ST. BASIL'S SEMINARY
TORONTO, CANADA
LIBRARY
GIFT OF
St. Thomas More College Library
THE WORKS OF LEONARD MEKRKK
* THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
The Works of LEONARD MERRIGK
WHILE PARIS LAUGHED.
UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE
CONRAD IN QUEST OF HIS YOUTH.
With an Introduction by SIR J. M. BARRIE.
WHEN LOVE FLIES OUT O' THE
WINDOW. With an Introduction by SIR WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL.
THE QUAINT COMPANIONS. With an Intro-
duction by H. G. WELLS.
THE POSITION OF PEGGY HARPER.
With an Introduction by SIR ARTHUR PINERO.
THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN
and other Stories. With an Introduction by W. J. LOCKE.
THE WORLDLINGS. With an Introduction by NEIL MUNRO.
THE ACTOR-MANAGER. With an Introduction by W. D. HOWELLS.
CYNTHIA. With an Introduction by MAURICE HEWLETT.
ONE MAN'S VIEW. With an Introduction by GRANVILLE BARKER.
THE MAN WHO WAS GOOD. With an Intro- duction by J. K. PROTHERO.
A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD. With an
Introduction by A. NEIL LYONS.
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH. With an Intro- duction by G. K. CHESTERTON.
HODDER & STOUGHTON, Publishers, LONDON.
THE
HOUSE OF LYNCH
BY LEONARD MERRICK
AN INTRODUCTION BV
G.K.CHESTERTON
HODDER&3 STOUGHTON LONDON NEWXDRK TORONTO
OCT] 191
JUN 30 1969
PRINTED IN GRBAC HRITAIW BY
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITRO,
BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.K. I.
AND BUNGAY. SUFFOLK.
INTRODUCTION
MR. LEONARD MERRICK, in most of his books, and as some think in the best of his books, has been concerned with the comedy of Bohemia. He has delighted the world with many tales of that unworldly optimism and that equally un- worldly opportunism. In The House of Lynch, doubtless, he strikes a graver and perhaps even a sterner note. It might be said to touch not the comedy of Bohemia but the tragedy of Bohemia. Or if the issue of the story is too triumphant to be called tragic, the treatment of it can at least be called comparatively realistic. The sincerity of the study can hardly be appreciated properly without some memory of the brilliant carnival of inconsequence associated with his better- known books. For The House of Lynch is, among other things, the study of the real struggle of an artist against real difficulties, which he has defied for a reason that is not fantastic, even if some would call it fanatical. He is one for whom being poor and honest is a fighting paradox and not a faded truism. No book is full of a finer laughter than Conrad in Quest of His Youth ;
vi INTRODUCTION
but it is rather enriched by the irony which reminds us throughout that Conrad had a little too much money. If it could have been called " Conrad in Quest of His Life," in the sense of his livelihood, the story might possibly have been more happy if less humorous. I am, myself, especially attracted by the adventures of the impecunious poet in While Paris Laughed; but Mr. Merrick is too much of an artist to treat in the same way the pugnacious poverty in The House of Lynch. He does not confuse a peasant's toil to get a living with a vagabond's trick to get a lodging. The same simile of a peasant might serve to remind us of the other side of France from that so gracefully sketched in the Montmartre quarter; and the same idle fancy of a shifting of titles might easily imagine Mr. Merrick writing a more realistic romance about the later and darker days of the same great capital, when it defiantly waited its deliverance from the menace of the worst tyranny of the world ; a story that might well have been called " While Paris Watched " or even " While Paris Prayed."
For The House of Lynch also deals with tyranny and deliverance from tyranny; and though that tyranny sprang up in a more sordid environment, it has spread itself with something of the same cosmopolitan power. The House of Lynch is the story of a spirited and self-respecting
INTRODUCTION vii
artist, who refused to profit by the polluted wealth of a base and blatant American million- aire. He insists on marrying the daughter of the millionaire as if she were the daughter of a pauper; and the rest of the story records his own struggle to avoid pauperism and maintain principle. It is here that the graver and more realistic method of Mr. Merrick is appropriately developed. He does not fail to state the real problems that often change and chill the fiery simplicity of such a challenge; especially that double altruism and division of duties which appears in the presence of the child ; and which may have something to do with the tradition which encouraged enthusiasts to be celibates. He never glosses over the fact that such a challenge is desperately hard to maintain; but he never leaves on the reader's mind the least doubt of his conviction that it is worth maintain- ing. The perilous but quite positive poise or balance is very dexterously suggested in the temporary surrender of one of the partners in the adventure, who repents of her virtue and then repents of her evil repentance. There is never any reason to lose sight of the original root of the trouble, the modern tyranny of gold and especially of ill-gotten gold. It would be unreasonable to expect even an American millionaire to have a thousand sons-in-law; but he may well have a thousand dependents; and
viii INTRODUCTION
the modern moral problem undoubtedly is that of turning all those dependents into independents. For such fortunes are in reality exactly what they are here in romance; shameful drugs poisoning private honour, and permanent pesti- lences threatening public health. Excuses are made for them in politics and the press, the same excuses which the stunted and half-witted soul of the little plutocrat makes for them in this story. But the very excuses offered are enough to prove the whole situation to be inexcusable. They have a flat and fourth-rate character which has hardly ever before belonged to the ruling minds of a human society. Ours is perhaps the first generation of men which has allowed itself to be ruled, not merely by men who might have undignified characters, but by men who must have undignified aims. The mere millionaire has already proved his inferior intelligence by seeking what he pretends to have proved his superior intelligence by finding. Military courage or tribal loyalty may be rudi- mentary and barbaric virtues, but they were virtues; it has been left for our own time to allow men to rise to national and international power wholly and solely by their vices, and these only the meaner vices. Hence it follows that a plutocracy, unlike an aristocracy, has not any sad or even sulky legend surrounding its decay and death; for all men feel in their hearts that
INTRODUCTION ix
its death would not be in the least sad. The fall of the House of Lynch would be surrounded by no such tragic portents as the fall of the House of Usher; for we should all feel that it would not be a tragic, but rather an agreeably comic incident. It would only be a business going " bust " ; and as bad a business as there has ever been in this world.
It may be counted very fitting, therefore, that Mr. Leonard Merrick, who has himself always maintained the difficult and disinterested fight for the fine art of writing, among the vulgar and vapid distractions of a commercial civilisation, should have devoted one at least of his novels to a serious sketch of a personal struggle against the commercial power. Those who delight most in the dance of fanciful events in his lighter novels will least regret it, if the spirit of this one is a shade more grave or even more grim. It is always the charge against any entertaining treatment of the ups and downs of the Micawber mode of existence, that it deals less with the downs than with the ups. It is well to have a story in which the downs are taken with dignity and even defiance; and which can thus be said to be realistic but not pessimistic. By com- parison such passages may be sober or even sombre, but they are in no sense sceptical; they do not work to weaken the nerve of will which they analyse. They will suggest another side
x INTRODUCTION
of a literary individuality to which we are grateful for many other causes; and permit us to pay some tribute of personal respect, where we already owe so much of a more impersonal
pleasure.
G. K. CHESTERTON.
CHAPTER I
THOUGH he had resolved to avoid her, he was there after all— they were sitting in the conserva- tory.
" Well, what do you think of a New York dinner dance, Mr. Keith ? " she said. She bore a name that stank in the nostrils of the world ; her father was the devastating Trust magnate, the debaucher of politics, the infamous multi-millionaire — Jordan B. Lynch.
" Mrs. Waldehast is giving me a novel ex- perience— one more."
" Is it so different from what you call ' small- and-earlies ' in England ? "
" I haven't been to many ; I'm not a Society personage, Miss Lynch."
" Artists don't think much of Society, do they ? "
" Some think of it more than they do of art. I don't mean your artists here, of course — I don't know enough about them — I mean our swells at home."
" I've never grasped the distinction between your * swells ' and our ' smart set '—I'm not sure if I know what a swell is."
2 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" Well, I'm probably the only person you know who isn't one."
" Mr. Keith," exclaimed the girl, " why will you always address me as if we were residing in different planets? "
" Merely because we are. Mrs. Waldehast has been wonderfully nice to me ; but this is the only smart house I have been to in New York, and I should never have met you at any mutual friend's in London." He hesitated, and then, as she gave no sign of understanding him, went on, " It's quite as caddish to harp on one's pecuniary draw- backs as on one's pecuniary advantages, but you may have gathered by this time that— er— that I —that "
" I have ' gathered,' " she smiled.
"Thank you," said Keith; "I might have known your intelligence couldn't fail."
