"And as to my being conceited--you're always hinting I'm conceited--I'm no more so than any young man would be in my place, with a lot of girls trying to catch him--Ah, there you go! Don't jump on me, Deleah. You know what I mean. Lots of girls are looking out to get married, and I've got money, and I've got a name--"

"On the Brewers' carts. 'Forcus and Sons; Brewers.'"

"It's a name I ain't ashamed of, and one that's pretty well known, at any rate!"

"And my name, or my mother's name, is over a shop-doorway, 'licensed to sell tobacco and snuff'; and it's a name that we can't be proud of, Reggie."

"But I'll put up with it, Deleah. I've made up my mind, and I'll go through with it. The name wouldn't be yours any longer, dear, when you'd taken mine; and as for the grocer's shop--"

"Why, here it is!" Deleah said. "And so good-bye, Reggie."

"I was coming in with you."

"You can't unless I ask you."

"And you're not going to? You're not very polite or kind to me, Deleah, upon my word!"

"Indeed, I am very, very kind, Reggie. And that you'll say when you are wiser. And so, good-bye. Run away and get wiser, Reggie."

"Deleah, something must be done for Bernard," Mrs. Day said with desperation in her tone. She had called the girl into her bedroom to hold conference away from the excitable Bessie. "Something I must do for my poor boy, or I feel that I shall go out of my senses. You must help me to do something, Deleah. Look at this."

From her pocket she drew forth a letter received that morning from the unhappy son. Deleah read it with a painful mingling of pity and contempt.

It was indeed an afflicting letter for any mother to receive; and Mrs. Day had too long been fed on the bread of affliction.

"You see, he begs of me to do something--to buy him off."

"Yes. I think his letter is abject."

"Don't, dear! Your blaming him makes it worse for me to bear, not better.

Somehow this thing must be done--_somehow_, if I am to know any peace, to be able to go on. Deleah, Reggie Forcus would do anything for you. Ask Reggie Forcus to do this."

"Oh, mama! No!"

"My account is overdrawn at the Bank. I dare not ask for a further amount.

What would these few pounds be to him? He spends as much on a dinner for a few men at the Royal."

"I can't ask him. Can't you see I must not?"

"I see what you mean. But oh, Deleah, we seem to have come to the bottom of things. What to us, in the very depths, are all those rules and niceties that happier people observe? You see what my boy says? He is 'in h.e.l.l.' He says it in so many words. My boy! My Bernard!"

With that Mrs. Day flung her arms upon the table by which she was sitting, and her head upon her arms, and gave way to bitter weeping: "My boy! My boy! My poor dear, precious Bernard!" she sobbed despairingly.

The sight made Deleah almost desperate: "I can't do what you ask. I can't possibly ask Reggie. But--there is another person--"

She stopped there, saying to herself, "The third time The third time! I can't ask him for money the third time!"

"Bernard! My Bernard!" cried the mother, her face hidden on her arms.

"Mama, pray do not cry so dreadfully--you break my heart. I can't do what you ask, but I will do what I can," Deleah promised.

CHAPTER XX

Sir Francis Makes A Call

The letter in which Deleah, in her most careful handwriting and in formal language, set forth her prayer that for her mother's sake Sir Francis Forcus, who had already shown her family such generous kindness, should buy off her brother Bernard; he, having left Mr. George Boult's shop at Ingleby, and now enlisted in such and such a regiment--was addressed to that gentleman at his private residence, The Court, Cashelthorpe.

He read the letter among others as he ate his breakfast, gave a shrug and a snort of impatience, and put it aside on a little heap of those which required answering.

Before starting for town he singled it out from the rest and read it again. Then, standing up, the letter still in his hand, he gave vent to his feelings on the subject, for the enlightenment of his sister.

"They've put that pretty child on to me again," he said. "This is from that little Day girl you fell in love with, last year, in the a.s.sembly Rooms, Ada." He tossed the letter into her lap.

"That sweetly pretty little thing at the concert?" She read the letter.

"What shall you do?" she asked.

"Decline."

"Oh, Francis! Why?"

"Because the boy is a ne'er-do-well. I have heard of him before. He is safest where he is."

"She'll think it so unkind, poor child."

"It can't be helped."

"Would it cost much to buy him off?"

"It isn't the money."

"The principle?"

"No. Nor yet, altogether, the principle."

"It would be kind and good-natured to do what the poor little thing asks."

"Yes. But for the sake of seeming good-natured I'm not going to be made a tool of."

"You'll simply write back, then, that you won't do it?" She laughed a little, looking across at him as he stood up, tall and solemn and handsome, with his back to the fire. "To do that will cost you more than just enclosing the money."

"That is not the question, Ada. I shall write, or"--he paused a minute, putting his lips together as his habit was when making up his mind to a course which did not altogether please him--"I'll go and see her," he finished.