I could not venture more."

"And she will accept Frank?"

"Had he offered to-day she would have accepted him!"

"It may be a great help to your fortunes, mon cher, if Frank Hazeldean marry this lady without his father's consent. Perhaps he may be disinherited. You are next of kin.

"How do you know that?" asked Randal, sullenly.

"It is my business to know all about the chances and connections of any one with whom I do money matters. I do money matters with young Mr.

Hazeldean; so I know that the Hazeldean property is not entailed; and, as the squire's half-brother has no Hazeldean blood in him, you have excellent expectations."

"Did Frank tell you I was next of kin?"

"I rather think so; but I am sure you did."

"I--when?"

"When you told me how important it was to you that Frank should marry Madame di Negra. Peste! mon cher, do you think I am a blockhead?"

"Well, Baron, Frank is of age, and can marry to please himself. You implied to me that you could help him in this."

"I will try. See that he call at Madame di Negra's tomorrow, at two precisely."

"I would rather keep clear of all apparent interference in this matter.

Will you not arrange that he call on her? And do not forget to entangle him in a post-obit."

"Leave it to me. Any more wine? No?--then let us go to the count's."

CHAPTER XXIV.

The next morning Frank Hazeldean was sitting over his solitary breakfast-table. It was long past noon. The young man had risen early, it is true, to attend his military duties, but he had contracted the habit of breakfasting late. One's appet.i.te does not come early when one lives in London, and never goes to bed before daybreak.

There was nothing very luxurious or effeminate about Frank's rooms, though they were in a very dear street, and he paid a monstrous high price for them. Still, to a practised eye, they betrayed an inmate who can get through his money, and make very little show for it. The walls were covered with coloured prints of racers and steeple-chases, interspersed with the portraits of opera-dancers, all smirk and caper.

Then there was a semi-circular recess covered with red cloth, and fitted up for smoking, as you might perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish pipes in cherry-stick and jessamine, with amber mouthpieces; while a great serpent hookah, from which Frank could no more have smoked than he could have smoked out of the head of a boa constrictor, coiled itself up on the floor; over the chimney-piece was a collection of Moorish arms.

What use on earth ataghan and scimitar and damasquined pistols, that would not carry straight three yards, could be to an officer in his Majesty's Guards is more than I can conjecture, or even Frank satisfactorily explain. I have strong suspicions that this valuable a.r.s.enal pa.s.sed to Frank in part payment of a bill to be discounted. At all events, if so, it was an improvement on the bear that he had sold to the hair-dresser. No books were to be seen anywhere, except a Court Guide, a Racing Calendar, an Army List, the Sporting Magazine complete (whole bound in scarlet morocco, at about a guinea per volume), and a small book, as small as an Elzevir, on the chimney-piece, by the side of a cigar-case. That small book had cost Frank more than all the rest put together; it was his Own Book, his book par excellence; book made up by himself,--his BETTING Book!

On a centre table were deposited Frank's well-brushed hat; a satinwood box, containing kid-gloves, of various delicate tints, from primrose to lilac; a tray full of cards and three-cornered notes; an opera-gla.s.s, and an ivory subscription-ticket to his opera stall.

In one corner was an ingenious receptacle for canes, sticks, and whips--I should not like, in these bad times, to have paid the bill for them; and mounting guard by that receptacle, stood a pair of boots as bright as Baron Levy's,--"the force of brightness could no further go." Frank was in his dressing-gown,--very good taste, quite Oriental, guaranteed to be true Indian cashmere, and charged as such. Nothing could be more neat, though perfectly simple, than the appurtenances of his breakfast-table: silver tea-pot, ewer, and basin, all fitting into his dressing-box--for the which may Storr and Mortimer be now praised, and some day paid! Frank looked very handsome, rather tired, and exceedingly bored. He had been trying to read the "Morning Post," but the effort had proved too much for him.

