Why, Hope, whom I met the other day, said that she was feeling very well and very happy.”
“So Hope thinks, because he has forced her into an engagement.”
Random started to his feet.
“Forced her?
Nonsense!”
“It isn’t nonsense, and don’t dare to speak like that to me, sir.
I repeat that Lucy—poor child—is breaking her heart for you.”
The young man stared and then broke into a hearty laugh.
“Pardon me, sir, but that is impossible.”
“It isn’t, confound you!” said Braddock, who did not like being laughed at. “I know women.”
“You don’t know your daughter.”
“Step-daughter, you mean.”
“Ah, perhaps the more distant relationship accounts for your ignorance of her character,” said Random dryly. “You are quite wrong.
I was in love with Miss Kendal, and asked her to be my wife before I went on leave.
She refused me, saying that she loved Hope, and because of her refusal I took my broken heart to Monte Carlo, where I lost much more money than I had any right to lose.”
“Your broken heart seems to have mended quickly,” said Braddock, who was trying to suppress his wrath at this instance of Lucy’s duplicity, for so he considered it.
“Oh, pooh, it’s only my way of speaking,” laughed the young man. “If my heart had been really broken I should not have mentioned the fact.”
“Then you did not love Lucy, and you dared to play fast and loose with her affections,” raged Braddock, stamping.
“You are quite wrong,” said Sir Frank sharply; “I did love Miss Kendal, or I should certainly not have asked her to be my wife.
But when she told me that she loved another man, I stood aside as any fellow would.”
“You should have insisted on—”
“On nothing, sir.
I am not the man to force a woman to give me a heart which belongs to another person.
I am very glad that Miss Kendal is engaged to Hope, as he is a capital fellow, and will make her a better husband than I ever could have made her.
Besides,” Random shrugged his shoulders, “one nail drives another out.”
“Humph!
That means you love another.”
“I am not bound to tell you my private affairs, Professor.”
“Quite so: quite so; but Inez is a pretty and romantic name.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, sir,” said Random stiffly.
Braddock chuckled, having read the truth in the flush which had crept over Random’s tanned face.
“I ask your pardon,” he said elaborately. “I am an old man, and I was your father’s friend.
You must not mind if I have been a trifle inquisitive.”
“Say no more, sir: that is all right.”
“I don’t agree with you, Random.
Things are not all right and never will be until my mummy is discovered.
Now you can help me.”
“In what way?” asked the other uneasily.
“With money.
Understand, my boy,” added the Professor in a genial way which he knew well how to assume, “I should have preferred Lucy becoming your wife.
However, since she prefers Hope, there’s no more to be said on that score. I therefore will not make the offer I came here to make.”
“An offer, sir?”
“Yes!
I fancied that you loved Lucy and were broken-hearted by the news of her engagement to Hope.
I therefore intended to ask you to give me, or rather lend me, five hundred pounds on condition that I helped you to—”
“Stop, Professor,” said Random, coloring, “I should never have bought Miss Kendal as my wife on those terms.”
“Of course! of course! and—as I say—there is no more to be said.
I shall therefore agree to Lucy’s engagement to Hope”—Braddock carefully omitted to say that he had already agreed and had been paid one thousand pounds to agree—“and will congratulate you when you lead Donna Inez to the altar.”
“I never said anything about Donna Inez, Professor Braddock.”
“Of course not: modern reticence.