"I know," Adams said sympathetically. "Liver is the very devil. That's the worst of India. Now, there is nothing, my dear chap, that I should enjoy more at this moment than a two-finger peg of whisky. Can I take it? Damn it, no! I should have heartburn for hours—that's India! But since you are not sleepy, and I am sure I'm not, I will tell you about the Admastons."
The colonel's pipe had gone out. He relit it, pressed down the ashes with the head of a little silver pencil-case which he took from his waistcoat pocket, sent out a cloud of fragrant blue-grey smoke, leant back in his arm-chair, and began.
"Admaston," Colonel Adams began, "is one of the most hard-working Johnnies of the day. He's as rich as what-d'you-call-him, of course, but he hasn't used his wealth to make his position in Parliament or to get him his place in the Cabinet. He's done it by sheer ability, by Jove! He's of an old family, but there haven't been any members of it in big political positions to help him over the heads of those who have to shift for themselves.
"He was at Harrow with me, though considerably my junior, and I remember he played cricket with an energy that deserved a much higher batting average than he got. He wasn't a studious youth by any means, though he learnt enough to know his way about. He was still at school and I had just passed into Sandhurst when his father died and left him a huge fortune. Then he went to Oxford—New College it may have been, or possibly the House. I don't think he did anything much at Oxford. I'm told by men who were up with him that the sense of the enormous responsibility which fell on him after his father's death, and the anxieties of having to manage a great estate and a huge business, spoilt him for the schools and rather put him off cricket. He might have got into the Eleven, but he didn't care enough about it to try hard."
"A bit phlegmatic in temperament?" Passhe asked.
"That's it," replied Colonel Adams. "Nothing seemed to move him much. If ever a man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, George Admaston was the chap. But I don't believe he cared particularly whether his spoon was silver or pewter, by Jove! Just a plain fellow of frugal habits. I am told that when he met the deputation from the Northern Division of Lancashire, which went up to town to ask him to contest that constituency, after the interview one of the local Johnnies said, 'Mr. Admaston was so nice that he might be nobody.' At anyrate, George has found his métier in politics. Three years in opposition gave him a great reputation as a quick and ready debater. He is a great asset to his party now, and at by-elections he's the night-before-the-poll man."
"But what about his wife?" said the civilian.
"I'm coming to that, Henry," Adams answered. "And if I am a bit long-winded you've jolly well brought it on yourself. It's like this. George's father was the head of Admaston, Grainger & Co., the big City financiers. Old Grainger had a daughter, much younger than George Admaston. Peggy Grainger was only a tiny little girl when Admaston's father died. I'm told that the old men when they were together would chaff each other about their children. Old Grainger used to say that they must certainly marry—keep the firm together, and so on, don't you know. In fact, the last letter that George ever got from his father referred to old Grainger's notion that George should marry Peggy. Now, Peggy's mother was a Frenchwoman, a Mlle. Guillou, and the girl was educated in France. George hadn't been long in the Cabinet when old Grainger brought Peggy to London. She was about nineteen then, and the prettiest, most flirtatious, whimsical little butterfly of a thing that you could possibly imagine. Well, her father established Peggy in a big house in St. James's—huge retinue of servants and so forth. All London began to talk about the rich Miss Grainger. The girl spent just what she liked—her father encouraged her to do it; there was really nothing else to be done with the money. But whenever George came to the house—and he saw a lot of the Graingers the first year when Peggy came to London—the old boy was always hinting to him that he ought to marry Peggy.
"One evening Admaston was called off the Treasury Bench in the House to speak at the telephone. He thought it was Peggy, but it wasn't. It was her old maid, Pauline, who is here with her in this hotel to-night, and who has looked after her all her life nearly. Pauline said that old Grainger had just passed in his cheques, by Jove! He was a big fleshy fellow—always did himself top hole. He'd made a big dinner, laughed at a joke like anything with his daughter, had a stroke, and was cooling by ten o'clock."
"And then?" Henry Passhe asked.
"Well, of course, Peggy was left quite alone. There were no relatives. In fact, there was nobody except this old nurse, Pauline, a woman of about forty. Mrs. Grainger had been a chronic invalid, and she had left the girl in charge of the 'bonne.' Old Grainger often used to say that Pauline was more of a mother to Peggy than even his wife had been, and after his death Peggy relied upon the woman for almost everything. She's been with her ever since, and is more like a mother to her still than a servant. Pauline, in fact, took charge of the household, looked after the servants in every way, and controlled everything. It was a curious ménage.
"One day Peggy and Admaston met at a country house for a week-end party. Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but at anyrate George proposed and Peggy accepted him. I remember the fuss they made about it in the society papers—fulsome, sickenin' sort of hog-wash they wrote. 'Love at first sight,' and all that sort of thing. 'Little Peggy was to be the wife of a Prime Minister'—'they adored each other,' etc. But I'll eat my hand if they did anything of the kind. They simply remembered the wishes of their fathers and saw it was best to consolidate their huge commercial interests. I daresay Peggy felt very lonely and George felt very sorry for her. At anyrate, the engagement was announced.
"George had an aunt—has her still, I suppose—the rich Miss Admaston, a damned old cat who gives thousands to foreign missions. I've met some of the missionaries of her particular gospel-shop in India, and a nice lot of touts they are too. Well, the old cat was fearfully cut up by the news of the engagement. She thought Peggy was far too French and frivolous for George, and, of course, Peggy has always been rather go-ahead. For my part, I don't care what they are saying now, I don't think there is an ounce of vice in the girl.
"It's gettin' rather late, Henry, and I'm afraid I'm boring you?"
"Not a bit; go on, do," the secretary answered.
"Very well. George's engagement to Peggy seriously affected the lives of two people who are deucedly well known in society. One of them was Lady Attwill, widow of 'Clipper' Attwill, who scuppered his yacht and himself too somewhere in the Mediterranean—a thorough bad hat, Clipper was. Lady Attwill had been setting her cap at George for a long time. Every one knew it but George. It was a regular joke of one season. She couldn't get hold of him, though, despite everything she could do. George hadn't an idea of what the woman wanted. He was really fond of her. He looked on her as a very dear friend, and he took all her kindnesses and so forth just in that light, with a calm complacency that must have sent her raving at times. Of course, all Lady Attwill's friends did their very best to bring the two together upon every possible occasion; and when George steered clear and proposed to Peggy, every one said the poor, dear chap was one of the craftiest politicians on the Front Bench. And all the time, Henry, I'll lay you what you like that Admaston was as innocent as a canary.
"There were two people, I said, who were seriously affected by George's engagement. Well, the other was Roderick Collingwood, who's staying in the hotel now, as Snell has just told us.
"Colling—everybody calls him Colling—knew Peggy's governor. He's a bally millionaire also, and he used to have a good many dealings with the firm. Collingwood travels about a great deal—always has done—and he first met Peggy when she was a flapper of fifteen at old Grainger's place near Chantilly—old Grainger used to run horses a lot in France.
"Collingwood has always been an extraordinary sort of chap; he was then, it appears. Like any other young man of great wealth, he found everything done for him, anything he liked ready to his hand, and simply let himself go. When Peggy's father died, Colling was going it hell-for-leather—just about as fast as they're made. Of course, Peggy knew nothing of the real facts. But she heard gossip and hints, and one night she taxed him with the way he was living,