A Millionaire of Yesterday

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  "From a conversational point of view," Lady Tresham remarked, "our guestto-night seems scarcely likely to distinguish himself."

  Ernestine looked over her fan across the drawing-room.

  "I have never seen such an alteration in a man," she said, "in so shorta time. This morning he amazed me. He knew the right people and did theright things--carried himself too like a man who is sure of himself.To-night he is simply a booby."

  "Perhaps it is his evening clothes," Lady Tresham remarked, "they takesome getting used to, I believe."

  "This morning," Ernestine said, "he had passed that stage altogether.This is, I suppose, a relapse! Such a nuisance for you!"

  Lady Tresham rose and smiled sweetly at the man who was taking her in.

  "Well, he is to be your charge, so I hope you may find him more amusingthan he looks," she answered.

  It was an early dinner, to be followed by a visit to a popular theatre.A few hours ago Trent was looking forward to his evening with thekeenest pleasure--now he was dazed--he could not readjust his point ofview to the new conditions. He knew very well that it was his wealth,and his wealth only, which had brought him as an equal amongst thesepeople, all, so far as education and social breeding was concerned, ofso entirely a different sphere. He looked around the table. What wouldthey say if they knew? He would be thrust out as an interloper. Oppositeto him was a Peer who was even then engaged in threading the meshes ofthe Bankruptcy Court, what did they care for that?--not a whit! He wasof their order though he was a beggar. But as regards himself, he wasfully conscious of the difference. The measure of his wealth was themeasure of his standing amongst them. Without it he would be thrustforth--he could make no claim to association with them. The thoughtfilled him with a slow, bitter anger. He sent away his soup untasted,and he could not find heart to speak to the girl who had been thewill-o'-the-wisp leading him into this evil plight.

  Presently she addressed him.

  "Mr. Trent!"

  He turned round and looked at her.

  "Is it necessary for me to remind you, I wonder," she said, "that it isusual to address a few remarks--quite as a matter of form, you know--tothe woman whom you bring in to dinner?"

  He eyed her dispassionately.

  "I am not used to making conversation," he said. "Is there anything inthe world which I could talk about likely to interest you?"

  She took a salted almond from a silver dish by his side and smiledsweetly upon him. "Dear me!" she said, "how fierce! Don't attempt itif you feel like that, please! What have you been doing since I saw youlast?--losing your money or your temper, or both?"

  He looked at her with a curiously grim smile.

  "If I lost the former," he said, "I should very soon cease to be aperson of interest, or of any account at all, amongst your friends."

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  "You do not strike one," she remarked, "as the sort of person likely tolose a fortune on the race-course."

  "You are quite right," he answered, "I think that I won money. A coupleof thousand at least."

  "Two thousand pounds!" She actually sighed, and lost her appetite forthe oyster patty with which she had been trifling. Trent looked aroundthe table.

  "At the same time," he continued in a lower key, "I'll make a confessionto you, Miss Wendermott, I wouldn't care to make to any one else here.I've been pretty lucky as you know, made money fast--piled it up infact. To-day, for the first time, I have come face to face with thepossibility of a reverse."

  "Is this a new character?" she murmured. "Are you becomingfaint-hearted?"

  "It is no ordinary reverse," he said slowly. "It iscollapse--everything!"

  "O--oh!"

  She looked at him attentively. Her own heart was beating. If he hadnot been engrossed by his care lest any one might over-hear theirconversation, he would have been astonished at the change in her face.

  "You are talking in enigmas surely," she said. "Nothing of that sortcould possibly happen to you. They tell me that the Bekwando Land sharesare priceless, and that you must make millions."

  "This afternoon," he said, raising his glass to his lips and drainingit, "I think that I must have dozed upon the lawn at Ascot. I sat therefor some time, back amongst the trees, and I think that I must havefallen to sleep. There was a whisper in my ears and I saw myselfstripped of everything. How was it? I forget now! A concessionrepudiated, a bank failure, a big slump--what does it matter? The moneywas gone, and I was simply myself again, Scarlett Trent, a labourer,penniless and of no account."

  "It must have been an odd sensation," she said thoughtfully.

  "I will tell you what it made me realise," he said. "I am drifting intoa dangerous position. I am linking myself to a little world to whom,personally, I am as nothing and less than nothing. I am tolerated for mybelongings! If by any chance I were to lose these, what would become ofme?"

  "You are a man," she said, looking at him earnestly; "you have the nerveand wits of a man, what you have done before you might do again."

  "In the meantime I should be ostracised."

  "By a good many people, no doubt."