44 Well ? "
"That's all. Excepting that I'm afraid I have not always addressed you quite as you say. You see you come here a great deal, and so do I, and I've almost forgotten things in moments."
" Well, forget them now, please. Do you know I think you're horrid— I ask you to talk, and you just speak ! "
" You're very kind. What do you ask me to talk about ? "
"Well, what did you talk about to your friends?"
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 3
He laughed. " Oh, on the planet that I mustn't remember, we talk about our difficulties, when we aren't romancing about our prices. To you, Miss Lynch, we should talk Greek. The dominant adjective is ' hard up.' "
" But you have some good times ? "
" Oh yes. At our swaggerest functions — those given by fellows who have more than one room — men even bring their wives. And the wives bring the babies, and put them to sleep on the host's bed. They don't keep a nurse, and they couldn't leave the babies behind alone. Some of the Greek?"
She denied it radiantly : " No, that is rather humorous."
" Y-e-s ; I'm told the humour soon wears thin."
" Well, I'm very glad that Dardy saw that picture of yours when she was in London — she's enthusiastic about your portrait of her ! So am I ; it's splendid. You know, she wondered whether you'd come over when Mr. Waldehast wrote — she didn't know but what it was a lot to ask."
" It's a very usual thing to ask. And it isn't always as complimentary as we want to think; a woman often sees a half-length somewhere, and sends the man a commission, because she appreciated— his model. Lots of our men come over to paint people they have never seen. It's rather a nervous journey."
4 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" Why, yes, I suppose so — the people may be perfectly hideous. You must have been glad to see Dardy ? "
" I was. The best thing to be said of portrait painting, as a rule, is that it's the only education anybody is paid to take — it teaches you to search for individuality. A portrait isn't made by paint- ing features— you have to paint the character behind them."
" Not everyone would say ' thank you * for that," she remarked.
" Quite so— and not everyone would be satisfied with my portrait of him. But it doesn't matter, because I don't want to paint portraits. It's awful work ! A portrait painter, nine times out of ten, has to choose between being an artist and a courtier."
" I think you'd be very unwise to talk like that," she said sharply ; "it's bad business ! I've told you so before."
" Yes, I know." He flushed. " I suppose I'm not a business man. It was stupid of me to say it."
"No, you're not to think that; you'll take that back, please. It's how I want you to talk, to me — as you really feel ! But I do caution you against talking like it to other people. You ought to make a lot of money in New York if you're smart."
" Oh, I shouldn't have declined any commissions
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 5
just now — in fact, I've stayed on here in the hope of getting some."
" You did decline one," she said; " I asked you to paint me, and you made excuses. Was that the reason— you thought Fd want you to be a courtier ? "
" I think I begged you to let me paint you, didn't I ? I was very eager to."
" You offered to make a sketch of me as a gift — that wasn't what I wanted. Anyhow, whether you hate portraits or not, you ought to pretend to gush about them. Dardy's picture should do you good here if you take the right tone. You know, Mr. Keith, I'm ages older than you."
"Yes. I'm thirty- three ; I suppose you're twenty."
" It's sweet of you, but I'm more. And I
didn't mean in years, I meant in Well,
you know what I meant. Do you think I'm horribly worldly, Mr. Keith ? "
" Am I meant to tell you the truth ? "
" Sure ! I can suffer."
4 Then you've amazed me, in moments, by your unworldliness. That was what interested me —you were so unlike what I thought you would be."
" What was that ? "
" I thought what a fraud it was that you had such a— such a— I'm bound to be blatant— such a beautiful face, for I didn't for an instant suppose that you would have a beautiful mind."
6 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
u You are different from the others," she murmured. " And don't you think it a fraud any more ? "
" No."
" Do go ahead ! "
" I only think it a pity that your life doesn't give a chance to your soul."
Her eyes were attentive, puzzled. " Religion ? " she hazarded.
" The religion of 6 one who loves his fellow- men.' I think that everybody ought to do all he can for humanity. Of course the influence of most of us doesn't show outside our homes, but wealth is a wide power, and art is a wide power— the painter speaks in every language — I don't think one is entitled to fritter away either one's wealth or one's art." His voice gained courage. " You just lectured me for saying I didn't want to go on with portraits; I don't want to go on with them, because I hope and pray that it's in me to paint something that will say more."
" You told me the other day you were ' de- lighted ' when you got Mr. Waldehast's letter ? "
" I was delighted because the commission was a valuable one. And I've done my best to deserve it ; I put in as much work as Mrs. Walde- hast would allow — and a good deal more than would have been discreet if she weren't a very patient woman, or at least a very amiable one. But a portrait's interest is generally limited to
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 7
the domestic circle and to other artists. Technique alone never made a great work of art. The goal of art is the soul of the world — the highest art illumines a more inspiring truth than the character of Mr. So-and-so."
" What kind of pictures do you do ? "
" I like the symbolic school best, but any subject that uplifts is a great one."
" Supposing they don't pay so well as Mr. So- and-so ? That's possible, isn't it ? "
" It's much more than possible; but my chief aim isn't to make money. The point is, that whatever advantages anyone may have ought to be directed to the noblest ends. It doesn't matter what one's medium is — whether one is a painter, or a priest, or a statesman, or a private citizen — one ought to put forth one's best for the benefit of one's country. That's one's duty to one's country. It's possible also that I may prove to have nothing but the ideal, that the force mayn't be there. I daresay I sounded vain — you wouldn't think me vain if you knew how frightfully I distrust myself; I often think that anybody on earth could paint as well as I do if he took as much pains. I've no facility ; other men can knock things off in a day that take me a week. I may fail — and I shall be wretched, because I know that, with me, it's art first and patriotism afterwards; but I shall have been a good Englishman for all that. And I'd rather fail
8 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
by being true to my conscience than make a popular success by being false. Am I a bore ? "
" No, but I haven't climbed up there yet."
44 I'm grateful you didn't pretend that you had. It's where most people either lie or laugh."
She frowned. " Do you confide in most people?"
44 1 never confided in any other woman in my life— and in very few men."
44 Oh," her glance approved; " I'll get there in time ! You shall talk to me about it again."
44 I'm afraid I shan't have the chance; I was going to tell you — I'm going back sooner than I intended."
44 Why ? " It was uttered a second late, but the tone was faultless.
44 1 think it would be as well."
" Surely New York is the place for you to be in just now ? "
44 1 think on the whole it would be as well to go back," he said.
44 I'm sorry you have to go."
44 Thank you," said Keith in his throat. " I'm very sorry, but I must. I shall often think of my trip to America."
After the least pause, she said reproachfully, " 1 hope the prospect is a very brilliant one ? Of course if your business is so urgent, you can't be expected to neglect it for the sake of your friends."
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 9
" I'm not leaving for business reasons," he acknowledged.
" Is there someone in England who's so sweet that you can't bear to be away from her ? "
" I think that you know there isn't."
Her head was bent; she tapped time with her fan to the waltz of " Sammy " in the ballroom.
" If you aren't running after a girl, I guess you must be running away from one? . . . Isn't that weak?"
" No — necessary. It's quite impossible that I could ever marry that girl, and I've got to reconcile myself to the fact; I should never reconcile myself to it while I went on seeing her. I can't afford to feel as I've been feeling lately — I've got my work to think about. So the sooner I go the better. I'm not sacrificing any chance by going — don't imagine that ! — no frenzied admirers of my work will miss me."
" Perhaps the girl will miss you, though," sug- gested Miss Lynch.
"I haven't the conceit to think so; I don't want to think so."
The pearls and lilies on her breast rose faster. " If I were you I would ! "
" It's out of the question for me to propose to her, or to say that I care for her," he insisted thickly.
" If she likes you, she won't think it out of the question. . . . Aren't you going to tell me who it is you're running away from ? "
10 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
He didn't speak. His mouth was set hard.
"Is it me ? " she whispered.
" Yes."
She raised her head and looked at him. There was nearly a line of " Sammy " before her voice came :
" Mr. Keith, I have been called the ' proudest girl in New York,' but I'm going to say an im- modest thing right here." The lips trembled, and he saw the throbbing of her throat. " I want you to ask me to be your wife."
He grabbed both her hands and bowed his face on them. " I can't ! " he said.
" You've got to." She smiled victoriously. " Betty Lynch doesn't let her millions spoil her happiness."
" You don't understand. I can't, it's impos- sible ! "
" You're not— married ? "
" Married ? No ! But I couldn't give you a home that you'd live in."
" And I don't let your foolishness spoil my happi- ness either — that's just why I said what I did. We need not be anxious about the home."
