Austin the painter,
and not to her brother Austin Lovel. More than once an unconscious
warmth or softness in her tone had made Miss Granger look up from her
embroidery-frame with the eyes of wonder.
Mr. Granger came back to the drawing-room, having finished his
letter-writing just as the sitting concluded, and, luncheon being announced
at the same time, asked Mr. Austin to stay for that meal. Austin had no
objection to linger in his sister's society. He wanted to know what kind
of man this Daniel Granger was; and perhaps wanted to see what probability
there was of Daniel Granger's wife being able to supply him with money in
the future. Austin Lovel had, from his earliest boyhood, possessed a fatal
capacity for getting rid of money, and for getting into debt; not common
plain-sailing debt, which would lead at the worst to the Bankruptcy Court,
but liability of a more disreputable and perilous character, involving the
terror of disgrace, and entanglements that would have to be unravelled by a
police-magistrate.
Racing debts, gambling debts, and bill-discounting transactions, had been
the agreeable variety of difficulties which had beset Austin Level's
military career; and at the end there had been something--something fully
known to a few only--which had made the immediate sale of his commission
a necessity. He was _allowed_ to sell it; and that was much, his friends
said.
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