There was evidence of gambling, which he not
only admitted, but defended; and, moreover, he was known at parties,
at races, and at the theatre, as one of the numerous satellites who
revolved about that gay and conspicuous young fashionable widow,
Lady Peacock.
'Yes, Frank has every right to be angry,' said my father, pacing the
room. 'I can't wonder at him. I should do the same; but it is
destroying the best hope for my poor boy.'
Then he began to wish Clarence had more--he knew not what to call
it--in him; something that might keep his brother straight. For, of
course, he had talked to Clarence and discovered how very little the
brothers saw of one another. Clarence had been to look for Griff in
vain more than once, and they had only really met at a Castleford
dinner-party. In fact, Clarence's youthful spirits, and the tastes
which would have made him companionable to Griff, had been crushed
out of him; and he was what more recent slang calls 'such a muff,'
that he had perforce drifted out of our elder brother's daily life,
as much as if he had been a grave senior of fifty. It was, as he
owned, a heavy penalty of his youthful fall that he could not help
his brother more effectually.
It appeared that Frank Fordyce, thoroughly roused, had had it out
with Griffith, and had declared that his consent was withdrawn and
the engagement annulled.
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