Comethup felt that, under the circumstances, there was but one thing to be done. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the money his aunt had given him. "How much would you want, sir?" he asked slowly.
"Well, to be businesslike, may I say ten pounds?"
Comethup was rather glad he wanted no more, because the loss of that sum would still leave something in his own pockets so that it might not be necessary for him to apply to his aunt. He handed Mr. Robert Carlaw the amount specified, and Mr. Carlaw shook hands with him many times and blessed him, and finally walked away with a jaunty step.
Comethup dined sparingly, and wandered about the city for the greater part of the day. He returned to the hotel in the evening, and found his aunt sitting alone; he was informed that she had asked if he had returned several times during the day.
"Well, young scapegrace!" she exclaimed as he entered, "I don't mind confessing I've missed you horribly; and I suppose you've been tearing round the city and flinging your money about, and making people wonder who the young English gentleman is, and where he gets his money from, and what he's doing alone in a wicked city, eh? Oh, you've been doing the thing royally, I'll be bound."
Comethup thought of the modest dinner he had eaten in a small _café_, and of how for the rest he had wandered about the streets in lonely fashion for many hours; but there was a fiction to be kept up, and he laughed and said he was afraid he had spent a great deal of money.
"Well, never mind; it won't do any harm, once in a way. You're inclined to be a bit reckless, Prince Charming, but I suppose that's my fault. Most of the money gone, eh?"
"I'm afraid so," said Comethup. He saw that this was the clearest and best fashion to get out of the difficulty--to take to himself a character for extravagance which he did not possess; it would save the necessity for any explanation.
"Well, so that you've had a good time, I don't mind. I must find you some more to-morrow; I only want you to enjoy yourself and to be straightforward, and keep nothing from me."
Comethup awoke with a lighter heart the next morning--lighter, perhaps, because Paris was to be left behind. He was glad to think that he had got well over his difficulties; almost glad, too, to think that he had seen the last of Mr. Robert Carlaw. Of his feelings toward Brian he was not quite so certain; he pitied him very much, and hoped earnestly that Fortune and Fame were indeed holding out their hands to him. But he was but a boy, who had lived his simple life hitherto simply and straightforwardly and well, with nothing to conceal. Now, for the first time, with however good a purpose, he was deceiving one whom he knew to be his greatest and most loyal friend--one but for whose loyal assistance life could never have been to him the full and splendid thing it had been.