“Next week,” answered Mr. Tremaine, who was a member of a jockey club—“next week. Well remembered, Gus.—I dine with the club to-day, and this devilish college concern had nearly driven the engagement out of my head. We are to have splendid arrangements on the race ground for the accommodation of the ladies—a fine stand erected, covered with an awning—wines, ices, patés, and I don’t know what all. Sarah,” turning to his wife, “I expect you to be there; mind, none of your vapors—and, Gus, do you bring Sophy Warren; she is a spirited creature, and would make a capital jockey herself.” And with this equivocal compliment to Miss Sophia Warren, the elder Tremaine left the house.
A tyrant at home, a capital fellow abroad, was Oscar Tremaine. Over his wife, a mild, gentle creature, he had exercised his authority until she had become a perfect cipher in her own house; and, unnatural as it may appear, he had encouraged their son to flout his mother’s opinions and scorn her advice. It was not strange, then, that Mrs. Tremaine had remained silent while her husband and son were speaking, but now, looking on the boy with tenderness, she said,
“I regret, my dear Gustavus, that you have not been more successful in your studies; how happy and how proud I should have been had you brought home some token of reward, some prize, on which I might have looked, and said, ‘My child has won it!’ ”
“Fudge! this is all nonsense, mother. What do you know about such matters? Father has more money than I can ever spend, and why should I be compelled to mope away my lifetime over the midnight oil, as they call it? I’d rather have a canter on Fancy in the afternoon, and then to the theatre or opera at night—that is the life for me;” and, humming a fashionable air, he turned from the room.
His mother gazed after him sorrowfully. “God help thee, my child!—alas! I fear the worst; God help thee!” she repeated in anguish, and, feeling how “sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” she bowed her head on her hands, and wept bitterly.
In less than a month after the commencement, Robert Dunning began the study of the law, and Gustavus Adolphus Tremaine was expelled from college.
——
CHAPTER II.
“Confound the fellow! I can’t take up a newspaper without having his name staring me in the face. Eminent lawyer, superior talents—superior—nonsense; I don’t believe a word of it. I always hated him;” and the speaker flung the offending paper on the floor, apparently unconscious that that very hatred made him blind to the merits of the man whom he so berated.
“What’s the matter now, Gus?—angry again? Was there ever such a man!” exclaimed an ultra-fashionable lady, who swept into the apartment “with all her bravery on.” “Come, I want you to go with me this morning, to select a new jewel-case. I saw a superb one the other day for a few hundred dollars; but it is no matter what it may cost.”