The smile died under that ironic gaze; Stacy said angrily: “Damn it, how could I marry a girl without fortune?”

“I shouldn’t think you could. According to what I hear, your windmill has dwindled to a nutshell.”

“Who told you that?” Stacy demanded suspiciously. “I wasn’t aware that you had any acquaintance in England!”

“How should you be? I have, but it was Letty who told me you’re monstrously in the wind.”

“Do you mean my great-aunt Kelham?” Stacy said incredulously. “Are you asking me to believe that you have visited her?”

“Oh, no! I don’t give a straw what you believe. Why should I?” said Miles, with unabated affability.

Flushing, Stacy stammered: “Beg pardon! It was only that—well, she’s such a devil of a high stickler that I shouldn’t have thought—that is to say,—”

“I sec!” said Miles encouragingly. “What you would have thought is that she’d have shut the door in my face!”

Stacy burst out laughing. “Well, yes!” he admitted. “If I don’t owe you respect, I need not wrap it up in clean linen, I collect!”

“Oh, no, not the least need to do that!” Miles assured him.

“The thing is that your great-aunt—lord, to think of Letty’s being a great-aunt! She’s no more than a dozen years older than I am!—well, the thing is that she was used to have a kindness for me. That might have been because she detested my father, of course. Come to think of it, your father wasn’t first oars with her by any means. Or it might have been because most females are partial to rakes,” he added thoughtfully.

“Was that why you were sent abroad?” Stacy asked. “I’ve never known precisely—you see, my father never spoke of you, except to say that you were not to be spoken of!”

“Oh, I was shockingly loose in the haft!” responded his uncle cordially. “I started in the petticoat-line at Eton: that’s why they expelled me.”

Stacy regarded him in some awe. “And—and at Oxford?”

“I don’t recall, but I should think very likely. The trouble then was that I was too ripe and ready by half: always raising some kind of a breeze. Nothing to the larks I kicked up in London, though. A peep-of-day boy, that was me—and a damned young fool! I crowned my career by trying to elope with an heiress. That was coming it rather too strong for the family, so they got rid of me, and I’m sure I don’t blame them.” He smiled mockingly at his nephew. “The luck didn’t favour you either, did it?”

Stacy stiffened. “Sir?”

“Tried to leap the book yourself, didn’t you?”

“That, sir, is something I prefer not to discuss! It was an unfortunate episode! We were carried away by what we believed to be an unalterable passion! The circumstances—the whole truth—cannot be known to you, and—in short, I don’t feel obliged to justify myself to you!”

“Good God, I trust you won’t! It’s no concern of mine. I may be your uncle, but I’ve really very little interest in you. You’re too like me, and I find myself a dead bore. The only difference I can discover is that you’re a gamester. That’s the one vice I never had, and it don’t awake a spark of interest in me, because I find gaming a dead bore too.”

“I suppose you’re trying to gammon me—or know nothing of gaming, and that I don’t believe!”

“Oh, no! I tried gaming, but it held no lure for me. Too slow!”

“Slow?” Stacy gasped.

“Why, yes! What have you to do but stake your blunt, and watch the turn of a card, or the fall of the dice ? Same with horse-racing. Now, if I’d ever been offered a match, to ride my own horse against another man’s, that would have been sport, if you like! But I ride too heavy, and always did.”

“But they said—I was given to understand—that you cost my grandfather a fortune!”

“I was expensive,” admitted Miles, “though I shouldn’t have put it as high as a fortune. But I got a deal of amusement out of my spendings. What the devil is there to amuse one in hazard or faro?”

It was evident that Stacy found this incomprehensible. He stared, and said, after a moment: “I should envy you, I suppose! But I don’t. It’s in my blood, and surely in yours too! Father—my grandfather—great-uncle Charles—oh, all of them!”

“Yes, but you must remember that I was a sad disappointment to the family. My father even suspected me of being a changeling. A delightful theory, but without foundation, I fear.” He threw the butt of his cheroot into the fire, and got up, stretching his long limbs. His light eyes looked down at Stacy, their expression hard to interpret. “Have you lost Danescourt yet?” he enquired.

Stacy laughed shortly. “Good God, what would any man in his senses stake against that damned barrack? It’s mortgaged to the hilt, and falling into ruin besides! It was encumbered when my father died, and I can’t bring it about. I hate the place—wouldn’t waste a groat on it!”

“Shades of our ancestors!” said Miles flippantly. “They must all be turning in their graves. Perhaps you are a changeling! Or did you come to visit me in the hope that I might be able to restore your fallen fortunes?”

“Hardly!” Stacy said, flicking a glance at his uncle’s person.

“I’m told you came home bear-leading Mrs Grayshott’s son, which doesn’t lead me to suppose you’re swimming in lard! I hope to God that won’t leak out!”

“Oh, I don’t think so!” said Miles reassuringly. “But you have it wrong: I wasn’t bear-leading him. I was combining the duties of sick-nurse and valet.”

