Sink or Swim? , Volume III

The great day of the sporting year, the "maddest," if not exactly the "merriest" day, was close at hand; and the world, both high and low, rich and poor, one _against_ another, were on the _qui-vive_ of excitement and the very tip-toe of expectation. Among these variously interested beings, one of those who had in reality most at stake, was Arthur Vavasour. Fortune, honour, credit, all were involved, and that to no limited extent, in the winning of the Derby race by that big-boned, coarse-made, but wonderfully _staying_ horse, Rough Diamond. Time was (before the master passion had laid hold of, grappled with, and finally taken possession of this impulsive and ill-trained young man) when the result of the morrow's racing would have occupied his every thought, and would have seemed to his eyes the most important of all earthly considerations. And all-important indeed it was; for spurred on thereto by money difficulties, and being but of a weak and unstable character, Arthur Vavasour had, as the reader must have already gathered, deceived, and to a certain degree outwitted, the shrewd and rather obstinate old man, whose ideas of honour and morality were so widely different from his own. By marrying Sophy Duberly he had for a time escaped the consequences of his own reckless extravagance, and of the gaming propensities, the knowledge of which would, as he well knew, have entirely prevented the union between himself and one of the richest heiresses of the day; but happiness had not followed upon his sin, nor had a sense of security been the consequence of his deception.

That Mr. Duberly was not wholly without his misgivings on the score of the young aristocrat on whom his daughter's maiden affections were fixed was evidenced by the fact that "nothing was left," as the saying is, in Arthur's "power. " The allowance that "old Dub" made to his future heiress was liberal to profuseness; and Arthur himself, had he desired such an indulgence, might have had his path paved with gold, provided always that he, the retired Manchester man, was perfectly _au courant_ of how the money was disposed of, and that his dearly-beloved Sophy trod the same brilliant way, side by side and lovingly with the partner of her life. More than this, however, for his son-in-law at least, old Dub was never likely to do. To have his penny-worth for his penny, to keep his accounts regularly and systematically, were, in his opinion, among the first duties of man; and any _known_ neglect of these duties by his daughter's husband would have annoyed and disquieted him. Well aware of this "absurdity," as he considered it, on the part of his father-in-law, Arthur had for some short time after his marriage gone through certain minor forms calculated to convey the impression that he was a "business man."