"As his mother," I said, "I cannot bear to see his abilities wasting... He needs a good appointment; and I don't even know where to begin looking for one. But you are not to bother your head about my affairs. Tell me, dear child, what is troubling you."
So far as I could make out—she spoke very simply and nicely—, she was afraid of getting into a false position with Will if she went about with him so much. Affichée... At this ball—I had handed on her mother's request that we should be most careful whom we introduced—Will had very unselfishly played cavalier the whole evening; and, as she put on her cloak, some girl had asked one of those silly, impertinent questions which do such incalculable harm...
"My dear, you must not distress yourself," I said. "You know the old saying—'There is safety in numbers'—; for the future..."
It was quite evident to me now that Will did not intend to marry her. He was furious when I even hinted at such a thing... And I will tell you that I was glad. She would not have made a suitable wife, and no amount of money will overcome those little hardly perceptible angularities of breeding which make the difference between a happy and an unhappy marriage. While there was any possibility of such a thing, I had to hold my peace...
That night I improvized quite a big party for her. Will was not able to be present, as he had a long-standing engagement to dine with a man at his club. We had encroached on his time so much that for the first week of the new régime I hardly saw him; he was simply making up arrears with his other friends. I was lucky enough to get hold of Culroyd, however; and, though he was hardly a substitute for Will—I hate to say this about my own nephew, but I always feel that my poor sister-in-law Ruth imported a bucolic strain into the blood—, he did his best and made quite an impression on Hilda...
Indeed, I think you may say that it all started from that night... I never imagined that Culroyd would fall a victim. Hilda is undeniably pretty and, of course, she is an heiress; but, beyond that, she brings nothing. Culroyd is heir to an earldom, and one would have thought he might have done rather better... It's not as if he needed money. When my brother Brackenbury sacrificed himself for the good of the family, he did it on such a scale that there was no need for any one to follow in his footsteps for several generations. Culroyd and Phyllida, for their age, are very well provided for; and, of course, there is a great deal more to come. No! I could not help feeling that he must have inherited a taste for money with his mother's blood. It is extraordinary how rich people seem to attract rich people. The Jews, for example... And vice versa. I am sometimes so much afraid that Will may throw himself away on some one whom he'll simply have to support all his life. And, short of selling the roof from over my head and the clothes from off my back, I have done all that I can do... I have lost the thread....
Ah, yes! Culroyd! I fancy I told you that for a few months my niece Phyllida chose to fancy that she had a grievance against me. A young war-soldier tried to trap her into marriage, glamoured no doubt by the title and a fair presumption of money. If I could feel that I had done anything to check a most imprudent alliance, I should be proud of the achievement; I know, however, that I have no right to throw myself bouquets. The young man did not acquit himself well under cross-examination, and you may judge of this "life's passion", as poor Phyllida would like to consider it, by the fact that from that day to this she has never heard from him. The entire family held me responsible! Hitherto, I had been on the best possible terms with my relations—except, of course, my brother-in-law Spenworth, and that is an honour which I would sooner be spared—; now I was the universal scapegoat. Without yielding in any way to cynicism, let me say that I was amused, after my Lord Culroyd's first meeting with Hilda Surdan, to find that he did me the honour to make my house his own.
"Let me know some night when he and Hilda are not dining here," said Will, when I reproached him for always now deserting us for his club.
For some reason there has never been any great cordiality between the cousins. Perhaps Culroyd is a little bit consequential in the way that he insists on his own dignity—a sort of instinctive attitude of self-preservation, as though he realized that he owes everything to an accident of sex and that, if Brackenbury and I changed places, he would have to change places with Will... And Will may very well have been galled by the light-hearted way in which Hilda could not get on without him one day and got on quite comfortably without him the next. No one likes ingratitude, though it was on the tip of my tongue to say that he need not grudge his leavings to poor Culroyd.
It was not so easy to find a free night, as the young people seemed to have made arrangements for days ahead, and in the end I told Will to leave them to their whispering and silliness and talk to me.