“Ah, captain, you do not know what is vain and what is not.  It is your brother’s pleasure that you should be kept in the dark for a time.”

“Hang my brother’s pleasure!  Why am I to follow my brother’s pleasure?”

“Because he will allow you an income.  He will keep a coat on your back and a hat on your head, and supply meat and wine for your needs.”  Here Captain Scarborough jingled the loose napoleons in his trousers pocket.  “Oh, yes, that is all very well but it will not last forever.  Indeed, it will not last for a week unless you leave Monte Carlo.”

“I shall leave it this afternoon by the train for Genoa.”

“And where shall you go then?”

“You heard me suggest to Mr. Hart to the devil,—­or else Constantinople, and after that to Thibet.  I suppose I shall still enjoy the pleasure of your company?”

“Mr. Augustus wishes that I should remain with you, and, as you yourself say, perhaps it will be best.”

CHAPTER XII.

Harry Annesley’s success.

Harry Annesley, a day or two after he had left Tretton, went down to Cheltenham; for he had received an invitation to a dance there, and with the invitation an intimation that Florence Mountjoy was to be at the dance.  If I were to declare that the dance had been given and Florence asked to it merely as an act of friendship to Harry, it would perhaps be thought that modern friendship is seldom carried to so great a length.  But it was undoubtedly the fact that Mrs. Armitage, who gave the dance, was a great friend and admirer of Harry’s, and that Mr. Armitage was an especial chum.  Let not, however, any reader suppose that Florence was in the secret.  Mrs. Armitage had thought it best to keep her in the dark as to the person asked to meet her.  “As to my going to Montpelier Place,” Harry had once said to Mrs. Armitage, “I might as well knock at a prison-door.”  Mrs. Mountjoy lived in Montpelier Place.

“I think we could perhaps manage that for you,” Mrs. Armitage had replied, and she had managed it.

“Is she coming?” Harry said to Mrs. Armitage, in an anxious whisper, as he entered the room.

“She has been here this half-hour,—­if you had taken the trouble to leave your cigars and come and meet her.”

“She has not gone?” said Harry, almost awe-struck at the idea.

“No; she is sitting like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, in the room inside.  She has got horrible news to tell you.”

“Oh, heavens!  What news?”

“I suppose she will tell you, though she has not been communicative to me in regard to your royal highness.  The news is simply that her mother is going to take her to Brussels, and that she is to live for a while amid the ambassadorial splendors with Sir Magnus and his wife.”