Harry Vine looked at his father, thrust his hands low down into his pockets, leaned back against the mantelpiece, and was silent.
Vine senior leaned over a shallow glass jar, with a thin splinter of wood in his hand, upon which he had just impaled a small fragment of raw, minced periwinkle, and this he thrust down to where a gorgeous sea-anemone sat spread open upon a piece of rock – chipped from out of one of the caverns on the coast.
The anemone’s tentacles bristled all around, giving the creature the aspect of a great flower; and down among these the scrap of food was thrust till it touched them, when the tentacles began to curve over, and draw the scrap of shell-fish down toward the large central mouth, in which it soon began to disappear.
Vine senior looked up.
“I have done everything I could for you in the way of education. I have, I am sure, been a most kind and indulgent father. You have had a liberal supply of money, and by the exercise of my own and the personal interests of friends, I have obtained for you posts among our people, any one of which was the beginning of prosperity and position, such as a youth should have been proud to win.”
“But they were so unsuitable, father. All connected with trade.”
“Shame, Harry! As if there was anything undignified in trade. No matter whether it be trade or profession by which a man honestly earns his subsistence, it is an honourable career. And yet five times over you have been thrown back on my hands in disgrace.”
“Well, I can’t help it, father; I’ve done my best.”
“Your best!” cried Vine senior, taking up a glass rod, and stirring the water in another glass jar. “It is not true.”
“But it’s so absurd. You’re a rich man.”
“If I were ten times as well off, I would not have you waste your life in idleness. You are not twenty-four, and I am determined that you shall take some post. I have seen too much of what follows when a restless, idle young man sits down to wait for his father’s money. There, I am busy now. Go and think over what I have said. You must and shall do something. It is now a month since I received that letter. What is Mr Pradelle doing down here again?”
“Come for a change, as any other gentleman would.”
“Gentleman?”
“Well, he has a little income of his own, I suppose. If I’ve been unlucky, that’s no reason why I should throw over my friends.”
The father looked at the son in a perplexed way, and then fed another sea-anemone, Harry looking on contemptuously.
“Well, sir, you have heard what I said. Go and think it over.”
“Yes, father.”
The young man left the business-like study, and encountered his sister in the hall.
“Well, Harry?”
“Well, Lou.”
“What does papa say?”
“The old story. I’m to go back to drudgery. I think I shall enlist.”
“For shame! and you professing to care as you do for Madelaine.”
“So I do. I worship her.”
“Then prove it by exerting yourself in the way papa wishes. I wonder you have not more spirit.”
“And I wonder you have not more decency towards my friends.”
Louise coloured slightly.
“Here you profess to believe in my going into trade and drudging behind a counter.”
“I did not know that a counter had ever been in question, Harry,” said his sister sarcastically.
“Well, a clerk’s desk; it’s all the same. I believe you would like to see me selling tea and sugar.”
“I don’t think I should mind.”
“No; that’s it. I’m to be disgraced while you are so much of the fine lady that you look down on, and quite insult my friend Pradelle.”
“Aunt Margaret wishes to speak to you, dear,” said Louise gravely. “I promised to tell you as soon as you left the study.”
“Then hang it all! why didn’t you tell me? Couldn’t resist a chance for a lecture. There’s only one body here who understands me, and that’s aunt. Why even Madelaine’s turning against me now, and I believe it is all your doing.”
“I have done nothing but what is for your good, Harry.”
“Then you own to it? You have been talking to Maddy.”
“She came and confided in me, and I believe I spoke the truth.”
“Yes, I knew it!” cried Harry warmly. “Then look here, my lady, I’m not blind. I’ve petted you and been the best of brothers, but if you turn against me I shall turn against you.”
“Harry, dear!”
“Ah, that startles you, does it? Then I shall tell the truth, and I’ll back up Aunt Margaret through thick and thin.”
“What do you mean?”
“What Aunt Margaret says. That long Scotch copper-miner is no match for you.”
“Harry!”
“And I shall tell him this, if he comes hanging about here where he sees he is not wanted, and stands in the way of a gentleman of good French Huguenot descent, I’ll horsewhip him. There!”
He turned on his heel, and bounded up the old staircase three steps at a time.
“Oh!” ejaculated Louise, as she stood till she heard a sharp tap at her aunt’s door and her brother enter and close it after him. “Mr Pradelle, too, of all people in the world!”
“Ah, my darling,” cried Aunt Margaret, looking up from the tambour-frame and smoothing out the folds of her antique flowered peignoir. “Bring that stool, and come and sit down here.”
Harry bent down and kissed her rather sulkily. Then in a half-contemptuous way he fetched the said stool, embroidered by the lady herself, and placed it at her feet.
“Sit down, my dear.”
Harry lowered himself into a very uncomfortable position, while Aunt Margaret placed one arm about his neck, struck a graceful pose, and began to smooth over the young man’s already too smooth hair.
“I want to have another very serious talk to you, my boy,” she said. “Ah, yes,” she continued, raising his chin and looking down in his disgusted face; “how every lineament shows your descent! Henri, I do not mean to die until I have seen you claim your own, and you are received with acclamation as Comte Henri des Vignes.”
“I say, aunt, I’ve just brushed my hair,” he protested.
“Yes, dear, but you should not hide your forehead. It is the brow of the des Vignes.”
“Oh, all right, auntie, have it your own way. But, I say, have you got any money?”
“Alas! no, my boy.”
“I don’t mean now. I mean haven’t you really got any to leave me in your will?”
There was a far-off look in Aunt Margaret’s eyes as she slowly shook her head.
“You will leave me what you have, aunt?”
“If I had hundreds of thousands, you should have all, Henri; but, alas, I have none. I had property once.”
“What became of it?”
“Well, my dear, it is a long story and a sad one. I could not tell it to you even in brief, but you are a man now, and must know the meaning of the word love.”
“Oh; yes, I know what that means; but I say, don’t fidget my hair about so.”
“I could not tell you all, Henri. It was thirty years ago. He was