Adrien Leroy Part 17

"Proofs!" his father repeated sternly with knitted brows. "What proofs would such a clever scoundrel leave about? This morning's work should be sufficient proof even to satisfy you."

Adrien drew himself up to his full height, and confronted his father with a resolute air.

"It is no use, sir," he said. "I cannot take a drunken jockey's ramblings as proof of such an awful thing as that. Jasper is my friend, and besides, it is more to his interest to help me than to hate me."

Lord Barminster sighed deeply. The experience of age had taught him the impossibility of convincing youth against its will.

"Well, my boy," he said, "have your own way, but mark my words, you will live to repent your folly! I have no more proof, and to me no more is needed. Men on their death-beds do not lie, and I am as firmly convinced that Jasper Vermont forced that man to sell the race, as though I had the confession on paper. Still, I will say no more; you are young, and 'Youth knows All.' Find out for yourself the man's character, I shall not warn you again. You are placing your faith in a thankless cur; don't grumble when he turns round and bites the hand that has helped him. As for me, I will wait. Believe me, I would far rather know myself to be wrong than deal you any further unhappiness, so let us drop the subject for a time. I did not mean to bring up the man's name. I want to speak to you of far more important things."

His voice grew more grave, indeed almost solemn.

"Adrien, I am an old man, nearing the grave, and, as is only natural, my thoughts turn to the future of our race. You are the last of our line, it is to you I look to carry it on. You are no longer a boy, with a youth's follies and tastes; it is time you took up your responsibilities."

Adrien made as if to speak; but his father checked him, with a gesture of his hand.

"Stay, hear me out," he said. "When I was your age, your mother was at my side, I had given the House of Leroy its son and heir. I was married, and had left the lighter loves of the world for a more lasting and responsible one. You know I have never interfered much with your life; but though I am no longer of the gay world, I yet hear something of its doings. You 'live the pace,' they tell me, and are the idol of the smart set. Barminster Castle, Adrien, looks for something higher than that in its lord and master. I repeat, sir, at your age I was married."

"And loved," said Adrien softly.

"Yes, indeed," exclaimed Lord Barminster, his face lighting up at the thought of the woman whom he had lost, and mourned so long. "Your mother was that which ranks above rubies, a good and virtuous woman, worthy of any man's love."

Adrien turned his pale face away, as if to avoid scrutiny, then he said gently:

"I admit your right to speak like this, sir, and if it rested with me I would obey you at once."

"It does rest with you, Adrien," returned his father quickly. "Surely you are blind, not to see that Constance Tremaine loves you with her whole heart."

Adrien started up, his face alight and quivering with excitement.

"Impossible, sir!" he exclaimed. "Would to heaven it were true; for I know no other woman to whom I would so gladly devote my life."

The grim old face softened and relaxed. He had not expected such an overwhelming victory.

"Why do you say it is impossible?" he asked.

Adrien did not answer for a moment, then he slip hoa.r.s.ely:

"She is already engaged to Lord Standon."

An exclamation of astonishment burst from the old man's lips. He put out his hand in involuntary sympathy, and the two so strangely alike, yet so wide apart in years, clasped hands. Then, as if ashamed of the momentary emotion, the old man turned away, saying quietly:

"This is, of course, a surprise to me. Its truth yet remains to be proved, but I should feel inclined to doubt it myself." With which he went back to his own apartments.

Left alone once more, Adrien walked restlessly to and fro.

"If Constance really cared for me," he said to himself, "nothing else in the world would matter. Lucky Standon! I dare not think of the future, it what Jasper said was true."

At last he, too, returned to his room; but it was almost morning before he fell into a troubled slumber.

CHAPTER XIII

The morning following the disastrous steeple-chase, Mr. Jasper Vermont ordered his car, and then sat down to write to Adrien. He told him that he regretted having to leave the Castle so suddenly, but urgent business required his presence in London, and that he would return to Barminster as soon as possible.

On the appearance of the motor, he took his departure, travelling direct to Jermyn Court, where he stayed to lunch, waited on by the attentive Norgate as though he had been Adrien himself. Then, having filled his cigar-case with his friend's choicest Cabanas, he strolled through the fas.h.i.+onable parts of the Park.

The loungers and idle men of fas.h.i.+on who usually frequented it at that time of the day knew him well, and nodded with forced smiles of friends.h.i.+p--it was clearly to their interest to be on good, if possible, cordial terms with a man who always had the entree to the innermost circles, and who had won the confidence of a popular favourite like Adrien Leroy.

Those who had not been personally introduced to Jasper, had still heard reports of his position, and looked after him with that half-envious air which says so plainly:

"There goes the kind of prosperous, wealthy man I myself should like to be."

Mr. Vermont strolled along, his face wreathed in a perpetual smirk of recognition, his hat off half a dozen times a minute, acknowledging the smiling glances accorded to him.

When he had nearly come to Hyde Park Gate, he was confronted by one of the loungers--an old acquaintance of his--whose woe-begone countenance seemed expressive of acute mental distress.

Jasper Vermont recognised him in spite of his altered appearance--usually a very gay one--and stopped him.

"What, Beau!" he exclaimed with seemingly effusive warmth; "you here; whatever have you been doing--committing murder? Or have you married in haste, to repent of it at leisure?"

"Neither, my dear boy," answered the well-groomed young man--a captain in the "Household" Guards--one of the fastest and most generally liked fellows in town. "Neither, Vermont; but I have just come from the City."

"City of the Tombs!" drawled Jasper facetiously.

Captain Beaumont laughed, but rather mournfully.

"Yes," he said, "all my hopes are buried in that beastly place.' Really, the County Council ought to put a notice over the west side of Temple Bar monument instead of that heraldic beast: 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,'"

Mr. Vermont laughed, in his usual quiet way.

"How's that? The City is good enough in its way. What have they been doing to you; won't they lend you any more money?"

"Worse even than that," said the young spend-thrift; "they actually want me to repay all that I owe them already, on short notice, with the usual threats if I fail to comply within their time."

"Oh!" remarked Mr. Vermont simply; but his "oh" was full of meaning and apparent sympathy for the misfortunes of his friend.

"Yes, that hard-hearted old skinflint, Harker--what a mean brute he is!

I should like to bury him, and would attend his funeral gladly to be certain I had seen the last of him. He holds a pretty little tot-up in the way of bills of mine; and I expected, naturally enough, when I call on the firm, that they would renew them at the usual Shylock rates, and I could try elsewhere for something to go on with."

"Yes," said Mr. Vermont, "of course, that's the way you have done for years."

Captain Beaumont nodded.

"Yes, that's so; but Harker only shook that long head of his, and refused me; and nothing I could say would change the old skinflint's mind either. You know that c.o.c.k-and-bull story he always tells, about his not being the princ.i.p.al, but only the servant? Well, he says his princ.i.p.al has instructed him to call in my bills, and it is impossible for him to renew them; and that the usual steps will be taken if I am not able to meet them."

Jasper laughed, with gentle sarcasm.