Mr. Woods stood in the vestibule of his own house.

XVII

“By gad!” said Colonel Hugonin, very grimly, “anybody would think you’d just lost a fortune instead of inheriting one!  Wish you joy of it, Billy.  I ain’t saying, you know, we shan’t miss it, my daughter and I—­no, begad, for it’s a nice pot of money, and we’ll miss it damnably.  But since somebody had to have it, I’d much rather it was you, my boy, than a set of infernal, hypocritical, philanthropic sharks, and I’m damn’ glad Frederick has done the square thing by you—­yes, begad!”

The old gentleman was standing beside Mr. Woods in the vestibule of Selwoode, some distance from the other members of the house-party, and was speaking in confidence.  He was sincere; I don’t say that the thought of facing the world at sixty-five with practically no resources save his half-pay—­I think I have told you that the Colonel’s diversions had drunk up his wife’s fortune and his own like a glass of water—­I don’t say that this thought moved him to hilarity.  Over it, indeed, he pulled a frankly grave face.

But he cared a deal for Billy; and even now there was balm—­soothing, priceless balm—­to be had of the reflection that this change in his prospects affected materially the prospects of those cultured, broad-minded, philanthropic persons who had aforetime set his daughter to requiring of him a perusal of Herbert Spencer.

Billy was pretty well aware how monetary matters stood with the old wastrel; and the sincerity of the man affected him far more than the most disinterested sentiments would have done.  Mr. Woods accordingly shook hands, with entirely unnecessary violence.

“You’re a trump, that’s what you are!” he declared; “oh, yes, you are, Colonel!  You’re an incorrigible, incurable old ace of trumps—­the very best there is in the pack—­and it’s entirely useless for you to attempt to conceal it.”

“Gad——!” said the Colonel.

“And don’t you worry about that will,” Mr. Woods advised.  “I—­I can’t explain things just now, but it’s all right.  You just wait—­just wait till I’ve seen Peggy,” Billy urged, in desperation, “and I’ll explain everything.”

“By gad——!” said the Colonel.  But Mr. Woods was half-way out of the vestibule.

Mr. Woods was in an unenviable state of perturbation.

He could not quite believe that Peggy had destroyed the will; the thing out-Heroded Herod, out-Margareted Margaret.  But if she had, it struck him as a high-handed proceeding, entailing certain vague penalties made and provided by the law to cover just such cases—­penalties of whose nature he was entirely ignorant and didn’t care to think.  Heavens! for all he knew, that angel might have let herself in for a jail sentence.

Billy pictured that queen among women! that paragon! with her glorious hair cropped and her pink-tipped little hands set to beating hemp—­he had a shadowy notion that the lives of all female convicts were devoted to this pursuit—­and groaned in horror.