" I couldn't stand that, I wouldn't do it ! "
" I fear I have proposed to you," she mur- mured, dimpling. " It would be too bad if I were refused."
" Oh, my dear," said Keith desperately, " I honour and adore you for what you said. I'd
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 11
give twenty years of my life to marry you. But I can't. To begin with, your father would, of course, forbid the engagement."
" My father would never forbid me anything."
" Then he would give you a million or so, and I should be asked to share it. And I couldn't."
She drew her hands free. " Do you mean," she said coldly, " that you would rather give me up than swallow your pride ? / swallowed some for you just now."
" It isn't a question of ' pride ' ; I'd put pride in the gutter for you."
"What else is it? It isn't love. I don't admire it. It's talking like a man in a book."
" Don't ! " stammered Keith. " If you knew what I'm feeling ! "
" I think I do know— you feel more esteem for yourself than for me. No man who was really fond of a girl would consent to lose her because she had more money than he had. Not if she were as rich as I, and he were as poor as a tramp ! No, human nature doesn't do those things. If he were without a meal, if he hadn't a cent in his pocket or shoes to his feet, and she said what I have said to you, he would try his best to marry her if he loved her. It would be his duty, and her due."
" And so would I," gasped Keith, " if that were all ! "
44 If it were ' all' ? " Her startled eyes widened
12 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
at him pitiably, she turned dead- white. " Oh ! you mean you . . . don't approve of my father's methods? You mean you would think it . . . a disgrace ? "
" For Heaven's sake ! I couldn't live on his money, leave it at that ! I can't talk about it. But I love you, I love you, Betty."
" Love ? You have thrown my father's reputa- tion in my face, you have told me I am too dis- honest for you."
" You ? You ? Oh, my darling— the money, not you ! "
"It is the money that keeps me," she said painfully. " Oh, I know what they say about the Trust ! — I read. I hear of the people ruined, and the broken homes, and— and it doesn't make me feel good when I think about it. But I spend such a lot. It is the money that buys my frocks, and candy, and flowers; it is the money that pays for the food I eat and the house I live in. If you care for me as you wish me to believe, and yet would rather lose me than let my father make us happy, then you are telling me the money is so shameful that I am a thief to take it."
" I tell you I adore you. I want you as I never wanted anything else on earth. I don't re- proach you, I don't, I don't ! You were brought up to take it, and — and, besides, what else could you have done? But Tm different — I'm used to roughing it, and I've got my work— and if I were
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 13
weak enough to profit by a tyranny that has horrified and revolted me ever since I understood what it meant, I should be a cur, and our ' happi- ness ' would be no happiness, it would be hell."
Miss Lynch rose haughtily. " I had thought that to say to any man what / have said must be as great a humiliation as a girl could know; my affront to myself is bearable compared with the indignities I have suffered from you."
" Betty," he cried, " my whole income in a lucky year hasn't been half of what you spent on the candy and flowers ; but I'm getting on, I'll do better for you one day if you'll only be patient, and I love you, I love you, you might wipe your boots on my heart ! You may think me a mad- man for asking, but I'd worship you — will you marry me on what I've got ? "
" Mr. Keith, you will please take me back to the room," she said.
CHAPTER II
IN his palace in Fifth Avenue, in his splendid study lined with books, none of which he had ever read, an old man sat awaiting Betty's return from the dance. This was Jordan B. Lynch. He had struggled as " Bill Lynch." Towards middle age he had adopted the " Jordan " and curtailed the " Bill."
He bent smoking moodily over the fire. It was nearly midnight, and a desk in the room was heaped with the letters that had come to his private address during the day. There were desperate letters from men whom the Trust and its radiating forces had broken; frantic entreaties from desti- tute women and girls whose husbands, or fathers, or brothers his operations had decoyed to disgrace or death ; indictments from philanthropists, warn- ings from clergymen, who threatened his rapacity with Heaven's wrath. Lynch, however, had not opened any of the letters, nor would any of them be laid before him.
At the beginning such things had disturbed him. Later they had angered him. It was the law of nature for the weak to suffer ; why abuse him for
14
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 15
it? he demanded. Finally, they had come to minister to his pride. These daily budgets of appeals for mercy, these admonitions overflowing the waste-baskets were an emblem of his con- quest ; they testified to the triumph of his career, more than his magnificent library that had no literary interest for him, and his famous pictures that he never looked at. As a burden on indigent parents in the Black Country, he had been a wage- earner as a child; as an emigrant he had been tortured by the sight of small chances that he was too poor to seize. He had hoarded, scraped, stinted his stomach for years — and been robbed of his first five hundred dollars. He had rinsed glasses behind a bar on a Mississippi steamer, had wrung a bare living from the earth in California; had planned, climbed, fallen ; set his teeth and sweated ; climbed again ; prospected, speculated, taken, with undaunted eyes, the risk of being dashed to the bottom once more. And, by the grace of grit, he was Jordan B. Lynch, who had the world by its throat — and the world might squeak !
Poverty prolonged— grim, gaunt, grinding pov- erty— brutalises. Of all the cant acclaimed, none is rottener than the pretence that poverty ennobles character.
But to-night, as he bent smoking over the fire, the weazen old man was not thinking of his conquest, he was thinking of his children.
He had been fifty when he married, already a
16 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
menace to two continents; and when a son came, the piratical financier who hewed his road through the misfortunes of a multitude had taken an innocent delight in providing for his boy a plenitude of the pleasures that he himself had missed. It was the father's caprice, not the mother's, that converted a spacious nursery into a range of mountains, on which bears, formidable in real bearskin, roamed as large as life after one turned keys in them. Jordan B. Lynch's little heir, with a pop-gun, was entertained for an hour by trying to hit them before their clockwork ran down. Of course there were other nurseries. One of them contained a domesticated diving-bell, descending to an aquarium, where, on a floor of sea-shells and coral reefs, a mermaid sang, with a gramophone inside her.
The child had been bored very young, but to the man the view of such follies had yielded a permanent satisfaction — his own bitter childhood, which he had always remembered with resent- ment, ceased to chafe him like a bad debt. The advent of a daughter had been a disappointment, for he had wanted another son; but after the death of his wife it was Betty who became the dearer child. At first she charmed him more because she resembled her mother; it gratified him that his girl looked of gentle birth. Howard's features were rough-cast, like his own. Later she was his favourite because she showed him the
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 17
more affection. To his daughter his profusion was ever more ebullient than to his son.
Yet he never said " no " to the boy. His children must have everything — the luxury, the education, the fun that had been withheld from him ! Even because his own youth had been so sordid, he found a covert fascination in their extravagance. When he saw the bills, he smiled wryly, recalling the ferocity of life to himself at their age. The secretaries who corrected his English had been much diverted to see the financial leader engrossed by the lad's first dress suit; Lynch was reflecting that the first dress suit that he himself had put on had been ordered when he was forty.
In his commercial aspect, corrupt and ruthless, he was a tender father ; and a genius in finance, he lacked foresight in his home. He had lived to deplore his indulgence of Howard, with the quintessence of remorse which many, who are untroubled by a sin, may suffer for a stupidity. The drollery of having a man of fashion for a son had long ceased to tickle the old adventurer. The denseness of Lynch junior to the financial alphabet was a prank of nature's — neither of them was to be blamed for that, continuously galling as the senior found it ; the uppishness might pass ; the blank deficiency of purpose might have permitted optimism in a parent. But Lynch had docketed his son " worthless " when he realised
18 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
that the young man dissipated without zest; a profligacy of vehemence would have left hope of reform, a profligacy of lassitude left none.
He had made no illusions for himself — the crowd who justly reviled him would have been glad to read his thoughts — his only son was a failure ! But there had remained Betty — Betty, whose Fifth Avenue tone was the only music he ap- preciated— his girl, who wore her frocks like a real aristocrat ! The surviving ambitions of his father- hood were absorbed by her. He had hoped to see her bearing a great name, had dreamed of it. He would give her to no illustrious pauper who meant to scatter her millions and neglect her ; she should choose a noble who was rich already, one who would love her honestly, and whom she'd love. He had imagined the ancestral home, the crest on her carriage, a score of childish details that were sweet to picture because they meant the exaltation of Betty. And now Betty had as good as told him she was fond of some artist !
The street bell sounded, and Lynch opened the study door, in the thought that the girl had returned; but it was Howard who had rung, having forgotten his latchkey.
" Hello," he said languidly, seeing Lynch still up, " you're late ! "
" Hello," said Lynch, " you're early ! "
It was the first time they had met that day.
" I know; why haven't you gone to bed? "
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 19
" I'm waiting for Betty."
