Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/177

Perhaps he trusted to my not believing him—but it’s fairly circumstantial. Aren’t you glad you belong to the Jersey branch of the St. Croix?”

“Very,” said Tony, and heard his own voice. “Any more?”

“What a glutton you are! Not much—nothing as startling as that. I wanted to speculate about the boy, but he wasn’t interested—any more than you seem to be. You’re a cold-blooded young devil. Don’t you think it’s rather rotten luck for that poor little beggar—he is probably dead long ago, or hawking papers somewhere—to drop down to a street-dog’s life with Trent Stoke and the other houses, and I don’t know how many thousands a year, all waiting for him?”

Tony laughed rather shortly. “’Fraid I haven’t your sense of pathos,” he said. “You sound quite romantic. And anyhow they don’t seem to have waited for him.”

“No; and I don’t suppose Pamela Trent has thought twice about him since the title and all came to her. Of course they must have advertised for him when old Lord Trent died, eight or nine years ago———”

(“Eight or nine,” Tony calculated rapidly; “I was in Australia then—probably with Bill Hooker—I wonder if the advertisements were in the Australian papers? Most likely but I never saw any papers at all!”)

“—so he must be dead, I suppose. He certainly didn’t turn up—there would have been a fuss! There goes the bell; we'd better get to our seats.”

Tony went back with his mind in a blaze of excitement, and found that his seat next Pamela had been occupied by another member of the party. He was glad. Her nearness would have been a little too much just then. He dropped into the only vacant place, and thanked his stars that the third act had begun, and that the play was sufficiently good to keep his neighbour from talking.