to keep him pure of low iniquities. He had no aspiration to scale mountain peaks, but he had sufficient regard for himself to eschew gutters.
The cheque was ready for him, but when he had signed the formal receipt the clerk told him the editor wanted to speak to him presently, if he would be kind enough to wait a few minutes.
‘There’s a gentleman with him, but I don’t suppose he’ll be long,’ said the clerk, ‘if you don’t mind waiting.’