eeplessness and excitement in strange contrast
with the easy perfection of Cecil's dress and the calm languor of his
attitude. The boy was very young, and was not seasoned to his life and
acclimatized to his ruin, like his elder brother. He looked at him with
a certain petulant envy; the envy of every young fellow for a man of the
world. "I beg your pardon for keeping you up, Bertie," he said huskily.
"Good-night."

Cecil gave a little yawn.

"Dear boy, it would have been better if you could have come in with
the coffee. Never be impulsive; don't do a bit of good, and is such bad
form!"

He spoke lightly, serenely; both because such was as much his nature as
it was to breathe, and because his heart was heavy that he had to send
away the young one without help, though he knew that the course he
had made him adopt would serve him more permanently in the end. But he
leaned his hand a second on Berk's shoulder, while for one single moment
in his life he grew serious.

"You must know I could not do what you asked; I could not meet any man
in the Guards face to face if I sunk myself and sunk them so low. Can't
you see that, little one?"

There was a wistfulness in the last words; he would gladly have believed
that his brother had at length some perception of his meaning.

"You say so, and that is enough," said the boy pettishly; "I cannot
understand that I asked anything so dreadful; but I suppose you have too
many needs of your own to have any resources left for mine."

Cecil shrugged his shoulders slightly again, and let him go. But he
could not altogether banish a pang of pain at his heart, less even for
his brother's ingratitude than at his callousness to all those finer,
better instincts of which honor is the concrete name.

For the moment, thought--grave, weary, and darkened--fell on him; he had
passed through what he would have suffered any amount of misconstruction
to escape--a disagreeable scene; he had been as unable as though he
were a Commissionaire in the streets to advance a step to succor the
necessities for which his help had been asked; and he was forced,
despite all his will, to look for the first time blankly in the face the
ruin that awaited him. There was no other name for it: it would be ruin
complete and wholly inevitable. His signature would have been accepted
no more by any bill-discounter in London; he had forestalled all, to the
uttermost farthing; his debts pressed heavier every day; he co