"As a common soldier. I don't know that I'm good for much else."
"But all that is changed now. Or at least you suppose so."
"I suppose nothing of the kind, sir," said the young man, hotly.
"As the master of Heron Dyke, with an income of six thousand a year, you will be a very different personage from a needy young rake, haunting low gaming-tables, and trying to pick up a few guineas at faro from bigger simpletons than yourself."
Gilbert the younger sprang to his feet, his lips white and quivering with passion.
"Sir, you insult me," he said, "and with your permission I will retire."
"Sit down, sir--sit down, I say," cried the elder man, sternly. "Don't imagine that I have done with you yet."
"I have never been a frequenter of low gaming-houses; I have never cheated at cards in my life," said the young man, proudly.
"You would not have been a Denison if you had cheated at cards. But again I tell you to sit down. I have much to say to you."
Gilbert the younger did as he was told, but with something of an ill grace. In his eyes there was a cold, hard look that had not been there before.
"Nephew, if you have not yet disgraced yourself--and I don't believe that you have--you are on the high-road to do so. Has it ever entered your head to think whither such mad doings as yours must inevitably land you?"
"I suppose that other men before me have sown their wild oats," said Gilbert, sulkily. "I have heard it said that you yourself, sir----"
"Never mind me. The question we have now to consider is that of your future. When you are master of Heron Dyke--if you ever do become its master--is it your intention to make ducks and drakes of the old property, as you have made ducks and drakes of the fortune left you by your father?"
"Really, sir, that is a question that has never entered into my thoughts."
"Then it is high time that it did enter them. I said just now 'If you ever do become the master of Heron Dyke.'"
"Is that intended as a threat, sir?" asked Gilbert, a little fiercely.
"Never mind what it is intended as, but listen to me. I presume you are quite aware that it is in my power to leave Heron Dyke to anyone whom I may choose to nominate as my heir--to the greatest stranger in England if I like to do so?"