" Where's she gone ? "
" The Waldehasts'. She expected you to take her."
"Me? I never said I'd go, did I?" He lounged into the room, and lit a cigarette. Though he took infinite pains in dressing himself, he did no credit to his tailor; and the fashion which ordained that his sandy hair should be parted in the centre and plastered behind his projecting ears was not becoming to him. " What's the news ? "
" W-e-11, there is the news of your c pastoral dinner ' last night," snarled Lynch.
"Oh?" He put his hands in his trouser- pockets and smiled impudently over his father's head.
"I see that the restaurant was ' converted into a meadow.' 3
" The likeness wasn't very faithful, but that was the notion," drawled the young man.
" The Herald says ' a rivulet of champagne sparkled between banks of orchids.' "
" I hope The Day was just as picturesque. I never read it, but I have a filial interest in its circulation."
" You're very humorous," said Lynch, " very Harvardy and brilliant ! Is it indispensable at dinner in your set for the ladies to ' pick diamonds from a strawberry bed, as souvenirs ' ? "
" No. That was an innovation of my own.5'
20 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" It was a great scheme."
" So I thought. They did scramble ! I saw all the frenzy of a bargain-sale without being damaged by the crush."
" You might have done so if you had been earning ten dollars a week behind a counter ! " said his father acridly.
"Ah," Howard looked disconcerted; "your repartee — if I may mention it, sir — is vulgar."
He mixed a generous highball and there was a long silence. Lynch blinked at the fire, mourn- ing mistakes.
Warmed by the whisky, Howard grew facetious. " Brace up ! " he murmured. " I haven't broken you."
" You have not broken me — financially."
" What ? ... Oh, parentally ! Don't be senti- mental, governor; it doesn't suit you. Take it easy. If you knew how deadly dull life is, you wouldn't call me down for trying to get a gleam of fun. Anyhow, I see you gave half a million to the Nixonville Institute this week ; if you can afford Institutes, you can spare me a dinner."
" My charities do good — to me ; they are policy."
" Well, it does you good that I make a few debts. If I spend it while you scoop it in, people won't have so much to howl about. That's policy too ! You don't do my brains justice, you know. My schemes are subtle; you want to think 'em out. You ought to charge the dinner to your charity
:
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 21
account ! " He giggled. " I take Roosevelt's point of view; he doesn't approve of fortunes * swollen beyond healthy limits.' Nor do I — I'm doing my best to cope with a national evil."
He emptied his glass, and sauntered towards the door with a nod. " Good-night."
" Good-night," grunted Lynch. He hesitated. " Say, Howard ! D'ye know anything of that fellow Keith ? "
" Keith ? "
"That artist that Betty asked to the house? He was unable to come, but I have heard her speak about him."
" Oh ! No; I've only seen him once. I don't meet him— he's nothing, he's an artist, he's staying in a boarding-house."
"Is that so?"
" He mentioned it himself at the Waldehasts'; didn't seem ashamed of it, either — doesn't 6 know,' I suppose. Why ? "
" Well, Betty is interested in him. I wondered why she had asked him home, and I taxed her with it."
" What ? Do you mean she Oh, rats !
She may have flirted with him— he's all right to look at, except for his clothes; she wouldn't understand about them."
" Well— I guess you're right," said Lynch, seeing that there was nothing to be learnt. " Good- night."
22 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
It was a long while before Betty came in. As she crossed the room she was almost as pale as she had been when Keith's meaning broke upon her; the look in her eyes puzzled the old man. But his tone was innocent.
" Well ? Had a good time, poppet ? "
" I'm very tired, father," she said in a strained voice. " I'm going straight upstairs."
" I have been saving my last cigar to smoke with you. Can't you spare me five minutes ? "
She stood by the mantelpiece, a hand clenched on the marble : "I have nothing to say to- night."
" Howard claims that he never promised to take you — he came in a while ago."
"Oh?"
" Anybody there ? Your friend was there, I guess? "
She nodded, with her mouth squeezed.
He got up, and touched her.
" He was there, and wejtalked, and I asked him to marry me ! " said the girl in an outburst. And she slid crookedly into^a chair and sobbed as if she would break a blood-vessel, with her face laid on the arm.
Lynch himself was^scarcely less moved. Her words dismissed his last hope. The highest ex- pectation of his life had "collapsed.
' W-e-11," he said, " I guess the Queen may do these things. Don'Qbreakfup like that, poppet;
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 23
you've nothing to blush for— he couldn't ask you, that's certain. I ain't going to raise Cain, you know; if you want to marry him, you've just got to marry him, there's no doubt about it. So dry your eyes, and sit round, and I'll light that cigar — see ? "
" I am not going to marry him," she answered, raising herself.
The old man stared at her speechlessly. " What ? " he said at last.
" He— he made conditions."
" How's that ? he ' made conditions ' ? You offered to marry him, and he c made conditions ' ? "
" He said I must marry him on what he had got; that he wouldn't take anything from you, not a cent ! "
" Is that all ? " said Lynch, on a laugh. 44 Don't you fret your eyes red about that ! ''
" It's real, he means it. He thinks our money's tainted, he said it ' revolted ' him, he said he would rather lose me than touch it. Oh, I am ashamed ! He degraded me ! I sat there feeling like a thief. You don't know what it was ! I loved him, and I couldn't look him in the face — I couldn't defend my own father. Oh, if I could have changed places with any decent girl in New York, I might have been so happy to- night ! "
" Honey ! " he pleaded, trembling over her. " My honey, baby— don't ! "
24 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" Is it so bad as they say ? Tell me. I've been a coward, I haven't talked, but I'm not blind— you must know I know. I've got to understand now, I've got to know just what I am !"
" You're one of the wealthiest girls in the world," he faltered. " Is that good enough ? "
" No ! There's not a girl clerking in this city who has been degraded as your daughter was to- night. I've got to know just what I am, I've got to know if he was justified."
" Betty," said Lynch, " it is mainly for you I am working — I am not piling up millions for Howard to squander them when I go. You know I have aimed at seeing you an English duchess — I have sometimes even — er — knuckled under, in view of my ambitions for you. Don't ask me if I have justified a man in insulting you."
*' I don't want the millions if they bring me contempt — I'm a woman, and I loved him, and I want the right to tell him that he lied ! ':
" Well, of course, of course he lied," said Lynch soothingly. "He doesn't know; you say he is an artist — what knowledge has he of finance? I guess he has read a leader in The Flag and been stuffed ; why doesn't he read The Day! See here, there's not a business going, however small it may be, that hasn't got its smaller enemies : the greenhorn that has opened a little dry-goods store in a village is cursed by
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 25
the pedlar, who don't need to come around there any more; the pedlar says the greenhorn is a ' monopolist, crushing competition.' Even the pedlar is attacked — there is another pedlar in the same district, who growls that the first fellow's pack is too big. Through all com- mercial and industrial enterprise, poppet, it is the same thing; but the larger the pack, the louder the growl."
"It sounds all right," she admitted weakly; " but then, I want to believe it ! "
" You've just got to believe it. Don't you go looking for trouble. In this life it's every man for himself, and the only man who pretends different is the one who's so weak-kneed that he wants somebody else to shove him along. The * wicked monopolist ' don't monopolise selfish- ness. See those letters on the desk ! I haven't touched them — I don't hire secretaries in order to pass my day reading what don't concern me — but there are two things I can tell you about them right here. They're all begging letters from strangers, who recognise that if I gave to all the beggars who write me, I'd be selling bananas on the street ; and every stranger has marked his letter ' private,' to get an advantage over the other strangers."
" Some of them may be deserving, for all that," she said.
6 Have I time to sort them ? Can I neglect
26 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
business while I convert myself into an investiga- tion bureau? I do all the good I can, without being unjust to myself and my children. I made a gift of half a million to the Nixonville Institute only this week. My charities are very numerous, and they are my joy as well as my duty. Had your Mr. Keith any comments to make on my charities? "
She stirred in the chair restlessly : " No."
" You're going to tell me just what he said ; I don't allow you to be insulted."
" He said — well, it was I who said it first : I saw what he meant when he said that he couldn't marry me. But he acknowledged that was his reason. He said he wouldn't talk about it. He said he thought the Trust revolting, that if he lived on money from — from a source he con- demned, he would be a 6 cur.9 He wanted me to marry him on what he has."
" What's that ? "
She gave a shrug. " Not much."
" Is that all he said ? "
" I think that's all."
" Well, forget about him ! Have a good time. I'll send you to Europe with Howard—the London season '11 be starting soon — I'll come over myself and fix up that presentation at Court for you. There's nothing smashed. In a year you'll wonder what you saw in him and why you were so wretched."