Poor dear Frank Hazeldean!--true type of many a poor dear fellow who has long since gone to the dogs. And if, in this road to ruin, there had been the least thing to do the traveller any credit by the way! One feels a respect for the ruin of a man like Audley Egerton. He is ruined en roi! From the wrecks of his fortune he can look down and see stately monuments built from the stones of that dismantled edifice. In every inst.i.tution which attests the humanity of England was a record of the princely bounty of the public man. In those objects of party, for which the proverbial sinews of war are necessary, in those rewards for service, which private liberality can confer, the hand of Egerton had been opened as with the heart of a king. Many a rising member of parliament, in those days when talent was brought forward through the aid of wealth and rank, owed his career to the seat which Audley Egerton's large subscription had secured to him; many an obscure supporter in letters and the Press looked back to the day when he had been freed from the jail by the grat.i.tude of the patron. The city he represented was embellished at his cost; through the shire that held his mortgaged lands, which he had rarely ever visited, his gold had flowed as a Pactolus; all that could animate its public spirit, or increase its civilization, claimed kindred with his munificence, and never had a claim disallowed. Even in his grand, careless household, with its large retinue and superb hospitality, there was something worthy of a representative of that time-honoured portion of our true n.o.bility, the unt.i.tled gentlemen of the land. The Great Commoner had, indeed, "something to show" for the money he had disdained and squandered. But for Frank Hazeldean's mode of getting rid of the dross, when gone, what would be left to tell the tale? Paltry prints in a bachelor's lodging; a collection of canes and cherry-sticks; half-a-dozen letters in ill-spelt French from a figurante; some long-legged horses, fit for nothing but to lose a race; that d.a.m.nable Betting-Book; and--sic transit gloria--down sweeps some hawk of a Levy, on the wings of an I O U, and not a feather is left of the pigeon!

Yet Frank Hazeldean has stuff in him,--a good heart, and strict honour.

Fool though he seem, there is sound sterling sense in some odd corner of his brains, if one could but get at it. All he wants to save him from perdition is, to do what he has never yet done,--namely, pause and think. But, to be sure, that same operation of thinking is not so easy for folks unaccustomed to it, as people who think--think!

"I can't bear this," said Frank, suddenly, and springing to his feet.

"This woman, I cannot get her out of my head. I ought to go down to the governor's; but then if he gets into a pa.s.sion, and refuses his consent, where am I? And he will, too, I fear. I wish I could make out what Randal advises. He seems to recommend that I should marry Beatrice at once, and trust to my mother's influence to make all right afterwards.

But when I ask, 'Is that your advice?' he backs out of it. Well, I suppose he is right there. I can understand that he is unwilling, good fellow, to recommend anything that my father would disapprove. But still--"

Here Frank stopped in his soliloquy, and did make his first desperate effort to--think!

Now, O dear reader, I a.s.sume, of course, that thou art one of the cla.s.s to which thought is familiar; and, perhaps, thou hast smiled in disdain or incredulity at that remark on the difficulty of thinking which preceded Frank Hazeldean's discourse to himself. But art thou quite sure that when thou hast tried to think thou hast always succeeded? Hast thou not often been duped by that pale visionary simulacrum of thought which goes by the name of revery? Honest old Montaigne confessed that he did not understand that process of sitting down to think, on which some folks express themselves so glibly. He could not think unless he had a pen in his hand and a sheet of paper before him; and so, by a manual operation, seized and connected the links of ratiocination. Very often has it happened to myself when I have said to Thought peremptorily, "Bestir thyself: a serious matter is before thee, ponder it well, think of it," that that same thought has behaved in the most refractory, rebellious manner conceivable; and instead of concentrating its rays into a single stream of light, has broken into all the desultory tints of the rainbow, colouring senseless clouds, and running off into the seventh heaven, so that after sitting a good hour by the clock, with brows as knit as if I was intent on squaring the circle, I have suddenly discovered that I might as well have gone comfortably to sleep--I have been doing nothing but dream,--and the most nonsensical dreams! So when Frank Hazeldean, as he stopped at that meditative "But still "--and leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, and resting his face on his hand, felt himself at the grave crisis of life, and fancied he was going "to think on it," there only rose before him a succession of shadowy pictures,--Randal Leslie, with an unsatisfactory countenance, from which he could extract nothing; the squire, looking as black as thunder in his study at Hazeldean; his mother trying to plead for him, and getting herself properly scolded for her pains; and then off went that Will-o'-the-wisp which pretended to call itself Thought, and began playing round the pale, charming face of Beatrice di Negra, in the drawing-room at Curzon Street, and repeating, with small elfin voice, Randal Leslie's a.s.surance of the preceding day, "as to her affection for you, Frank, there is no doubt of that; she only begins to think you are trifling with her." And then there was a rapturous vision of a young gentleman on his knee, and the fair pale face bathed in blushes, and a clergyman standing by the altar, and a carriage-and-four with white favours at the church-door; and of a honeymoon, which would have astonished as to honey all the bees of Hymettus. And in the midst of these phantasmagoria, which composed what Frank fondly styled, "making up his mind," there came a single man's elegant rat-tat-tat at the street door.

