"Winny wants a good shaking for causing me this trouble," earnestly soliloquised Gerald in his dilemma, that fashionable drawl of his, kept for the world, not being discernible in private life. "Suppose she should turn restive and insist on coming here? Good heavens! a silly, untidy wife, and three ill-kept children!"
He walked to the sideboard, dashed out a glass of some cordial with his shaking band, and drank it, for the picture unnerved him.
"If I could get my book accepted by a publisher, and an advance made upon it," thought Gerald, resuming his place on the hearthrug, "I might get along. Some of those confounded publishers are so independent; they'll keep a manuscript for twelve months and never look at it."
A short while before this, Gerald had tried his hand at a play, which ill-natured managers had hitherto refused to accept. Gerald of course thought the refusal arose from nothing but prejudice, as some others do in similar cases. He went on with his soliloquy.
"I think I'll get some fellow to look over my novel and give me an opinion upon it--which I can repeat over to a publisher. Write it down if necessary. That's what I ought to have done by the drama: one is apt to be overlooked in these days without a special recommendation. Let's see? Who is there? Hamish Channing. Nobody so good. His capabilities are first-rate, and I'll make him read it at once. If Vincent Yorke----"
The soliloquy was brought to a standstill. Some commotion outside, as if a visitor had sought to enter and was stopped, caught Gerald's startled ear; but he knew his servant was trustworthy. The next moment the door opened, and the man spoke.
"Mr. Yorke, sir."
Who should walk in, with his usual disregard to the exigencies of ceremonious life, but Roland! Gerald stared in utter astonishment; and, when satisfied that it was in truth his brother, frowned awfully. Gerald in his high sphere might find it difficult to get along; but to have an elder brother who was so down in the world as to accept any common employment that offered, and put up with one room and a turn-up bedstead, and not scruple to own it, was a very different matter. And Gerald's intention was to wash his hands of Roland and his low surroundings, as entirely as Sir Richard Yorke could do.
Roland took a survey of things in general, and saluted his brother with off-hand cordiality. He knew his presence there was unacceptable, but in his good-nature would not appear to remember it. The handsome rooms, lacking no signs of wealth and comfort, the preparations for the entertainment that peeped out here and there, Gerald himself (as Roland would have expressed it) in full fig; all seemed to denote that life was sunny in this quarter, and Roland thought it was fine to be Gerald.
Gerald slowly extended one unwilling finger in response to Roland's offered grasp, and waited for him to explain his business, not inviting him to sit. It was not he that would allow Roland to think he might be a visitor there at will. Roland, however, put himself into a comfortable velvet lounging-chair of his own accord, as easily as he might have put himself into the old horsehair thing at Mrs. Jones's: and then proceeded to tell his errand.