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 27
" I have never imagined I cared seriously for anyone before," she said. " It's very easy to be cynical about other people's sorrows."
" As you go through life, poppet, you'll get experience of a bitterer cynic than me, or any other man. That's Time ! W-e-11, you know I wasn't set on your marrying him, and I am a long way from it to-night, but if you've made your mind up, go ahead ! Don't worry yourself over trifles ; it would not be a difficult transaction to persuade a man to take an income for nothing, plus the girl he loves."
" I wouldn't marry him now if he went on his knees to me ! " she said vehemently. " Besides, he meant it, I tell you, he meant every word."
" I have met cranks already, but I have never met one yet who wasn't amenable to reason through his pocket."
" You don't know him ! " There was a little unconscious pride in her voice.
46 No, but I know human nature. . . . See here, when I made your mother's acquaintance, she hadn't a notion who I was — I had gone South incog. The rumpus had begun even then; there was some of the poppycock talked in those days that there is now. Her father had very high prin- ciples, and nothing else — he had been crippled by the War; the twenty thousand that he left to you was all locked up in sugar at that time. He spoke to me about the c millionaire Lynch and
28 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
his methods ' as he might have spoken about the devil and all his works. But your mother was very sweet; I liked her. So one day I said to him, ' Pm Lynch — and I want to marry your daughter.' W-e-11, he adopted another view of my methods ! ... If you ask me to do so, I will smoke a cigar with Mr. Keith, and he will see that his judgment was erroneous."
" If I ' ask you to do so ' ? " she said. " If you were to send for him, I could never lift my head again ! I'll never speak another word to him as long as I live— it doesn't matter whether I forget or not." She got up, and righted her hair with a pretence of composure before a mirror. " Don't you think we've stayed here late enough talking about Mr. Keith ? "
CHAPTER III
AFTER he left the dance, Richard Keith walked miles blindly. A few hours earlier he had meant to leave her, had been almost resigned to leaving her, but in the interval the unforeseen had happened : she had said she cared for him, and he had insulted her — and she was much dearer to him than she had been a few hours earlier. Before the dance he had thought that there could be nothing more impossible than for him to ask Miss Lynch to marry him. But he had asked her; and now, in spite of her repulse and his distress of mind— in spite of common sense itself — the hope persisted.
He tried to view the marriage with her eyes, and shrank aghast from the magnitude of her sacrifice. Yet he prayed that she would make it. He wanted it not only for his sake ; because he loved her he wanted it for hers. " I know about the people ruined, and the broken homes ! " The words had been hideous on her lips. Yes, she knew ! Not the whole, not a tithe, she did not see the suicides' blood or their daughters' helplessness— the victims' cries did not pierce the music in the mansions; from her carriage
29
30 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
window she could not read the histories of Magdalens in the street. But vaguely she knew —and he hungered for her to be worthier, he yearned for her to be as noble as she looked.
Alternately he wondered if he was insane to dream of her consenting, and if he would be justified in pleading to her. Could she be happy as his wife ? Her sacrifice would not abate the suffering — if her shame satisfied her, perhaps his appeal would be grossly selfish? But he could not think it would be selfish after what she had owned. Though in her presence he felt a pauper, he was indeed a rising man — she would not starve in his arms. The last two years had brought recognition and a banking account. A balance of a few hundred pounds and Mr. Waldehast's cheque for fifteen hundred dollars represented a stately monument on the road of his life.
His father had been a clergyman because the Church had called to him, not because there was a living in the family; indeed, expedience had pointed in another direction. A painfully inadequate stipend had been eked out by a slender private income. The widow had in- vested the principal in a bubble company, and found herself penniless while the boy was at a student hotel in Montparnasse. He had been wrenched from Montparnasse to enter an office in East India Avenue, where her brother-in-law
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generously paid him more than his services were worth, and ungenerously reminded him of it. From the time Keith was nineteen until his mother died he had been breadwinner for them both, and simulated cheerfulness. If the clerk wept for the art student, he wore no mourning for him, nor did he doubt that he would reach his mistress at the end. The journey would be longer and rougher, that was all ! The widow heard no murmurs. He was an automaton by day and an enthusiast by night; the cipher in the city office laboured like a hero in the Clapham lodgings. And of course the lady thought it a pity : " He would get a much better position with his uncle if he only took more interest in the business — she was speaking for his own good ! "
But the inner voice was stronger. He had drawn before he could spell, drawn on his slate, on the walls of his nursery— and been punished for it — drawn on the backs of his father's ser- mons— drawn, as many children lie, because it was an imperative and unreasoning instinct. It had been instinct that riveted him before the Turner water-colours one day when " art " was an unknown name, when he knew only that each separate piece of paper seemed to have caught all the light and loveliness of the world. His mother had run into the National Gallery with him, during a visit to London, for
32 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
shelter from the rain, and the child understood that she thought him a little noodle when she saw his eyes. The clerk understood that she thought him a fool when she saw him paint. To the average mind there is nothing sillier than genius before it is renowned. Afterwards, the renown is admired.
At her death the office had been abandoned that he might have more time to study. His abject poverty had not been sufficiently pro- longed to dull his ideals, but he had often been dinnerless and even homeless, and for years the income from his art had not equalled the salary from his clerkship. To-day, if he had not been in love with the daughter of a millionaire, he would have been elated by his pecuniary posi- tion; four to five hundred a year was conspicu- ous, for his age. Besides, he hoped that his prices would improve much more. Although the man was too truly an artist to seek popular success at the cost of doing inferior work, he was too truly an artist to be indifferent to wealth. Wealth is the master-key to beauty— to travel in beautiful places, to the collection of beautiful things. Keith desired riches ardently, though he put his conscience first.
No, wild it might be to aspire to marry her, but not selfish, he thought, for she cared for him. Since it was for him she cared, he naturally over-estimated the importance of her caring.
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 33
Lightly as a man thinks of a girl's tenderness for any other man, he is apt to think it an im- perishable influence in her life if her tenderness is for himself. Brown and Jones are always secretly amused at Robinson's fear that Miss Green will break her heart if he has to give her up : " Dear old chap, Robinson, one of the best, but his idea that he is an object of profound devotion is rather comic." But Brown and Jones similarly exaggerate the feelings that they have inspired in the Misses Pink and White. It is not vanity, it is faith; the desirable lover accepts the girl's own view of her emotions — and the girl who doesn't imagine her love to be lifelong is not worth marrying.
It was daybreak when Richard Keith re- entered the boarding-house to which he had fled dismayed after a few weeks' experience of hotel terms; and a letter from him was brought to Betty when she woke — a long, remorseful, futile tetter. It said everything but what she wanted to hear — that he withdrew his objection.
To most people it is fatally easy to feel con- vinced of what they wish to believe. Lynch's daughter wished to believe that her wealth was honest. Though Keith was by no means essential to her happiness, she fancied that he was, and a sentimental illusion may create quite as much ferment as an heroic love; she was suffering violently, and it would have been horrible
34 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
to her to think that this hurricane of hopeless- ness sprang from her attachment to an infamous fortune. It was far nicer to believe that her father was traduced by the world and that Keith was wantonly unreasonable.
She pitied herself passionately. Never in her frivolous life before had she wanted anything so much, and never until now had anything been denied to her. Because it was denied, she wanted it more vehemently still.
She sent no answer to his letter. The impulse to assuage her pain by mortifying him with a few hurtful lines was very strong, but she felt that silence became her better; and the thought that, on the whole, it would mortify him even more, enabled her to resist the temptation.
Nor did she go to the Waldehasts' during the next few days, ardently as she desired to hear about him; so Keith contrived to see her only when she was driving — when he could not be certain whether he was ignored, or only over- looked. However, she wrote asking Mrs. Waldehast to go to her. They had been friends since their schooldays, and Dardy Waldehast rustled in upon her promptly.
" Now, I'm just dying with curiosity," she said, " so you've got to tell me everything ! "
" I don't know what you mean," said Betty.
" I've been trying to pump Keith, but I can't get anything out of him."
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 35
" Mr. Keith ? " Her tone implied that the reference to him was irrelevant. " Oh, he hasn't sailed then? I thought he was leaving New York?"
" He is very much in New York at present — he has been living in my rocker, waiting for you to come in."
" Did he say so ? "
" Not in words. What's the trouble with him, Betty ? I thought you meant it ? "
"So I did mean it; you know very well I meant it ! Dardy, I'm miserable ; he has treated me abominably. He says— he says he wouldn't take a cent with me ! What do you think of that ? "
Dardy Waldehast's eyes widened. " You don't mean to say that's what you're worrying about ? " she asked. " That sort of thing looks very pretty, but it doesn't wash. He couldn't help it, even if he wanted to ; you know that very well— he hasn't got anything."
