“I’m sick of everything,” he declared.  “I’m going to chuck the Army.  It’s never done anything for me.  There’s no chance of active service, and I loathe garrison work.”

“The only question being, what else are you fit for?” said Mordaunt.

Rupert threw him a quick look.  “I’ll be your bailiff, if you like,” he said.  “I could do that.”

Mordaunt raised his brows at the suggestion.  “That is an idea that never occurred to me,” he remarked.

“Why not?  You want a bailiff, don’t you?”

“A reliable one,” said Mordaunt.

Rupert jumped in his chair as if he had been stung.  “What the devil do you mean?”

“I mean”—­Mordaunt regarded him steadily—­“that I shouldn’t care to trust my affairs to a man who can’t look after his own.”

Rupert’s eyes flashed.  “I am not to be trusted, then?”

Mordaunt continued to regard him, quite unmoved.

“You had better ask yourself that question, my dear fellow,” he said.  “You are better qualified to answer it than I am.”

Rupert relaxed again, dropping back listlessly.  “I suppose you are right.  I certainly don’t make a great success of things.  I believe I should get on better with you than with anyone else.  But if you feel like that about it, there is no more to be said.”

“You really want to be taken seriously, do you?” Mordaunt said.

“Of course I do!” Rupert turned towards him again with the lightning change of mood characteristic of him.  “You must forgive me for being a bit touchy, old chap.  It’s this infernal thundery weather.  May I have another drink?” He helped himself without waiting for permission.  “Of course I want to be taken seriously.  It’s a billet that would suit me down to the ground.  I know the place, every inch of it, and, as you know, I’m fond of it.  I would look after your interests as though they were my own.”

Mordaunt smiled.  “But do you look after your own?”

Rupert clinked some ice into his tumbler, and thoughtfully watched it float.

“You’ve been so jolly decent to me,” he said at length, “that I haven’t the face to bother you with my affairs again.”

“I suppose that means you are in difficulties,” his brother-in-law remarked.

He nodded without looking up.  “I’m never out of ’em.  It’s not my fault.  It’s my beastly bad luck.”

“Of course,” said Mordaunt dryly.

Rupert bobbed the ice against his glass and spilt some whisky-and-water in so doing.  He looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“I can’t help it,” he said.  “I was born in Queer Street, and I’ve lived there all my life.  You fellows who are simply rolling in wealth haven’t the smallest notion what it means.”

“What is the good of saying that?” Mordaunt sounded impatient for the first time.  “You know as well as I do that if you had twenty thousand a year you would spend twice the amount.”