“Because I am in a hole—­no end of a hole—­and I thought you’d help me,” murmured the boy, half penitently, half caressingly; he was very girlish in his face and his ways.  On which confession Rake retired into the bathroom; he could hear just as well there, and a sense of decorum made him withdraw, though his presence would have been wholly forgotten by them.  In something the same spirit as the French countess accounted for her employing her valet to bring her her chocolate in bed—­“Est ce que vous appelez cette chose-la un homme?”—­Bertie had, on occasion, so wholly regarded servants as necessary furniture that he had gone through a love scene, with that handsome coquette Lady Regalia, totally oblivious of the presence of the groom of the chambers, and the possibility of that person’s appearance in the witness-box of the Divorce Court.  It was in no way his passion that blinded him—­he did not put the steam on like that, and never went in for any disturbing emotion—­it was simply habit, and forgetfulness that those functionaries were not born mute, deaf, and sightless.

He tossed some essence over his hands, and drew on his gauntlets.

“What’s up Berk?”

The boy hung his head, and played a little uneasily with an ormolu terrier-pot, upsetting half the tobacco in it; he was trained to his brother’s nonchalant, impenetrable school, and used to his brother’s set; a cool, listless, reckless, thoroughbred, and impassive set, whose first canon was that you must lose your last thousand in the world without giving a sign that you winced, and must win half a million without showing that you were gratified; but he had something of girlish weakness in his nature, and a reserve in his temperament that was with difficulty conquered.

Bertie looked at him, and laid his hand gently on the young one’s shoulder.

“Come, my boy; out with it!  It’s nothing very bad, I’ll be bound!”

“I want some more money; a couple of ponies,” said the boy a little huskily; he did not meet his brother’s eyes that were looking straight down on him.

Cecil gave a long, low whistle, and drew a meditative whiff from his meerschaum.

“Tres cher, you’re always wanting money.  So am I. So is everybody.  The normal state of man is to want money.  Two ponies.  What’s it for?”

“I lost it at chicken-hazard last night.  Poulteney lent it me, and I told him I would send it him in the morning.  The ponies were gone before I thought of it, Bertie, and I haven’t a notion where to get them to pay him again.”

“Heavy stakes, young one, for you,” murmured Cecil, while his hand dropped from the boy’s shoulder, and a shadow of gravity passed over his face; money was very scarce with himself.  Berkeley gave him a hurried, appealing glance.  He was used to shift all his anxieties on to his elder brother, and to be helped by him under any difficulty.  Cecil never allotted two seconds’ thought to his own embarrassments, but he would multiply them tenfold by taking other people’s on him as well, with an unremitting and thoughtless good nature.