"I want to speak to him! I think I'll just go and see if I can find him in his rooms."
CHAPTER III
Mr. Frank Osborne scarcely seemed to be enjoying his own society when Mr. Philpotts had left him. As all the world knows, he is a man of sentiment--of the true sort, not the false. He has had one great passion in his life--Geoffrey Fleming. They began when they were at Chilchester together, when he was big, and Fleming still little. He did his work for him, fought for him, took his scrapes upon himself, believed in him, almost worshipped him. The thing continued when Fleming joined him at the University. Perhaps the fact that they both were orphans had something to do with it; neither of them had kith nor kin. The odd part of the business was that Osborne was not only a clear-sighted, he was a hard-headed man. It could not have been long before it dawned upon him that the man with whom he fraternised was a naturally bad egg. Fleming was continually coming to grief; he would have come to eternal grief at the very commencement of his career if it had not been for Osborne at his back. He went through his own money; he went through as much of his friend's as his friend would let him. Then came the final smash. There were features about the thing which made it clear, even to Frank Osborne, that in England, at least, for some years to come, Geoffrey Fleming had run his course right out. He strained all his already strained resources in his efforts to extricate the man from the mire. When he found that he himself was insufficient, going to his old schoolfellows, he begged them, for his sake--if not for Fleming's--to join hands with him in giving the scapegrace still another start. As a result, interest was made for him in a Ceylon plantation, and Mr. Fleming with, under the circumstances, well-lined pockets, was despatched over the seas to turn over a new leaf in a sunnier clime.
How he had vowed that he would turn over a new leaf, actually with tears upon his knees! And this was how he had done it; before he had reached his journey's end, he had gambled away the money which was not his, and was in debt besides. Frank Osborne must have been fashioned something like the dog which loves its master the more, the more he ill-treats it. His heart went out in pity to the scamp across the seas. He had no delusions; he had long been conscious that the man was hopeless. And yet he knew very well that if he could have had his way he would have gone at once to comfort him. Poor Geoff! What an all-round mess he seemed to have made of things--and he had had the ball at his feet when he started--poor, dear old Geoff! With his knuckles Mr. Osborne wiped a suspicious moisture from his eyes. Geoff was all right--if he had only been able to prevent money from slipping from between his fingers, had been gifted with a sense of meum et tuum--not a nicer fellow in the world!
Mr. Osborne sat trying to persuade himself into the belief that the man was an injured paragon though he knew very well that he was an irredeemable scamp. He endeavoured to see only his good qualities, which was a task of exceeding difficulty--they were hidden in such a cloud of blackness. At least, whatever might be said against Geoff--and Mr. Osborne admitted to himself that there might be something--it was certain that Geoff loved him almost as much as he loved Geoff. Mr. Osborne declared to himself--putting pressure on himself to prevent his making a single mental reservation--that Geoff Fleming, in spite of all his faults, was the only person in the wide, wide world who did love him. And he was a stranger in a strange land, and in trouble again--poor dear old Geoff! Once more Mr. Osborne's knuckles went up to wipe that suspicious moisture from his eyes.
While he was engaged in doing this, a hand was laid gently on his shoulder from behind. It was, perhaps, because he was unwilling to be detected in such an act that, at the touch, he rose from his seat with a start--which became so to speak, a start of petrified amazement when he perceived who it was who had touched him. It was the man of whom he had been thinking, the friend of his boyhood--Geoffrey Fleming.
"Geoff!" he gasped. "Dear old Geoff!" He paused, seemingly in doubt whether to laugh or cry. "I thought you were in Ceylon!"
Mr. Fleming did exactly what he had done when he came so unexpectedly on Mr. Philpotts--he moved to the chair at Mr. Osborne's side. His manner was in contrast to his friend's--it was emphatically not emotional.
"I've just dropped in," he drawled.
"My dear old boy!" Mr. Osborne, as he surveyed his friend, seemed to become more and more torn by conflicting emotions. "Of course I'm very glad to see you Geoff, but how did you get in here? I thought that they had taken your name off the books of the club." He was perfectly aware that Mr. Fleming's name had been taken off the books of the club, and in a manner the reverse of complimentary. Mr. Fleming offered no remark. He sat looking down at the carpet stroking his moustache. Mr. Osborne went stammeringly on--