And somehow the laugh sounded in Gerald's ear as a hard laugh--as one that boded no good results to the petition he meant to prefer before his departure--that Sir Vincent would accommodate him with a loan.
"He's close-fisted as a miser," was Gerald's mental comment. "His father all over again. Neither of them would part with a shilling save for self-gratification: and both could spend enough on that. I'll ask him for a hundred, point blank, before I leave; more, if I can feel my way to do it. Fortune is shamefully unequal in this life. There's Vin with his baronetcy, and his nice little place here and every comfort in it, and his town house, and his clear four thousand a-year, and no end of odds and ends of money besides, nest eggs of various shapes and sizes, and his future wife a seventy thousand pounder in her own right; and here's myself by his side, a better man than he any day, with not a coin of my own in the whole world, nor likely to drop into one by inheritance, and afraid to venture about London for fear of being nabbed! Curse the whole thing! He is shabby in trifles too. To give me a miserable two days' invitation. Two days! I'll remain twenty if I can."
"You don't eat, Gerald."
"I've made a famous breakfast, thank you. Do you spend Christmas down here, Vincent?"
"Not I. The day after tomorrow, when you leave me, I start for Paris."
"For Paris!" echoed Gerald, his mouth falling at the sudden failure of his pleasant scheme.
"Miss Trehern and her father are there. We shall remain for the jour de l'an, see the bonbon shops, and all that, and then come back again."
"And I hope the bonbon shops will choke him!" thought kindly Gerald.
Sir Vincent Yorke did not himself go in for keepers and dogs. There was little game on his land, and he was too effeminate to be much of a sportsman. He owned two guns, and that comprised the whole of his shooting paraphernalia. Breakfast over, he had his guns brought, and desired Gerald to take his choice.
Now the handling and understanding of guns did not rank amidst Gerald Yorke's accomplishments. Brought up in the cathedral town, only away from it on occasions at Dr. Yorke's living (and that happened to be in a town also), the young Yorkes were not made familiar with outdoor sports. Dr. Yorke had never followed them himself, and saw no necessity for training his sons to them. Even riding they were not very familiar with. Roland's letter had just informed Sir Vincent that he had nearly lost his life learning to ride the wild horses when up the country at Port Natal. Probably he had learnt also to understand something about guns: we may be very sure of one thing, that if he did not understand them, he would have voluntarily avowed it. Not so Gerald. Gerald, made up of artificialisms--for nothing seemed real about him but his ill-temper--touched the guns here, and fingered the guns there, and critically examined them everywhere, as if he were the greatest connoisseur alive, and had invented a breech-loader himself; and finally said he would take this one.