“No matter what you bet, sir; you live as if you were a Rothschild while you are a beggar!”

“Wish I were a beggar:  fellows always have no end in stock, they say; and your tailor can’t worry you very much when all you have to think about is an artistic arrangement of tatters!” murmured Bertie, whose impenetrable serenity was never to be ruffled by his father’s bitterness.

“You will soon have your wish, then,” retorted the Viscount, with the unprovoked and reasonless passion which he vented on everyone, but on none so much as the son he hated.  “You are on a royal road to it.  I live out of the world, but I hear from it sir.  I hear that there is not a man in the Guards—­not even Lord Rockingham—­who lives at the rate of imprudence you do; that there is not a man who drives such costly horses, keeps such costly mistresses, games to such desperation, fools gold away with such idiocy as you do.  You conduct yourself as if you were a millionaire, sir; and what are you?  A pauper on my bounty, and on your brother Montagu’s after me—­a pauper with a tinsel fashion, a gilded beggary, a Queen’s commission to cover a sold-out poverty, a dandy’s reputation to stave off a defaulter’s future!  A pauper, sir—­and a Guardsman!”

The coarse and cruel irony flushed out with wicked, scorching malignity; lashing and upbraiding the man who was the victim of his own unwisdom and extravagance.

A slight tinge of color came on his son’s face as he heard; but he gave no sign that he was moved, no sign of impatience or anger.  He lifted his cap again, not in irony, but with a grave respect in his action that was totally contrary to his whole temperament.

“This sort of talk is very exhausting, very bad style,” he said, with his accustomed gentle murmur.  “I will bid you good-morning, my lord.”

And he went without another word.  Crossing the length of the old-fashioned Elizabethan terrace, little Berk passed him:  he motioned the lad toward the Viscount.  “Royal wants to see you, young one.”

The boy nodded and went onward; and, as Bertie turned to enter the low door that led out to the stables, he saw his father meet the lad—­meet him with a smile that changed the whole character of his face, and pleasant, kindly words of affectionate welcome; drawing his arm about Berkeley’s shoulder, and looking with pride upon his bright and gracious youth.

More than an old man’s preference would be thus won by the young one; a considerable portion of their mother’s fortune, so left that it could not be dissipated, yet could be willed to which son the Viscount chose, would go to his brother by this passionate partiality; but there was not a tinge of jealousy in Cecil; whatever else his faults he had no mean ones, and the boy was dear to him, by a quite unconscious, yet unvarying, obedience to his dead mothers’ wish.

“Royal hates me as game-birds hate a red dog.  Why the deuce, I wonder?” he thought, with a certain slight touch of pain, despite his idle philosophies and devil-may-care indifference.  “Well—­I am good for nothing, I suppose.  Certainly I am not good for much, unless it’s riding and making love.”