It was not so, however, with Sir Reginald. He remembered Victor
Carrington's advice as to the wisdom of a palpable estrangement between
himself and his cousin, and he took good care to act upon that counsel.
This course was, indeed, the only one that would have been at all
agreeable to him.
He hated Douglas Dale with all the force of his evil nature, as the
innocent instrument of Sir Oswald's retribution upon the destroyer of
Mary Goodwin.
He envied the young man the advantages which his own bad conduct had
forfeited; and he now had learned to hate him with redoubled intensity,
as the man who had supplanted him in the affections of Paulina Durski.
The two men met in the smoking-room of the club at the most fashionable
hour of the day.
Nothing could have been more conspicuous than the haughty insolence of
the spendthrift baronet as he saluted his wealthy cousin.
"How is it I have not seen you at my chambers in the Temple,
Eversleigh?" asked Douglas, in that calm tone of studied courtesy which
expresses so little.
"Because I had no particular reason for calling on you; and because, if
I had wished to see you, I should scarcely have expected to find you in
your Temple chambers," answered Sir Reginald. "If report does not belie
you, you spend the greater part of your existence at a certain villa at
Fulham."
There was that in Sir Reginald Eversleigh's tone which attracted the
attention of the men within hearing--almost all of whom were well
acquainted with the careers of the two cousins, and many of whom knew
them personally.
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