Then Augustus finished the conversation.  “I am determined to treat it all as though it were a joke, and, as a joke, one to be spoken of lightly.  It was a strong measure, certainly, this attempt to rob me of twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year.  But it was done in favor of my brother, and therefore let it pass.  I am at a loss to conceive what my father has done with his money.  He hasn’t given Mountjoy, at any rate, more than a half of his income for the last five or six years, and his own personal expenses are very small.  Yet he tells me that he has the greatest difficulty in raising a thousand pounds, and positively refuses in his present difficulties to add above five hundred a year to my former allowance.  No father who had thoroughly done his duty by his son, could speak in a more fixed and austere manner.  And yet he knows that every shilling will be mine as soon as he goes.”  The servant who was waiting upon them had been in and out of the room while this was said, and must have heard much of it.  But to that Augustus seemed to be quite indifferent.  And, indeed, the whole family story was known to every servant in the house.  It is true that gentlemen and ladies who have servants do not usually wish to talk about their private matters before all the household, even though the private matters may be known; but this household was unlike all others in that respect.  There was not a housemaid about the rooms or a groom in the stables who did not know how terrible a reprobate their master had been.

“You will see your father before you go to bed?” Miss Scarborough said to her nephew as she left the room.

“Certainly, if he will send to say that he wishes it.”

“He does wish it, most anxiously.”

“I believe that to be your imagination.  At any rate, I will come—­say in an hour’s time.  He would be just as pleased to see Harry Annesley, for the matter of that, or Mr. Grey, or the inspector of police.  Any one whom he could shock, or pretend to shock, by the peculiarity of his opinions, would do as well.”  By that time, however, Miss Scarborough had left the room.

Then the three men sat and talked, and discussed the affairs of the family generally.  New leases had just been granted for adding manufactories to the town of Tretton:  and as far as outward marks of prosperity went all was prosperous.  “I expect to have a water-mill on the lawn before long,” said Augustus.  “These mechanics have it all their own way.  If they were to come and tell me that they intended to put up a wind-mill in my bedroom to-morrow morning, I could only take off my hat to them.  When a man offers you five per cent. where you’ve only had four, he is instantly your lord and master.  It doesn’t signify how vulgar he is, or how insolent, or how exacting.  Associations of the tenderest kind must all give way to trade.  But the shooting which lies to the north and west of us is, I think, safe for the present.  I suppose I must go and see what my father wants, or I shall be held to have neglected my duty to my affectionate parent.”