" He insists that we should live on what he has got, anyhow. If you think he's trying to fool me, we can't talk. I have refused him; I am never going to see him any more."
"But, you silly girl! he had to say it; he couldn't have proposed to you if he hadn't said it. I don't know where your wits have gone, really ! "
" You don't understand. He won't take it because he's a crank; he thinks the Trust is
36 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
wicked. Oh, he made his reasons perfectly plain— my feelings were of no consequence ! Of course he doesn't know anything about it- he has probably been misled by an Editorial in The Flag. He says he wouldn't touch our money. He wants me to do without it, and ' give my soul a chance ' — he's strong on my soul, my food doesn't matter ! He expects me to sacrifice all my comfort to his crazy notions. I never heard anything so selfish in my life."
" Well, I should say ! " exclaimed Mrs. Walde- hast. " Is that so ? And I've been feeling real bad for him, feeding him up with tea and candy. . . . Does it weigh much, Bet? "
" Yes; I never liked a man that way before. I'd have done anything for him — and he treats me like this ! I suppose it's life— as soon as a girl cares for a man really, he makes her suffer. They're only fit to be flirted with and made game of. I'd rather have married him than all the dukes in the peerage— and he doesn't mind if I don't have enough to eat ! "
"Have you told your father?"
' Yes. Of course he doesn't want me to marry him, but he'd let me— I might have had a heavenly life if it hadn't been for him ! My father offered to talk to him, but I can't permit that— making myself so cheap. Besides, it wouldn't do any good. He wants me to go to Europe with Howard."
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 37
" Who— your father does? Are you going? "
" What's the use of that ? I'll never get over it as long as I live— in Europe or anywhere else. It has broken my heart, I could cry my eyes out." Her voice quivered. " What shall I do, Dardy ? I'm so fond of him. 'Tisn't as if he were silly all through; it's only just this one point — he's as sensible as anybody else about most things."
" I wish I hadn't had him at the house so much."
" Oh, it's my own fault — I saw where I was going; I could have pulled up in time if I had wanted to. Now it's too late ! I'll never care for another man as I cared for him. I feel — I feel about him just the way we used to talk before we put our hair up, Dardy."
Mrs. Waldehast nodded. " Still, of course, that wouldn't last, anyhow," she said. " Even if you marry your romance, you lose it— I mean, your husband's quite different from the fellow you used to gaze at the moon about."
" I expect he's more like it than the other fellows, all the same."
" I don't know; Hal's all right, and I'm quite happy with him, but I do sometimes wonder what became of the Hal I got married to. / don't meet him. I guess there's a bad fairy that flies away with our bridegrooms while we're dreaming on the honeymoon— and when we wake,, we just find husbands in their place."
38 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" You can't console me that way."
" No. Well, you'd better talk him round. He's very smitten— you'll only have to cry."
" I don't see how I can speak to him again — we've quarrelled. Tell me what I can do; I don't care how much humble pie I eat as long as he doesn't know. Don't you ever remind me I said that, or I'll hate you ! "
" I'd go to Europe if I were you ; I can mention to him what boat you're crossing on. Go by one of the slow boats— you'll have time to twist him round your finger before you land."
" I couldn't forgive him right away— it 'd look like jumping at him."
" You can spare two days to be chilly in— two days last a long while at sea; they'll seem as long as the winter to him. That'll leave you four or five days to make him do what you want. You'll have trained him up in the way he should go long before you reach Liverpool."
"It's a heavenly notion," admitted Betty cheerfully; " it's sweet of you— I hadn't thought of that. But I'm not set on going to Europe with Howard ; I know what it means — I'll never see him there ; he'll leave me in the hotel, looking out of the window. I wish you were going."
" Me ? We don't go till the fall."
" It's much better now than in the fall. It's perfectly ridiculous going over in the fall. London's empty in the fall— so's Paris. They're
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 39
a dream in the spring. Come with me ! I'll give you a dandy time. Come for a month and buy frocks. You shall come back as soon as I'm engaged."
"I should have to put off all my parties. And I'd be so scared about the baby."
" What's the matter with her? "
" There's nothing the matter with her, but there might be. With me at sea ! I should go crazy.'5
" You can have a marconigram every day about the baby — and a cable every day when we're there. Say you will ! You've been such a sweet — I was just broken up when you came in. Do be nice and see me through ! " She hung round her, smiling, flushed, coaxing like a child. " You'd be such a help— Howard 'd be no good, he's got no tact. Think what it means : it's just my life's happiness I'm begging of you, Dardy ! And we'll go by the Caronia — the staterooms have got the cunningest little electric heaters for one's curling-irons."
Dardy Waldehast reflected. " Oh, all right then," she said, " I'll go ! Better let your father think you're going away to get over it, hadn't you? — leave his mind easy."
And when Lynch joined them, the girl said, " I've been telling Dardy she's got to take me to Europe. We want to go by the Caronia — the Cunard's so safe."
40 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
"Well now, that's first-rate, Mrs. Walde- hast ! " said the financier, relieved ; " that's just what she wants to brace her up. I'll 'phone for a couple of suites for the next sailing. I'm real glad you're both going. Would you like to take Howard along ? — he'll do to look after the
" Our maids can look after the said Betty. " A couple of suites and a state- room for the maids will be enough; we don't want Howard. Where shall we stay, Dardy ? When you cable for rooms, poppa, you might explain that * Flowers ' means flowers in the bedrooms; I'll never forget the last time we arrived — there wasn't a bouquet in a bedroom, it was frightful ! "
"I'll fix it," said Lynch, thankful for her brighter tone. He had just been drafting a prospectus that would gull a multitude, but the young women found him gullible.
CHAPTER IV
AFTER Mrs. Waldehast had told him carelessly that she was to sail with Betty Lynch on the Caronia, Keith hurried down to State Street and booked his passage by the boat, rejoicing at his " discovery " ; and at the Metropolitan, later in the evening, Dardy Waldehast threw to Betty, in the opposite box, two little emphatic nods, which said, " I've done it ! "
His elation was succeeded by the fear that the girl might not go after all. There were ten days of suspense. The prospect of seeing her constantly during the passage seemed to him too extraordinary to be fulfilled. Something must prevent this maritime heaven ! When he drove to the pier at last he was more despondent than excited. A bad night hinted that a caprice had balked him at the final moment, that he was about to put the Atlantic between them.
The pier was chaos, apparently heaped with the luggage of the world. Aboard ship all the women were speaking at once, and every woman was saying " steward " or " grip." Below, in the great dining- saloon, a vaudeville artist queened it at one of the small tables, taking
41
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leave of some admirers; champagne popped to her triumphs in London ; the table was gorgeous with roses and ribbons, the valedictory expres- sions of regard. He lost himself in a maze of passage ways, and captured his stateroom only after it had eluded him three times. There are staterooms which seem never to be twice in the same place. When he returned, order was pre- vailing. The deck grew clearer, the last adieux were gabbled. Neither Miss Lynch nor Mrs. Waldehast was to be seen. The endless crowd streamed off, instead of on, now — momentarily it looked as if everybody had been a visitor and nobody would be left to sail. Still they were unseen ! He gazed forlornly round. And the hotel moved away.
He saw them, with a heart thump, about an hour later, after the chairs were set out. He knew that Mrs. Waldehast whispered, " Here's Keith," as he approached, for Betty gave a faint start of astonishment. But she did not turn her head. The other woman exclaimed, " Why, Mr. Keith ! '' with smiling surprise, and there was a few moments' awkward conversation. His embarrassment at intruding upon Betty, who was monosyllabic and obviously chagrined to find him there, made him very constrained. He envied the composure with which she con- trived to mask her amazement at meeting him, after the first instant of dismay.
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 43
For the rest of the day they kept to their suites. The moonlit deck ungraeed was pathetic.
In the morning they were not at breakfast. It was eleven o'clock before a stir with their cushions and rugs heralded their appearance. Mrs. Waldehast's comment on the weather in passing him was formal— evidently she had been asked to keep him at a distance. As to that, there was a smoking-room !
But, after all, it wasn't to admire the smoking- room that he had chosen the Caronia ! He went to luncheon resolved to find his opportunity before the moon could mock him again.
