“Condescend to what?” inquired Lucio—“Condescend to take two thousand guineas a year? Good heavens man, there are no end of lords and ladies who will readily agree to perform such an act of condescension. ‘Blue’ blood is getting thin and poor, and only money can thicken it. Diana Chesney is worth over a million dollars and if Lady Elton were to die conveniently soon, I should not be surprised to see that ‘little American’ step triumphantly into her vacant place.”
“What a state of topsy-turveydom!” I said, half angrily.
“Geoffrey, my friend, you are really amazingly inconsistent! Is there a more flagrant example of topsy-turveydom than yourself for instance? Six weeks ago, what were you? A mere scribbler, with flutterings of the wings of genius in your soul, but many uncertainties as to whether those wings would ever be strong enough to lift you out of the rut of obscurity [p 94] in which you floundered, struggling and grumbling at adverse fate. Now, as millionaire, you think contemptuously of an Earl, because he ventures quite legitimately to add a little to his income by boarding an American heiress and launching her into society where she would never get without him. And you aspire, or probably mean to aspire to the hand of the Earl’s daughter, as if you yourself were a descendant of kings. Nothing can be more topsy-turvey than your condition!”
“My father was a gentleman,” I said, with a touch of hauteur, “and a descendant of gentlemen. We were never common folk,—our family was one of the most highly esteemed in the counties.”
Lucio smiled.
“I do not doubt it, my dear fellow,—I do not in the least doubt it. But a simple ‘gentleman’ is a long way below—or above—an Earl. Have it which side you choose!—because it really doesn’t matter nowadays. We have come to a period of history when rank and lineage count as nothing at all, owing to the profoundly obtuse stupidity of those who happen to possess it. So it chances, that as no resistance is made, brewers are created peers of the realm, and ordinary tradesmen are knighted, and the very old families are so poor that they have to sell their estates and jewels to the highest bidder, who is frequently a vulgar ‘railway-king’ or the introducer of some new manure. You occupy a better position than such, since you inherit your money with the farther satisfaction that you do not know how it was made.”
“True!” I answered meditatively,—then, with a sudden flash of recollection I added—“By the way I never told you that my deceased relative imagined that he had sold his soul to the devil, and that this vast fortune of his was the material result!”
Lucio burst into a violent fit of laughter.
“No! Not possible!” he exclaimed derisively—“What an idea! I suppose he had a screw loose somewhere! Imagine any sane man believing in a devil! Ha, ha, ha! And in [p 95] these advanced days too! Well, well! The folly of human imaginations will never end! Here we are!”—and he sprang lightly out as the brougham stopped at the Grand Hotel—“I will say good-night to you, Tempest. I’ve promised to go and have a gamble.”
“A gamble? Where?”