The Vision of Desire | Page 6

had meant to her, and ultimately no bond between
actual mother and daughter could have been stronger than the bond
which had subsisted between these two.
It was to Ann that Virginia confided her inmost fears lest Tony should
follow in his father's footsteps. From Sir Philip, choleric and tyrannical,
she concealed them completely--and many of Tony's youthful
escapades as well, paying some precocious card-losses he sustained

while still in his early teens out of her own slender dress allowance in
preference to rousing his uncle's ire by a knowledge of them. But with
Ann, she had been utterly frank.
"Tony's a born gambler," she told her. "But he has a stronger will than
his father, and if he's handled properly he may yet make the kind of
man I want him to be. Only--Philip doesn't know how to handle him."
The last two years of her life she had spent on a couch, a confirmed
invalid, and oppressed by a foreboding as to Tony's ultimate future.
And then, one day, shortly before the weak flame of her life flickered
out into the darkness, she had sent for Ann, and solemnly, appealingly,
confided the boy to her care.
"I hate leaving him, Ann," she had said between the long bouts of
coughing which shook her thin frame so that speech was at times
impossible. "He's so--alone. Philip represents nothing to him but an
autocrat he is bound to obey. And Tony resents it. Any one who loves
him can steady him--but no one will ever drive him. When I'm gone,
will you do what you can for him--for him and for me?"
And Ann, holding the sick woman's feverish hands in her own cool
ones, had promised.
"I will do all that I can," she said steadily.
"And if he does get into difficulties?" persisted Virginia, her eager eyes
searching the girl's face.
Ann smiled down at her reassuringly.
"Don't worry," she had answered. "If he does, why, then I'll get him out
of them if it's in any way possible."
Two days later, Ann had stood beside the bed where Virginia lay,
straight and still in the utter peace and tranquillity conferred by death.
Her last words had been of Tony.

"I've 'bequeathed' him to you, Ann," she had whispered. Adding, with a
faint, humorous little smile: "I'm afraid I'm leaving you rather a
troublesome legacy."
And now, nearly four years later, Ann had thoroughly realised that the
task of keeping Tony out of mischief was by no means an easy one.
Here, at Montricheux, however, she had felt that she could relax her
vigilance somewhat. There was no temptation to back "a certainty" of
which some racing friend had apprised him, and, as Tony himself
discontentedly declared, the stakes permitted at the Kursaal tables were
so small that if he gambled every night of the week he ran no risk of
either making or losing a fortune.
The chief danger, she reflected, was that he might become bored and
irritable--she could see that he was tending that way--and then trouble
would be sure to arise between him and his uncle, with whom he was
staying at the Hotel Gloria. She recalled his hesitation when she had
asked him if he had been getting into mischief. Was trouble brewing
already?
"Tony," she demanded shrewdly. "Have you been quarrelling with Sir
Philip again? There's generally some disturbing cause when you feel
driven into asking me to marry you."
"Well, why won't you? He'd be satisfied then."
"He? Do you mean your uncle?"--with some astonishment.
Tony nodded.
"Yes. Didn't you know he wanted it more than anything? Just as I do,"
he added with the quick, whimsical smile which was one of his charms.
Ann shook her head.
"You haven't answered my question," she persisted.
"Well," admitted Tony unwillingly, "he and I did have a bit of a

dust-up this morning. I'm sick of doing nothing. I told him I wanted to
be an architect."
"Well?"
"It was anything but well! He let me have it good and strong. No
Brabazon was going to take up planning houses as a profession if he
knew it! I'd got my duty to the old name and estate and the tenants, et
cetera, et cetera. All the usual tosh."
Ann's face clouded. She devoutly wished that Sir Philip would allow
his nephew to take up some profession--never mind which, so long as it
interested him and gave him definite occupation. To keep him idling
about between Lorne and the Brabazon town house in Audley Square
was the worst thing in the world for him. Privately she determined to
approach her godfather on the subject at the very next opportunity,
though she could make a very good, guess at the reason for his refusal.
It was a purely