freckled complexion. His hair was dark and curly, he wore it somewhat long, evidently aware that it was beautiful; and his handsome green eyes had a charming expression. His sensual mouth was always smiling.
“What a nice boy!” thought Bertha. “I’m sure I shall like him.”
He began to talk as if he had known her all his life, and she was entertained by the contrast between his innocent appearance and his disreputable past. He looked about the room with boyish ease and stretched himself comfortably in a big arm-chair.
“Hulloa, that’s new since I was here last!” he said, pointing to an Italian bronze.
“Have you been here often?”
“Rather! I used to come here whenever it got too hot for me at home. It’s no good scrapping with your governor, because he’s got the ooftish—it’s a jolly unfair advantage that fathers have, but they always take it. So when the old chap flew into a passion, I used to say, ‘I won’t argue with you. If you can’t treat me like a gentleman, I shall go away for a week.’ And I used to come here. Aunt Polly always gave me five quid, and said, ‘Don’t tell me how you spend it, because I shouldn’t approve; but come again when you want some more.’ She’s is a ripper, ain’t she!”
“I’m sorry she’s not in.”
“I’m rather glad, because I can have a long talk with you till she comes. I’ve never seen you before, so I have such a lot to say.”
“Have you?” said Bertha, laughing. “That’s rather unusual in young men.”
He looked so absurdly young that Bertha could not help treating him as a schoolboy; and she was amused at his communicativeness. She wanted him to tell her his escapades, but was afraid to ask.
“Are you very hungry?” She thought that boys always had appetites. “Would you like some tea?”
“I’m starving.”
She poured him out a cup, and taking it and three jam sandwiches, he sat on a footstool at her feet. He made himself quite at home.
“You’ve never seen my Vaudrey cousins, have you?” he asked, with his mouth full. “I can’t stick ’em at any price, they’re such frumps. I’ll tell ’em all about you; it’ll make them beastly sick.”
Bertha raised her eyebrows. “And do you object to frumps?”
“I simply loathe them. At the last tutor’s I was at, the old chap’s wife was the most awful old geezer you ever saw. So I wrote and told my mater that I was afraid my morals were being corrupted.”
“And did she take you away?”
“Well, by a curious coincidence, the old chap wrote the very same day, and told the pater if he didn’t remove me he’d give me the shoot. So I sent in my resignation, and told him his cigars were poisonous, and cleared out.”
“Don’t you think you’d better sit on a chair?” said Bertha. “You must be very uncomfortable on that footstool.”
“Oh no, not at all. After a Turkey carpet and a dining-room table, there’s nothing so comfy as a footstool. A chair always makes me feel respectable—and dull.”
Bertha thought Gerald rather a nice name.
“How long are you staying in London?”
“Oh, only a month, worse luck. Then I’ve got to go to the States to make my fortune and reform.”
“I hope you will.”
“Which? One can’t do both at once, you know. You make your money first, and you reform afterwards, if you’ve got time. But whatever happens, it’ll be a good sight better than sweating away at an everlasting crammer’s. If there is one man I can’t stick at any price it’s the army crammer.”
“You have a large experience of them, I understand.”
“I wish you didn’t know all my past history. Now I shan’t have the sport of telling you.”
“I don’t think it would be edifying.”
“Oh yes, it would. It would show you how virtue is downtrodden (that’s me), and how vice is triumphant. I’m awfully unlucky; people sort of conspire together to look at my actions from the wrong point of view. I’ve had jolly rough luck all through. First I was bunked from Rugby. Well, that wasn’t my fault. I was quite willing to stay, and I’m blowed if I was worse than anybody else. The pater blackguarded me for six weeks, and said I was bringing his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Well, you know, he’s simply awfully bald; so at last I couldn’t help saying that I didn’t know where his grey hairs were going to, but it didn’t much look as if he meant to accompany them. So, after that, he sent me to a crammer who played poker. Well, he skinned me of every shilling I’d got, and then wrote and told the pater I was an immoral young dog, and corrupting his house.”
“I think we’d better change the subject, Gerald,” said Bertha.
“Oh, but you must have the sequel. The next place I went to, I found none of the other fellows knew poker; so of course I thought it a sort of merciful interposition of Providence to help me to recoup myself. I told ’em not to lay up treasures in this world, and walloped in thirty quid in four days; then the old thingamygig (I forget his name, but he was a parson) told me I was making his place into a gambling-hell, and that he wouldn’t have me another day in his house. So off I toddled, and I stayed at home for six months. That gave me the fair hump, I can tell you.”
The conversation was disturbed by the entrance of Miss Ley.
“You see we’ve made friends,” said Bertha.
“Gerald always does that with everybody. He’s the most gregarious person. How are you, Lothario?”
“Flourishing, my Belinda,” he replied, flinging his arms round Miss Ley’s neck to her great delight and pretended indignation.
“You’re irrepressible,” she said. “I expected to find you in sackcloth and ashes, penitent and silent.”
“My dear Aunt Polly, ask me to do anything you like, except to repent and to hold my tongue.”
“You know your mother has asked me to look after you.”
“I like being looked after—and is Bertha going to help?”
“I’ve been thinking it over,” added Miss Ley. “And the only way I can think to keep you out of mischief is to make you spend your evenings with me. So you’d better go home now and dress. I know there’s nothing you like better than changing your clothes.”
Meanwhile Bertha observed with astonishment that Gerald was simply devouring her with his eyes. It was impossible not to see his evident admiration.
“The boy must be mad,” she thought, but could not help feeling a little flattered.
“He’s been telling me some dreadful stories,” she said to Miss Ley, when he had gone. “I hope they’re not true.”
“Oh, I think you must take all Gerald says
