Free The Tryst (Annotated) (Grace Livingston Hill Book) by Grace Livingston Hill

And he knew just where to get the right tutors. He rubbed his hands together in glee. Already he could see the flaring headlines bearing the name of the young and talented nephew of Calvin Treeves, the multimillionaire! Ah! What a future! He could bear, now, to sit back in a wheeled chair and know that his hour was over, for now he could live again through the career of this young man. It almost seemed as if Calvin Treeves must be a corpse dressed up, save for the weird twitching of lips and brow. The keen little eyes focused eagerly and with satisfaction on the broad shoulders and well-set head of his nephew. He noticed with pride the easy grace of his walk, and his look of being at home anywhere, but his only remark was an impatient: “Well, ready? Let’s move!” and the little procession went forward to the elevator. 
    Treeves marked the obsequiousness of the servants as the old man’s chair rolled through the hall and into the lift like a chariot of state. He saw a look pass into the faces of all who served from the least bellboy to the highest in the house, that look of deference to riches, and his soul rebelled within him as he noted the slight reflection of glory that fell even to his own share because of being in the company of this little old selfish dried-up soul of a man in a withered shell of a body. Again the old wrath boiled within him, and he was almost at the point of turning away from the situation and bolting in disgust. Yet after all there was something pathetic in the smirk of satisfaction that sat upon the waxen lips. This was all the man had, this human adulation. And not for himself, either; the deference was for his riches! What a life to have lived so long, and to have nothing but this at the end I Self incarcerated in that withered old body, shortly to be driven forth into an unknown country where riches of earth count not and deference for such reasons is unknown! 
    Down in the bright world of the hotel dining-room such thoughts quickly fled. Treeves was searching everywhere for a face. He paid little heed to the gaiety about him, and acknowledged the introductions his uncle gave with indifference. He did not expect to meet these people again. They were out of his sphere. They were interesting merely as specimens from another world. His eyes idly appraised a florid mother, her well-groomed head set off by a black velvet band with jeweled slides above her broad expanse of pink enameled chest. Her pallid daughter, with limpid eyes and an anaemic droop, stood beside her. He wondered why she cared to show so much of a long skinny back, and then his eyes hurried through the group of faces just beyond and Adele Quatrain realized that she had not made a hit with the stunning young nephew of the millionaire. 
    “He's got the Treeves manner all right!” said the uncle to himself as he watched the young man with satisfaction. "He won't fall for the first little fool that angles for him, that's certain. He takes the first entrance into his own as if he had been here always. It's not going to be difficult at all to train him. That distant air suits him well. No one would guess he was not to the manner born. His mother couldn't have been so bad after all, and I suppose I shall have to say so to him, for he seems to be quite set on her. After all, she's dead and can't make us any more trouble, so what's the difference. And blood will tell. His father was a Treeves all through, if he did marry a poor country parson's daughter. It isn't as if she hadn't had some education of course. This certainly is going to be a good move. I shall enjoy myself! But what is the young cuss looking at? He hasn't taken his eyes off the main entrance! I swear it's almost as if he was watching for someone! He can't have found any friends here surely! I must keep my eye on him. I won't have him making any undesirable acquaintances!” 
    But although John Treeves watched the main entrance to the great dining-room most carefully,