But in the meantime a man must live, and Edward was very glad to get an occasional guinea or two from a magazine. The supplies from home fell considerably below his requirements, though to send them strained the father’s resources. The embryo Laureate liked to take life pleasantly. He liked to dine at a popular restaurant, and to wash down his dinner with good Rhine wine, or sound claret. He liked good cigars. He could not wear cheap boots. He could do without gloves at a pinch, but those he wore must be the best. When he was in funds he preferred a hansom to pedestrianism. This, he told himself, was the poetical temperament. Alfred de Musset was, doubtless, just such a man. He could fancy Heine leading the same kind of life in Paris, before disease had chained him to his bed. That letter from Celia was like vitriol dropped into an open wound. Edward had not forgiven Laura for accepting John Treverton, or the estate that went with him. He hated John Treverton with a vigorous hatred that would stand a great deal of wear and tear. He pondered long over Celia’s letter, trying to discover the clue to the mystery. It seemed to him tolerably clear. Mr. and Mrs. Treverton had married with a deliberate understanding. Love between them there was none, and they had been too honest to pretend an affection which neither felt. They had agreed to marry and live apart, sharing the dead man’s wealth, fulfilling the letter of the law, but not the spirit. ‘I call it sheer dishonesty,’ said Edward. ‘I wonder that Laura can lend herself to such an underhand course.’ It was all very well to talk about John Treverton’s liberality in settling the entire estate upon his wife. No doubt they had their private understanding duly set forth in black and white. The husband was to have his share of the fortune, and squander it how he pleased in London or Paris, or any part of the globe that seemed best to him. ‘There never was such confounded luck,’ exclaimed Edward, angry with Fate for having given this man so much and himself so little; ‘a fellow who three months ago was a beggar.’ In his idle reverie he found himself thinking what he would have done in John Treverton’s place, with, say, seven thousand a year at his disposal. ‘I would have chambers in the Albany,’ he thought, ‘furnished on the purest æsthetic principles. I’d keep a yacht at Cowes, and three or four hunters at Melton Mowbray. I’d spend February and March in the South, and April and May in Paris, where I should have a _pied à terre_ in the Champs Elysées. Yes, one could lead a very pleasant life, as a bachelor, on seven thousand a year.’ Thus it will be seen that, although Mr. Clare had been seriously in love with Miss Malcolm, it was the loss of Jasper Treverton’s money which he felt most keenly, and it was the possession of that fortune for which he envied John Treverton.