"There is something on your mind, perhaps."
"Night and day," said Colonel Tempest, wishing John would not watch him so closely. "I have not a moment's peace."
"You are in money difficulties," said John, justly divining the only cause that was likely to permanently interfere with his uncle's peace of mind.
"Yes," said Colonel Tempest. "I am at my wit's end, and that is the truth."
John's lips tightened a little, and he remained silent. That was why his uncle had come to see him then. His pride revolted against Colonel Tempest's want of it, against Archie's sponge-like absorption of all John would give him. He felt (and it was no idle fancy of a wealthy man) that he would have died rather than have asked for a shilling. A Tempest should be above begging, should scorn to run in debt. John's pride of race resented what was in his eyes a want of honour in the other members of the family of which he was the head.
Colonel Tempest was in a position of too much delicacy not to feel hurt by John's silence. He reflected on the invariable meanness of rich men, with a momentary retrospect of how open-handed he had been himself in his youth, and even after his crippling marriage.
"I do not know the circumstances," said John at last.
"No one does," said Colonel Tempest.
"Neither have I any wish to know them," said John, with a touch of haughtiness, "except in so far as I can be of use to you."
Colonel Tempest found himself very disagreeably placed. He would have instantly lost his temper if he had been a few weeks younger, but the memory of those last few weeks recurred to him like a douche of cold water. Self-interest would not allow him to throw away his last chance of escaping out of Swayne's clutches, and he had a secret conviction that no storming or passion of any kind would have any effect on that prostrate figure, with the stern feeble voice, and intense fixity of gaze.