“Good God! If that should become known—! I wish you will consider my position, sir!”

“But why should I?”

“Well, damme, I am your nephew!” Stacy said indignantly. “And you are, after all, a Calverleigh!”

“Yes, but not at all high in the instep, I promise you. As for our relationship, no one can blame you for being my nephew—I don’t myself—but if it irks you, don’t acknowledge me!”

“It may seem to you to be a funning matter,” returned Stacy, reddening, “but I shall beg leave to tell you, sir, that it is no very pleasant thing for me to have you here, looking like—oh, dash it, like a regular rough diamond!” He rose, and picked up his hat. “I don’t know how long you mean to remain in Bath, but I trust you are aware of what the charges are in this hotel!”

“Don’t give them a thought!” said Miles. “I won’t chalk ‘em up to you. If I find myself at a stand, I can always shoot the crow.”

“Vastly diverting, sir!” snapped Stacy, collecting his gloves and his cane, “Servant!”

He executed a slight bow, and left the room. He was so much ruffled that he had reached the White Hart before his anger had cooled enough to allow him to consider whether he had acted wisely in letting his temper ride him. He was not naturally an even-tempered man, but he had cultivated an air of smiling good-humour, knowing that it was as great an asset to anyone living precariously on the fringe of society as his handsome countenance. It was rarely that he betrayed irritability, or lost his poise, even under the severe provocation of receiving a set-down from some out-and-outer into whose circle he had tried to insinuate himself, or a high-nosed stare from a great lady whose favour he wanted to win. He began to be vexed with himself, and to wonder what quality it was in his uncle which had set up his bristles; but it was not for some time, and then with reluctance, that it dawned on him that he had been made to fed small. This had nothing to do with Miles’s superior height, and even less with his manner, which had not been that of a man talking to his nephew, but that of a man talking to a contemporary whom he regarded with indifference. Recalling how Miles had lounged at his ease, looking as though he had dressed all by guess, in an outmoded coat, his neckcloth loosened, and an abominable cheroot between his long brown fingers, he felt resentment stir again. He, and not his disreputable uncle, should have been master of the situation, but in some mysterious way he had been made to feel awkward. He had expected to have been received, if not with gratification, at least with pleasure: it had been a piece of condescension on the part of the head of the family to have visited its reprobate, but the reprobate was apparently unaware of this. He had been neither pleased nor displeased, and certainly not gratified; and the only interest he had shown in his nephew was of the most casual order. Stacy found this so galling that he almost wished himself back at the York House, for the purpose of giving the impudent fellow a well-deserved set-down.

It soon occurred to him, however, that it behoved him to tread warily: even, if he could do it, to make a friend of Miles. Miles knew of his courtship of Fanny Wendover, and there could be small doubt that he had learnt of it from her aunts. He had shown no sign of disapproval: indeed, he had taken as little interest in that as in the disclosure that Danescourt was heavily encumbered, but if he was on terms with Miss Abigail Wendover it might be worth while to make a push to gain his support.

Marriage had few attractions for Mr Stacy Calverleigh, but it had been forcibly borne in upon him that only by a rich marriage could he escape from embarrassments which had become extremely pressing; and he was determined to marry Fanny, even if he were forced to persuade her to elope with him. But it would be infinitely preferable to marry her with the consent of her aunts and her uncle. Selina he could bring round his thumb, but he had guessed from the outset that Selina was of less importance than Abigail, and that it was Abigail’s influence which was the more likely to weigh with Mr James Wendover.

He had no illusions about James. He had never known James’s father, or his elder brother, far less his grandfather, but he knew that they had been bywords in their day, and that James was commonly held to be the epitome of a Wendover. He was ruled by two passions: a determination to advance the interests of the family, and an even stronger determination to avoid at all costs anything savouring remotely of the scandalous. He could be depended on to oppose Fanny’s marriage to an impecunious young man of slightly damaged reputation, but once the knot was tied he could also be depended on to hush up the resultant scandal. And if he did not immediately make suitable provision for his wealthy ward he would very soon be obliged to do so, for fear of what people would say. This (according to the malicious) was the dread which governed his conduct. And if Stacy showed himself to be a reformed character people would certainly say very rude things indeed, unless James put Fanny in possession of at least the income from her large fortune, and of her ancestral home. Particularly, thought Stacy, if the clandestine marriage were blessed with an heir. For himself, he had every intention of behaving with the utmost propriety, even of resigning himself for quite some time to living for several months of the year at Amberfield. It would be boring, but once it was known that he was married to an heiress whose property would become his within a few years he would be able to exist comfortably on the expectation. It should be possible for him to settle with his most pressing creditors, and although he would still be in Dun territory there would be no longer any fear of finding himself locked up for debt. Not the most avaricious bluntmonger would proceed to extremes against a man who was heir (by marriage) to a handsome fortune.