The afternoon was blank until the tea-cups circulated. Then the two ladies settled them- selves on the promenade deck, but were in- separable until a penetrating rain sent everyone scurrying into the lounge. " I think this is where I leave you ? " said the confidant. " Well, don't be gone more than a minute or two ! " murmured Betty. Mrs. Waldehast got up and shivered— she went below for a wrap. The girl remained on the divan, absorbed by a magazine. He reached her in three strides.
" Aren't you going to let me talk to you ? "
" I don't know why you should want to talk to me," she said, at once startled, proud, and reproachful.
" It's all I'm here for— I heard you were going."
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;' I think it was a great pity you heard. It was very foolish of Dardy to speak about it."
" I'm very grateful that she did ! . . . You got my letter ? "
She bent her head silently.
" I waited in the whole day for your answer. It was a very long day."
'What answer did you expect?" The tone was a rebuke.
" I hoped you'd say that you forgave me for hurting you. Will you ? If you knew how bad I've been feeling "
" I'd rather not hear about it, please ! " she said. " I wish to forget."
" Me ? "
After a second's pause she faltered, "Yes; what else can I do now ? "
" You can say you'll marry me — I love you, I love you so much ! Betty, I've felt a brute and a cad for saying what I did to you — I've seen that look in your eyes ever since. Won't you forgive me ? "
" You told me we couldn't be happy together. What's the good of asking me to forgive you ? "
" I told you we couldn't be happy on your money. I'm not asking you to marry me on that. If you care for me, can't you — can't you give it up ? "
" Oh ! " She made a movement of impatience.
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 45
" You ask me to marry you one minute, and insult me the next. I think you're crazy ! ''
" You know I don't mean to insult you; it's much worse for me to have to speak about your money than it is for you to hear. But you've got to understand me. We needn't discuss my reasons any more; I'd much rather not. It amounts to this : if you marry me, you'll live on what I can make for you ! It's what I implore you to do. If you'll only "
Dardy Waldehast came back with a wrap on. " Hasn't it turned cold? " she said to Keith, as casually as if she had just been chatting with him. " Feel my hands ! "
Betty was sorry that she had commanded such a quick return. But the ice was broken now, and, though the brief conversation was different from the one she had forecast, she felt in better spirits for it.
So did Keith. They talked again in the lounge after dinner. Somebody sang Tosti. And after Tosti, the deck was dry; but not dry enough for Mrs. Waldehast. He and Betty sauntered alone.
She looked at the sky, and paid a compliment to the moon.
" It's much better than it was last night," he said appreciatively.
" I didn't notice it last night; we didn't come up."
46 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" No — and it gibed ! I had been on the Caronia for aeons without getting a word with you. The moon quoted Browning."
" Carnegie must have found a new field for his libraries. What did it say ? "
" * Never the time, and the place, and the loved one all together.' Oh, I was wretched last night 1 The deck was calling for you. . . . Do you know— do you know, I'm almost inclined to wish that I hadn't any principles ! It would make things so much easier. I never thought I could be in a situation where I shouldn't know
the right course from the wrong, but— but
Is a man a selfish beast to try to make a girl renounce a fortune for him, or would he be only half a lover to let her go when they care for each other? ... If I thought you'd regret yielding, I'd say good-bye and try to forget you, as I meant to do; I would, on my honour ! "
" Don't you think you may be unjust ? " she asked haltingly. " I told my father what you said; he said you didn't understand. He said that every business has its enemies. Even if it is a small business, there is always somebody smaller who complains of it and says that it's wicked and tyrannical. My father has always been very good to me. If you knew how kind he has been to me, you wouldn't think he was a
bad man. When you say what you do, I
Well, I don't like to hear you speak ill of him ! "
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 47
" I don't want to speak ill of him, Betty. It's because I don't want to hurt you that I can't justify myself to you. My tongue's tied; I can only say that I condemn— and it sounds like a prig. But I'm not the only person who condemns; you know that, dear, as well as I do."
" All the world may make mistakes," she pleaded. " You admitted just now that you weren't sure if you were right."
" I'm not sure if I'm right in asking you to give your wealth up, but I'm quite sure I'm right in refusing to share it. I'll never consent to do that. . . . The truth is, I haven't the courage of my own convictions. I'd rejoice to see you give it up — I'd think you a nobler woman. It makes me sick when I remember that your pleasures are paid for with other people's ruin — but I take fright at the responsibility of asking you to give it up for me. I ask you — and wonder if it's monstrous of me directly afterwards. My view is right, I know it's right; but then I shouldn't have expressed it to you if I didn't want you to marry me — and perhaps that makes me wrong ! ';
They strolled the length of the deck before she spoke.
" I think there'd be nothing gained if we were to talk for ever ! " she said harshly. " It's just as impossible for you to understand my father's
48 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
business as it would be for my father to under- stand your art. We won't talk about it any more, please."
" You're angry with me again ? 5!
She shrugged a shoulder : " Oh, you have a right to your opinion, I suppose; I'm not angry with you."
" That's as cruel a thing as you could say."
" How can I help hating myself?" she ex- claimed, with a break in her voice. " How do you suppose I must feel? do you suppose these things are pleasant to me to hear? Do you suppose I forget that I needn't have heard them if I hadn't said what I did to you? You were going away— you'd never have known, Pd have had nothing to be ashamed of ! "
" Are you sure of that ? "
"What do you mean?"
" Do you remember something you said to me that night ? You said, c I know about the people ruined, and the broken homes, and it doesn't make me feel good when I think of it.' Are you sure you'll always be able to put the thought aside ? Are you sure the time can't come when the millions won't be enough— when the cries of the people will keep you awake ? I don't want to invent a conscience for you, but are you positive that you'll never be ashamed ? "
She paused by the taffrail, with averted face. The subtlety of her sex had gone, and left her
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 49
helpless. She was no strategist, trying to bend his will now; she was a girl in love — with swim- ming eyes, and a lump in her throat, and a nose turning pink.
" I know just how you think about me," she gulped. " You think I'm fonder of my fortune than of you ! It's not true."
" Betty ! "
" I'm not, I'm not ! And I know you're right — yes, I do know it, right down deep — but I don't want to hear about it. He's my father, you see. Take me ! I don't want the money, I swear I don't — I only want to be happy ! 9:
" O my sweet ! " he stammered. " If there were nobody here ! Betty, I'm holding you, I'm thanking God for you, I'm kissing your feet, and your tears, and your lips — my heart, my love ! "
" I know I'm not as brave as I ought to be," she quavered, " but I will try ! I want to be just what you'd like. You won't ever be sorry for marrying me, will you — I mean if I make a muss of things ? It won't be that I'm not happy
id proud to be your wife, only that I don't :now how to set to work. I'll be content in jver so poky a cottage, and — and 1 can't
>k the dinner, I don't know how, but I'll
irn all about art, so that you shan't feel you've larried a fool. And you shan't paint por- :aits ! "
50 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
Their hands clung together on the rail.
"I'd paint portraits all my life for you," said the man reverently; "I'd throw art overboard for you ! I thought I loved you before, but I didn't know what love was — I didn't know what a woman could be. ... And you won't have to cook the dinner, my queen, or live in a cottage ; it won't be so bad as all that. I make "
" Sh ! " she whispered. " Never mind what you make — I am so tired of you and me talking money."
The first officer hurried by them, looking the other way.
" I've made a perfect fright of myself," she smiled, dabbing her fingers at her eyes, " and I haven't got a handkerchief." She borrowed Keith's : " You're beginning to provide for me already ! ''
" Betty, when will you marry me ? Will you marry me as soon as we land ? "
" Oh ! " she laughed, in the glory of surrender. " Are you so afraid I'll change my mind ? ':
" No. But I want to prove to you how much I mean it. ... Betty ! "
"Yes, sir?"
" You've never called me c Dick.' :
" I think c Richard ' suits you much better ; you aren't ' Dick ' a bit. Do they call you 6 Dick ' ? "
" No — very few people do."
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 51
" Then / shall— Dick."
" Betty ! "
" You'll know that name soon ! '
" Where shall we live ? "
" Dear," she pouted, " let's live in a moon- beam to-night. Don't let's be practical yet — I don't want to be practical any more. It doesn't matter where we live — if I make you happy."
At the piano somebody sang again. The lyric did not reach her, but the melody harmonised with the music of her mood. Presently the ship's bells jarred, startling them to the remem- brance of time. " We must go down to Dardy," she murmured.
" Will you say ' good-night ' to me first? '
Now, where they leant there was no one in view— she saw nothing but him, and the sea, and the stars. He drew nearer still. Her eyes closed.
Oh, it was worth it, worth it a thousandfold ! She was sure she would think so as long as she lived.
