provide
for him as I best can; and, moreover, cold as I am to him, and worldly
though perhaps he be, I have somehow or other conceived an interest in
him, a liking to him. He has been under my roof, he is dependent on
me; he has been docile and prudent, and I am a lone childless man;
therefore, spare him, since in so doing you spare me; and ah, Harley, I
have so many cares on me now that--"

"Oh, say no more, my dear, dear Audley," cried the generous friend; "how
little people know you!"

Audley's hand trembled. Certainly his nerves began to show wear and
tear.

Meanwhile, the object of this dialogue--the type of perverted intellect,
of mind without heart, of knowledge which had no aim but power--was in
a state of anxious, perturbed gloom. He did not know whether wholly to
believe Levy's assurance of his patron's ruin. He could not believe it
when he saw that great house in Grosvenor Square, its hall crowded with
lacqueys, its sideboard blazing with plate; when no dun was ever seen in
the antechamber; when not a tradesman was ever known to call twice for a
bill. He hinted to Levy the doubts all these phenomena suggested to him;
but the baron only smiled ominously, and said,

"True, the tradesmen are always paid; but the how is the question!
Randal, mon cher, you are too innocent. I have but two pieces of advice
to suggest, in the shape of two proverbs,--'Wise rats run from a falling
house,' and, 'Make hay while the sun shines.' A propos, Mr. Avenel likes
you greatly, and has been talking of the borough of Lansmere for you. He
has contrived to get together a great interest there. Make much of him."

Randal had indeed been to Mrs. Avenel's soiree dansante, and called
twice and found her at home, and been very bland and civil, and admired
the children. She had two, a boy and a girl, very like their father,
with open faces as bold as brass. And as all this had won Mrs. Avenel's
good graces, so it had propitiated her husband's. Avenel was shrewd
enough to see how clever Randal was. He called him "smart," and said "he
would have got on in America," which was the highest praise Dick Avenel
ever accorded to any man. But Dick himself looked a little careworn;
and this was the first year in which he had murmured at the bills of his
wife's dressmaker, and said with an oath, that "there was such a thing
as going too much ahead."

Randal had visited Dr. Riccabocca, and found Violante flown. True to his
promise to Harley, the