“At what period did . . . Gilbert . . . begin?”
“I cannot tell you exactly. Gilbert—I prefer to call him that and not to pronounce his real name—Gilbert, as a child, was what he is to-day: lovable, liked by everybody, charming, but lazy and unruly. When he was fifteen, we put him to a boarding-school in one of the suburbs, with the deliberate object of not having him too much at home. After two years’ time he was expelled from school and sent back to us.”
“Why?”
“Because of his conduct. The masters had discovered that he used to slip out at night and also that he would disappear for weeks at a time, while pretending to be at home with us.”
“What used he to do?”
“Amuse himself backing horses, spending his time in cafés and public dancing-rooms.”
“Then he had money?”
“Yes.”
“Who gave it him?”
“His evil genius, the man who, secretly, unknown to his parents, enticed him away from school, the man who led him astray, who corrupted him, who took him from us, who taught him to lie, to waste his substance and to steal.”