“I have known next to nothing of my brother’s affairs since he left England. I knew he went to Australia for a while and that things did not prosper greatly with him there. When his letter arrived, offering to adopt Gloria, and stating that he was firmly on his feet, I accepted what he said in good faith. Her letters showed they were all leading a very luxurious life, and that money seemed to be spent like water. Of course, I was terribly disillusioned when, such a short time ago, I learned the actual truth. Without mincing words, I can tell you I was not only surprised but intensely disgusted, especially when I heard of that thousand pounds borrowed from you. It hit Gloria very hard, that transaction. She is a girl of extremely delicate feeling, and under the peculiar circumstances it was in the very worst taste. Drowning men, we know, catch at straws; it showed how very near to drowning he must have been. He is no fool; he must know how ugly it would look to a third party.” Lydon made no comment. Had things not been as they were, he might have put up some defence for Howard Stormont, out of his natural kindness of heart. But he could not do so now. The man was unscrupulous to the core. “When my brother was a young man, he was always very headstrong, also fearfully extravagant, if only in a small way,” went on Jasper in the same severe tone. “He never seemed able to curb his desires, to restrain any momentary impulse. If he wanted a thing and hadn’t the money to pay for it, he would go into debt to get it, trusting that luck would enable him to avoid the disagreeable consequences. I know this fatal weakness was a great anxiety to our parents, honest and God-fearing people, and made them tremble for his future. “This big house, with its staff of indoor and outdoor servants eating him up, is a piece of the most colossal folly I have ever come across, and in my business we meet with very many specimens of the spendthrift. Everybody in the banking world does. I have no hesitation in discussing it with you; as Gloria’s future husband you have a right to know how matters stand. And further, in the distress which he brought on himself, he showed his hand plainly to you.” As Jasper Stormont elected to be so confidential with him, he thought he might continue the conversation on the same lines. “It seems to me that his business is evidently a very precarious one. It is rather a strange thing that I have never known what that business really is; it is not a thing on which you can put a quite straight question to a man, but it usually leaks out pretty soon. You know that I am a consulting engineer; I know that you hold a high post in the banking world. I have never even heard from your brother where his offices are. Gloria does not seem to know much about it. She thought he was what you call a financier. Well, we must admit that is rather a vague term.”