"One never has a moment for thinking," cried Frank, and he called out to his valet, "Not at home."

But it was too late. Lord Spendquick was in the hall, and presently within the room. How d'ye do's were exchanged and hands shaken.

LORD SPENDQUICK.--"I have a note for you, Hazeldean."

FRANK (lazily).--"From whom?"

LORD SPENDQUICK.--"Levy. Just come from him,--never saw him in such a fidget. He was going into the city,--I suppose to see X. Y. Dashed off this note for you, and would have sent it by a servant, but I said I would bring it."

FRANK (looking fearfully at the note).--"I hope he does not want his money yet. 'Private and confidential,'--that looks bad."

SPENDQUICK.--"Devilish bad, indeed."

Frank opens the note, and reads, half aloud, "Dear Hazeldean--"

SPENDQUICK (interrupting.)--"Good sign! He always Spendquicks me when he lends me money; and 't is 'My dear Lord' when he wants it back. Capital sign!"

Frank reads on, but to himself, and with a changing countenance,

DEAR HAZELDEAN,--I am very sorry to tell you that, in consequence of the sudden failure of a house at Paris with which I Had large dealings, I am pressed on a sudden for all the ready money I can get. I don't want to inconvenience you, but do try to see if you can take up those bills of yours which I hold, and which, as you know, have been due some little time. I had hit on a way of arranging your affairs; but when I hinted at it, you seemed to dislike the idea; and Leslie has since told me that you have strong objections to giving any security on your prospective property. So no more of that, my dear fellow. I am called out in haste to try what I can do for a very charming client of mine, who is in great pecuniary distress, though she has for her brother a foreign count, as rich as a Croesus. There is an execution in her house. I am going down to the tradesman who put it in, but have no hope of softening him; and I fear there will be others before the day is out. Another reason for wanting money, if you can help me, mon cher! An execution in the house of one of the most brilliant women in London,--an execution in Curzon Street, May Fair! It will be all over the town if I can't stop it.

Yours in haste, LEVY.

P.S.--Don't let what I have said vex you too much. I should not trouble you if Spendquick and Borrowell would pay me something.

Perhaps you can get them to do so.

Struck by Frank's silence and paleness, Lord Spendquick here, in the kindest way possible, laid his hand on the young Guardsman's shoulder.

and looked over the note with that freedom which gentlemen in difficulties take with each other's private and confidential correspondence. His eye fell on the postscript. "Oh, d.a.m.n it," cried Spendquick, "but that's too bad,--employing you to get me to pay him!

Such horrid treachery. Make yourself easy, my dear Frank; I could never suspect you of anything so unhandsome. I could as soon suspect myself of--paying him--"

"Curzon Street! Count!" muttered Frank, as if waking from a dream. "It must be so." To thrust on his boots, change his dressing-robe for a frock-coat, s.n.a.t.c.h at his hat, gloves, and cane, break from Spendquick, descend the stairs, a flight at a leap, gain the street, throw himself into a cabriolet,--all this was done before his astounded visitor could even recover breath enough to ask "What's the matter?"

Left thus alone, Lord Spendquick shook his head,--shook it twice, as if fully to convince himself that there was nothing in it; and then re-arranging his hat before the looking-gla.s.s, and drawing on his gloves deliberately, he walked downstairs, and strolled into White's, but with a bewildered and absent air. Standing at the celebrated bow-window for some moments in musing silence, Lord Spendquick at last thus addressed an exceedingly cynical, sceptical old roue,

"Pray, do you think there is any truth in the stories about people in former times selling themselves to the devil?"

"Ugh," answered the rout, much too wise ever to be surprised. "Have you any personal interest in the question?"

"I!--no; but a friend of mine has just received a letter from Levy, and he flew out of the room in the most ex-tra-ordi-na-ry manner,--just as people did in those days when their time was up! And Levy, you know, is--"

"Not quite as great a fool as the other dark gentleman to whom you would compare him; for Levy never made such bad bargains for himself. Time up!