"
People laughed at the dragoon's notion: but there were few of Mr.
Eversleigh's guests who liked his new acquaintance, and there were some
who kept altogether aloof from the young cornet's rooms, after two or
three evenings spent in the society of Mr. Carrington.
"The fellow is too clever," said one of Eversleigh's brother-officers;
"these very clever men are almost invariably scoundrels. I respect a
man who is great in one thing--a great surgeon, a great lawyer, a great
soldier--but your fellow who knows everything better than anybody else
is always a villain."
Victor Carrington was the only person to whom Reginald Eversleigh told
the real story of his breach with his uncle. He trusted Victor: not
because he cared to confide in him--for the story was too humiliating
to be told without pain--but because he wanted counsel from a stronger
mind than his own.
"It's rather a hard thing to drop from the chance of forty thousand a
year to a pension of a couple of hundred, isn't it, Carrington?" said
Reginald, as the two young men dined together in the cornet's quarters,
a fortnight after the scene in Arlington Street. "It's rather hard,
isn't it, Carrington?"
"Yes, it _would be_ rather hard, if such a contingency were possible,"
replied the surgeon, coolly; "but we don't mean to drop from forty
thousand to two hundred. The generous old uncle may choose to draw his
purse-strings, and cast us off to 'beggarly divorcement,' as Desdemona
remarks; but we don't mean to let him have his own way.
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