"I've been taking the chair at a family council." Loring looked round the table until he located his cousin Knightrider. "You ought to have been there, Victor. I don't want to wash my dirty linen in public, but Victor and I have a young cousin of twelve," he explained, "who's driven her father out of one continent and is on the point of driving him out of another. Crawleigh's a most dignified and worthy viceroy, and he's my own uncle, and I wouldn't say a word against him; but a fellow on his staff told me that he'd no more control over that child than over the man in the moon. She does whatever she pleases; Government House is turned upside down, and, if any one tries to coerce her, she just runs away. They've pursued her across Canada and they've pursued her across India. Now she's been sent home. The family council was convened to decide what was to be done with her. All the uncles and aunts and cousins met together; and I need hardly tell you that we got stuck with her. So, if I disappear suddenly, you'll know that my young cousin has been too much for me. If that isn't a good reason for being late, I don't know what is."
The president adroitly reserved judgement on a fine which he knew would never be paid, and the conversation reverted to the former grim discussion of the schools and vague plans for the future. Eric Lane felt out of sympathy with his surroundings, for he alone lacked money and influence and a ready-made niche. In ten years' time Deganway would be progressing gently and comfortably in the Diplomatic; Summertown and Pentyre, who were avowedly waiting for their fathers to die, would either still be waiting or would have already succeeded; Framlingham and Knightrider would be swallowed by the army, even Jack Waring would make a career for himself at the bar or elsewhere, because men with his backing were not allowed to fail. George Oakleigh would be in the House, probably an under-secretary; Loring, with his position and an income which fluctuated between a hundred thousand and a hundred and fifty thousand a year in accordance with the yield of certain mines, might be anywhere.
"What are you going to do, when you go down?" Eric asked O'Rane.
"I haven't the least idea. That's where the fun comes in," O'Rane answered buoyantly.
"Starting behind scratch?"
"Yes, that gives you an incentive. I wonder which of us will get to the top first."
"I wonder how one starts."
"Oh, you'll write. I've never had any doubt of that. That rot I was talking about averages wasn't all rot; we ought to turn out one genius, and you're going to do something very big. I declare to my soul I'm not ragging! I've seen the things you wrote for Cap and Bells, I've heard you talk and I can see you're on a different plane from the rest of us. I could probably beat you at pure scholarship, but you've a literary sense which I should never attain in a life-time. Do you care for a bet with me?"
Eric shook his head; but he felt the need of encouragement, and O'Rane was more serious than he usually condescended to be.
"I won't rob you, Raney."