  He held his peace for a time, and ate and drank what was set before him.He was conscious that his was scarcely a dinner-table manner. He wastoo eager, too deeply in earnest. People opposite were looking at them,Ernestine talked to her vis-a-vis. It was some time before he spokeagain, when he did he took up the thread of their conversation where hehad left it.

  "By the majority, of course," he said. "I have wondered sometimeswhether there might be any one who would be different."

  "I should be sorry," she said demurely.

  "Sorry, yes; so would the tradespeople who had had my money and the menwho call themselves my friends and forget that they are my debtors."

  "You are cynical."

  "I cannot help it," he answered. "It is my dream. To-day, you know, Ihave stood face to face with evil things."

  "Do you know," she said, "I should never have called you a dreamer, aman likely to fancy things. I wonder if anything has really happened tomake you talk like this?"

  He flashed a quick glance at her underneath his heavy brows. Nothing inher face betrayed any more than the most ordinary interest in whathe was saying. Yet somehow, from that moment, he had uneasy doubtsconcerning her, whether there might be by any chance some reason forthe tolerance and the interest with which she had regarded him from thefirst. The mere suspicion of it was a shock to him. He relapsed oncemore into a state of nervous silence. Ernestine yawned, and her hostessthrew more than one pitying glance towards her.

  Afterwards the whole party adjourned to the theatre, altogether in aninformal manner. Some of the guests had carriages waiting, others wentdown in hansoms. Ernestine was rather late in coming downstairs andfound Trent waiting for her in the hall. She was wearing a wonderfulblack satin opera cloak with pale green lining, her maid had touched upher hair and wound a string of pearls around her neck. He watched heras she came slowly down the stairs, buttoning her gloves, and looking athim with eyebrows faintly raised to see him waiting there alone. Afterall, what folly! Was it likely that wealth, however great, could evermake him of her world, could ever bring him in reality one degree nearerto her? That night he had lost all confidence. He told himself that itwas the rankest presumption to even think of her.

  "The others," he said, "have gone on. Lady Tresham left word that I wasto take you."

  She glanced at the old-fashioned clock which stood in the corner of thehall.

  "How ridiculous to have hurried so!" she said. "One might surely becomfortable here instead of waiting at the theatre."

  She walked towards the door with him. His own little night-brougham waswaiting there, and she stepped into it.

  "I am surprised at Lady Tresham," she said, smiling. "I really don'tthink that I am at all properly chaperoned. This comes, I suppose, fromhaving acquired a character for independence."

  Her gown seemed to fill the carriage--
a little sea of frothy lace andmuslin. He hesitated on the pavement.

  "Shall I ride outside?" he suggested. "I don't want to crush you."

  She gathered up her skirt at once and made room for him. He directed thedriver and stepped in beside her.

  "I hope," she said, "that your cigarette restored your spirits. You arenot going to be as dull all the evening as you were at dinner, are you?"

  He sighed a little wistfully. "I'd like to talk to you," he said simply,"but somehow to-night... you know it was much easier when you were ajournalist from the 'Hour'."

  "Well, that is what I am now," she said, laughing. "Only I can't getaway from all my old friends at once. The day after to-morrow I shall beback at work."

  "Do you mean it?" he asked incredulously.

  "Of course I do! You don't suppose I find this sort of thingparticularly amusing, do you? Hasn't it ever occurred to you thatthere must be a terrible sameness about people who have been broughtup amongst exactly the same surroundings and taught to regard life fromexactly the same point of view?"

  "But you belong to them--you have their instincts."

  "I may belong to them in some ways, but you know that I am a revolteddaughter. Haven't I proved it? Haven't I gone out into the world, tothe horror of all my relatives, for the sole purpose of getting a firmergrip of life? And yet, do you know, Mr. Trent, I believe that to-nightyou have forgotten that. You have remembered my present character only,and, in despair of interesting a fashionable young lady, you have nottalked to me at all, and I have been very dull."

  "It is quite true," he assented. "All around us they were talking ofthings of which I knew nothing, and you were one of them."

  "How foolish! You could have talked to me about Fred and the road-makingin Africa and I should have been more interested than in anything theycould have said to me."

  They were passing a brilliantly-lit corner, and the light flashed uponhis strong, set face with its heavy eyebrows and firm lips. He leanedback and laughed hoarsely. Was it her fancy, she wondered, or did heseem not wholly at his ease.

  "Haven't I told you a good deal? I should have thought that Fred and Ibetween us had told you all about Africa that you would care to hear."

  She shook her head. What she said next sounded to him, in a certainsense, enigmatic.

  "There is a good deal left for you to tell me," she said. "Some day Ishall hope to know everything."

  He met her gaze without flinching.

  "Some day," he said, "I hope you will."