People passing glanced at him in astonishment, wondering why he smiled.
He wandered into the Park at Marble Arch, for it was a beautiful afternoon and the sight of the trees in full foliage always appealed to his artistic eye. Scores of cars containing people obviously of leisure kept rolling past, and as he watched them his imagination wove romances round some of the occupants of the cars. Among the faces many were familiar to him; he recognized two of his clients.
A self-satisfied smile parted his lips.
“Who would think, to look at them,” he said aloud, “they would not have a shilling in the world if I chose to foreclose? Yet there are folk who no doubt envy them, and tradesmen who would not hesitate to give them credit—big credit—unlimited credit. Fools, oh, what fools there are! Was it not Thackeray who wrote that ‘long customs, a manly appearance, faultless boots and clothes and a happy fierceness of manner’ would often help a man as much as a great balance at his bankers?”
“How true!” he went on murmuring to himself. “Here in London a man or a woman need only dress in the height of fashion in clothes they never pay for, and hire a big car and pretend they own it, and be seen in good society, and the world bows down before them and craves to do them homage. Look at Stapleton and that young ass Archie La Planta, and a dozen others—to say nothing of Jessica.”
“Ah, Jessica!”
CHAPTER XII.
YOOTHA’S PRESENTIMENT.
Meanwhile Yootha Hagerston was secretly becoming more and more enamored of Captain Preston. It was the first time in her life she had ever really cared for any man; until now she had followed the fashion prevalent among many women of pretending to consider love and deep affection “all nonsense” and the hall-mark of a weak intelligence. She had come to know his movements and had discovered some of his haunts, with the result that she rarely missed an opportunity of meeting him “by chance.”
And, though he would not have admitted it, even to himself, Preston had for some weeks past been singularly attracted by Yootha. He had liked her that day he had met her for the first time, at lunch at the Ritz and afterwards at Jessica’s musical At Home, though the woman who had most interested him then had been Yootha’s friend, Cora Hartsilver. But now it was different. There was something about the girl, apart from her looks, which appealed to him. What it was he could not have explained. It might have been her sympathetic nature, or her personality, or her temperament; in any case he felt strangely drawn towards her every time they met.