"Frederick, I could not have believed that any human being, gifted with reasoning faculties, had been guilty of such extravagance!"
"The money seems to have melted. I had no idea it was diminishing so fast."
"It has been recklessness, not simple extravagance."
Frederick St. John was seated at the table opposite his brother, one elbow leaning on it, the hand of the other playing with the seal attached to his watch-chain. The attitude, the voice, the bearing altogether, seemed to display a carelessness; and it vexed Mr. St. John.
"How has the money gone? Is it of any use my asking?"
"It would be of no use if I could tell you," was the reply. "I declare, on my honour, that I do not know. As I say, the money seems to have melted. I was extravagant; I acknowledge that; I spent it thoughtlessly, heedlessly; and when once the downward path in money-spending is entered upon, a man finds himself going along with a run, and can't pull up."
"Can't?" reproachingly echoed Mr. St. John.
"Well, Isaac, it is more difficult than you could imagine. I have found it so. And the worst is, you glide on so easily that you don't see its danger; otherwise one might sit down halfway and count the cost. I wish you would not look so grieved."
"It is not the wilful waste of money that is grieving me," returned Isaac; "it is the--the thought that you should have suffered yourself to fall into these evil ways."
Frederick St. John raised his earnest dark-blue eyes to his brother. "Believe me, Isaac, a man can get out of money without running into absolute evil. I can with truth say that it has been my case. A very great portion of mine has gone in what you and my mother have been wont to call my hobby: buying pictures and running about after them. Wherever there was a gallery of paintings to be seen, I went after it, though it might be at the opposite end of Europe. I bought largely, thoughtlessly; never considering how I was to pay. I assisted a great many struggling artists, both English and foreign, and set them on their legs. I always travelled--and you know how very much I have travelled--as if I were a wealthy man; and that is costly. But of evil, in your acceptation of the word, those vices that constitute it, I have not been guilty. Of extravagance, even, I have not been so guilty as you may think."