If he had lost the money to a
gentleman, and it had been his first serious departure from Mr.
Delamere's perfectly well understood standard of honor, Tom might have
risked a confession and thrown himself on his grandfather's mercy; but
he owed other sums here and there, which, to his just now much disturbed
imagination, loomed up in alarming number and amount. He had recently
observed signs of coldness, too, on the part of certain members of the
club. Moreover, like most men with one commanding vice, he was addicted
to several subsidiary forms of iniquity, which in case of a scandal were
more than likely to come to light. He was clearly and most disagreeably
caught in the net of his own hypocrisy. His grandfather believed him a
model of integrity, a pattern of honor; he could not afford to have his
grandfather undeceived.
He thought of old Mrs. Ochiltree. If she were a liberal soul, she could
give him a thousand dollars now, when he needed it, instead of making
him wait until she died, which might not be for ten years or more, for a
legacy which was steadily growing less and might be entirely exhausted
if she lived long enough,--some old people were very tenacious of life!
She was a careless old woman, too, he reflected, and very foolishly kept
her money in the house. Latterly she had been growing weak and childish.
Some day she might be robbed, and then his prospective inheritance from
that source would vanish into thin air!
With regard to this debt to McBane, if he could not pay it, he could at
least gain a long respite by proposing the captain at the club.
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