Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 03

								

I will go to him."

CHAPTER III.


ANIMUM nunc hoc celerem, nunc dividit illuc.*--VIRGIL.


* "Now this, now that, distracts the active mind."
THE late Mr. Templeton had been a banker in a provincial town, which was
the centre of great commercial and agricultural activity and enterprise.
He had made the bulk of his fortune in the happy days of paper currency
and war.  Besides his country bank he had a considerable share in a
metropolitan one of some eminence.  At the time of his marriage with the
present Lady Vargrave he retired altogether from business, and never
returned to the place in which his wealth had been amassed.  He had still
kept up a familiar acquaintance with the principal and senior partner of
the metropolitan bank I have referred to; for he was a man who always
loved to talk about money matters with those who understood them.  This
gentleman, Mr. Gustavus Douce, had been named, with Lumley, joint trustee
to Evelyn's fortune.  They had full powers to invest it in whatever stock
seemed most safe or advantageous.  The trustees appeared well chosen, as
one, being destined to share the fortune, would have the deepest interest
in its security; and the other, from his habits and profession, would be
a most excellent adviser.
Of Mr. Douce, Lord Vargrave had seen but little; they were not thrown
together.  But Lord Vargrave, who thought every rich man might, some time
or other, become a desirable acquaintance, regularly asked him once every
year to dinner; and twice in return he had dined with Mr. Douce, in one
of the most splendid villas, and off some of the most splendid plate it
had ever been his fortune to witness and to envy!--so that the little
favour he was about to ask was but a slight return for Lord Vargrave's
condescension.
He found the banker in his private sanctum, his carriage at the door; for
it was just four o'clock, an hour in which Mr. Douce regularly departed
to Caserta, as his aforesaid villa was somewhat affectedly styled.
Mr. Douce was a small man, a nervous man; he did not seem quite master of
his own limbs: when he bowed he seemed to be making you a present of his
legs; when he sat down, he twitched first on one side, then on the other,
thrust his hands into his pockets, then took them out, and looked at
them, as if in astonishment, then seized upon a pen, by which they were
luckily provided with incessant occupation.  Meanwhile, there was what
might fairly be called a constant play of countenance: first he smiled,
then looked grave; now raised his eyebrows, till they rose like rainbows,
to the horizon of his pale, straw-coloured hair; and next darted them
down, like an avalanche, over the twinkling, restless, fluttering, little
blue eyes, which then became almost invisible.  Mr. Douce had, in fact,
all the appearance of a painfully shy man, which was the more strange, as
he had the reputation of enterprise, and even audacity, in the business