Spennie Blunt, meanwhile, was not feeling happy. Out of his life, too,
had the sunshine gone. His assets amounted to one pound seven and
fourpence and he owed twenty pounds. He had succeeded, after dinner,
in borrowing five pounds from Jimmy, who was in the mood when he would
have lent five pounds to anybody who asked for it, but beyond that he
had had no successes in the course of a borrowing tour among the
inmates of the abbey.
In the seclusion of his bedroom, he sat down to smoke a last cigarette
and think the thing over in all its aspects. He could see no way out
of his difficulties. The thought had something of the dull persistency
of a toothache. It refused to leave him. If only this had happened at
Oxford, he knew of twenty kindly men who would have rallied round him,
and placed portions of their fathers' money at his disposal. But this
was July. He would not see Oxford again for months. And, in the
meantime, Wesson would be pressing for his money.
"Oh, damn!" he said.
He had come to this conclusion for the fiftieth time, when the door
opened, and his creditor appeared in person. To Spennie, he looked
like the embodiment of Fate, a sort of male Nemesis.
"I want to have a talk with you, Spennie," said Wesson, closing the
door.
"Well?"
Wesson lit a cigarette, and threw the match out of the window before
replying.
"Look here, Spennie," he said, "I want to marry Miss McEachern."
Spennie was in no mood to listen to the love affairs of other men.
"Oh!" he said.
"Yes. And I want you to help me."
"Help you?"
"You must have a certain amount of influence with her. She's your
sister."
"Stepsister."
"Same thing."
"Well, anyhow, it's no good coming to me. Nobody's likely to make
Molly do a thing unless she wants to. I couldn't, if I tried for a
year. We're good pals, and all that, but she'd shut me up like a knife
if I went to her and said I wanted her to marry some one."
"Not being a perfect fool," said Wesson impatiently, "I don't suggest
that you should do that."
"What's the idea, then?"
"You can easily talk about me to her. Praise me, and so on."
Spennie's eyes opened wide.
"Praise you? How?"
"Thanks," said Wesson, with a laugh. "If you can't think of any
admirable qualities in me, you'd better invent some."
"I should feel such a silly ass."
"That would be a new experience for you, wouldn't it? And then you can
arrange it so that I shall get chances of talking to her. You can
bring us together."
Spennie's eyes became rounder.
"You seem to have mapped out quite a programme for me."
"She'll listen to you. You can help me a lot."
"Can I?"
Wesson threw away his cigarette.
"And there's another thing," he said. "You can queer that fellow
Pitt's game. She's always with him now. You must get her away from
him. Run him down to her. And get him out of this place as soon as
possible. You invited him here. He doesn't expect to stop here
indefinitely, I suppose? If you left, he'd have to, too. What you must
do is to go back to London directly after the theatricals are over.
He'll have to go with you. Then you can drop him in London and come
back."
It is improbable that Wesson was blind to certain blemishes which
could have been urged against this ingenious scheme by a critic with a
nice sense of the honorable; but, in his general conduct of life, as
in his play at cards, he was accustomed to ignore the rules when he
felt disposed to do so. He proceeded to mention in detail a few of the
things which he proposed to call upon his ally to do. A delicate pink
flush might have been seen to spread over Spennie's face. He began to
look like an angry rabbit. He had not a great deal of pride in his
composition, but the thought of the ignominious rôle which Wesson was
sketching out for him stirred what he had to its shallow depths.
Talking on, Wesson managed with his final words to add the last straw.
"Of course," he said, "that money you lost to me at picquet--What was
it? Ten? Twenty? Twenty pounds, wasn't it? Well, we could look on that
as canceled, of course. That will be all right."
Spennie exploded.
"Will it?" he cried, pink to the ears. "Will it, by George? I'll pay
you every frightful penny of it before the end of the week. What do
you take me for, I should like to know?"
"A fool, if you refuse my offer."
"I've a fearfully good mind to give you a most frightful kicking."
"I shouldn't try, Spennie, if I were you. It's not the form of indoor
game at which you'd shine. Better stick to picquet."
"If you think I can't pay you your rotten money----"
"I do. But if you can, so much the better. Money is always useful."
"I may be a fool in some ways----"
"You understate it, my dear Spennie."
"But I'm not a cad."
"You're getting quite rosy, Spennie. Wrath is good for the
complexion."
"And if you think you can bribe me to do your dirty work, you never
made a bigger mistake in your life."
"Yes, I did," said Wesson, "when I thought you had some glimmerings of
intelligence. But if it gives you any pleasure to behave like the
juvenile lead in a melodrama, by all means do. Personally, I shouldn't
have thought the game would be worth the candle. Your keen sense of
honor, I understand you to say, will force you to pay your debt. It's
an expensive luxury nowadays, Spennie. You mentioned the end of the
week, I believe? That will suit me admirably. But if you change your
mind, my offer is still open. Good night, Galahad."