CHAPTER V
DARDY WALDEHAST was less optimistic. She divined the engagement directly they returned to the lounge, but she attributed capitulation to the wrong side. It was not till she was in Betty's stateroom with her that she was staggered by the facts.
" And what do you imagine your father's going to say ? " she demanded. " You don't imagine for a moment he'll allow it, do you ? 5:
" I mean to write to him at once ; I'll mail the letter from Queenstown. It's my own life— if I'm satisfied, nobody else has any reason to complain. . . . Oh, be nice, Dardy! — I feel so happy and so good, and I don't want to think about anything horrid."
They sat on the couch, with their arms round each other.
"I'd never have believed it of you ! . . . When is it supposed to be ? Is he coming back to New York with us ? "
" What for? I won't go back to New York. We'll live in London — we shall be married in London."
" Will your father come over? "
52
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 53
Betty's eyes grew solemn. " I don't know," she said pensively, " I've been wondering. I've got to tell him, you see, that he mustn't settle anything on me — that I've promised not to take it. He won't be anxious to meet Dick after that ! . . . And even if he did care to come, it'd be rather— rather painful for us all, wouldn't it ? I don't want " — she plucked at her friend's lace — 44 1 don't want to have a father there that Dick feels such things about. How can I ? — it'll be Dick's wedding too. I — I think the church should be quite sweet for us both when he marries me."
The other woman kissed her, and they sat silent.
" My father's in the Trust as well," she said at last hesitatingly.
" Yes."
" Pve never worried."
" You did one day, Dardy. Do you remem-
sr?"
We were kids then — and thought we were leroines. What's the good of making our lives a misery? We can't alter it. Besides, I don't believe it's so bad as they say ; it's all nonsense. Nobody has a word to say against Hal— and Hal never fussed about my money. . . . It's an awful pity— there's not one man in a million who would be such a fool. I don't know why it should happen to you to meet him ! . . . Well,
54 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
if your father doesn't come over for it, who'll be there?"
" Why, you ! "
" I can't do it, dear — you mustn't let me in for that ! It isn't what I was brought for. He'd be mad with me ! And anyhow, I can't stay more than a month — you don't mean to have it within a month ? '
44 1— I don't know," said Betty; "yes, I expect we will. I won't want to buy a trousseau. . . . I shall write my father all you say; he can't say it's your fault."
" I'd never have believed it of you ! " said the other again. " One thing Well ! "
" What's that ? "
" Well, of course, it needn't last— you can always have it your own way afterwards. But "
The girl shook her head, startled. " I wouldn't do that!" she breathed. "That's over— I'm being real with him." Her gaze remained wide and introspective. " I wish you hadn't said that."
" I'm sorry."
" You don't know how I wish we hadn't schemed that day ! I hate myself for having shammed to him; it'd be lovely if I hadn't meant him to come, and he had just surprised me here as he thinks he has. I'd like it all to have been quite true."
Mrs. Waldehast grimaced. " You'll make me
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 55
envious in a minute — / shall never have those cranky and beautiful emotions any more ! . . . You'd better turn in now, and dream of him. Pull the bedclothes up high, or your wings '11 take cold ! I'm not going to talk sense to you again to-night."
But she talked to Keith on the morrow.
" You know, Mr. Keith," she said, " I feel a great responsibility. Betty's father has trusted her to me, and I can't stand by and see her spoil her life. You must know as well as I do that this won't work — we don't live in a romance."
The throbbing of the steamer was very loud in his ears. " You think I am behaving badly to her? " he asked, when he found his voice.
" I think you are behaving badly to yourself. Mr. Lynch is devoted to her; he would consent to anything to make her happy. If you refuse to let him help you, you are wilfully turning your back on a fortune."
" She is prepared to live on less than I can offer her," he pleaded.
" * Prepared ' ! Have you any notion of what she is used to? She has had her own account since she was eighteen, and the bank has been told to honour her cheques to any extent. My husband is a rich man, but Betty has spent as much in a year on nothing particular as I have spent on my house; everything solid has been paid for by her father."
56 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" For Heaven's sake, don't imagine that I undervalue what she's doing," he exclaimed. " It's the grandest thing that a girl ever did for a man. I know that nothing, nothing on my
side can be enough to I'll worship her for
it. She's brave indeed ! 5:
" She's in love. I don't quarrel with her for that — I'm not much older than she is; but I'm a married woman, and on this point I'm older than the two of you. While a girl's in love, everything the man says is a law of the Medes and Persians to her, she sees with his eyes; but afterwards, if she has any more backbone than porridge-and-cream, she begins to sit up and survey for herself again. I can't argue about Mr. Lynch's commercial reputation, / don't pretend to understand finance " — Keith did not miss the reflection—" but I do understand Betty, and I tell you that if you think her conversion to your view is anything but the fizz of the moment, you are making a big mistake. You will spare yourself and her a great deal of unnecessary pain by listening to reason at the start."
" If you mean c by taking help from her father,' " he stammered, " I can't do it at the start, or at any other time. Betty thoroughly understands that. I'm sorry if I sound hard."
He sounded, on the contrary, very weak. It is one thing to have intense convictions, and another to uphold them to strangers. Keith
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 57
would never have swayed mobs, he was too sensitive to a jeer. He felt like a boy beside her, nervous, shamefaced.
" Well ! " her gesture was resigned, " you are entitled to your principles, of course; but I tell you frankly I think that, having the objection that you have, you did very wrong in the first instance to propose to her."
In the first instance, however, she had proposed to him.
" Do you mean that I ought to give her up ? " he said unsteadily. " I'm so fond of her, Mrs. Waldehast — you're a woman, you ought to know how much I mean it ! But if she wished she hadn't married me it 'd be terrible ; I'd rather it came to nothing than make her wretched for life. Do you mean that I ought to give her up ? "
Dardy Waldehast flinched. A vision of Betty assailed her— Betty at white heat, Betty de- rtianding wrathfully " how she dared ? " After all, was the responsibility so great as she asserted ? There would be plenty of time for Lynch to take decisive measures if he chose !
" I don't mean anything of the sort," she said; "I mean that you should agree to her father making a settlement. All she'll bring you, if you don't, is about a hundred pounds a year — her grandfather left her twenty thousand dollars when she was a child. Unless you object to that too?"
58 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
"It's the first I've heard of it," he said. " But why should I object ? My objection is not to marrying a girl with money, but to living on atrocious money. Surely the difference is plain enough ? "
" Atrocious " rent veils. But her own father was less prominent, Keith knew nothing of him — it was needless to challenge the word. Her thoughts darted to the scene of which Betty had reminded her — for a primitive moment she was a girl again, revolted, confiding to her friend that she would " run away and go into a store." Yes, she had fancied she was a heroine then ! She regained her composure before the man could notice there was anything amiss. When he turned to her she was back in her world.
" Well, you mustn't be vexed with me for my opinion," she said urbanely; " I wanted a chat with you because I've a great affection for her, but that doesn't mean that I don't like you."
" I shall always be deeply grateful to you, Mrs. Waldehast," he sighed; " I only wish you didn't think me so inhuman."
His misgivings had rushed back to him, in- tensified. He was " entitled to his principles," but was he entitled to force them upon Betty? Her consent was the " fizz of the moment " ? Then she would live to bewail it ! For there could be no going back afterwards ; if she accepted
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 59
the condition, she accepted it for good and all. Was he being fair to her in taking her at her word? There must be a serious talk between them to-day !
But when he was alone with her during the afternoon, he wondered how to broach the subject. His relief was as great as his surprise when she said archly, " So you've been having a bad time ? Well, you aren't going to lose me if you don't want to — don't worry ! v
"She told you?" he exclaimed. "You know?"
Her laughter brimmed over; the ingenuous- ness of Man was comic. " No, she didn't tell me; there are things that don't want telling, they shout for themselves. I saw you when you were drooping round with her. What is it you're trying to say to me ? Come to momma and 'fess ! "
" Betty," he said, " I can't joke about it, I'm very much in earnest."
She put her hands behind her back, and her head to one side. " Are you going to bid me an eternal farewell ? " she rippled. " It isn't 4 the time, and the place, and the loved one all to- gether ' now, because I don't feel like being pathetic a bit."
" Will you listen to me ? I want you to be serious. Will you, sweetest? ':
Her sunshine faded. She sat down slowly " Go on, then," she said, raising big eyes.
60 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
" She's very fond of you. So am I, but perhaps my kind of love is bound to be more selfish than hers. / want you — she only wants to see you happy; her judgment here is better than mine. . . . It's because she's very fond of you that she spoke. She doesn't think that I've the right to let you do what you promised; she's sure you'd be sorry for it afterwards. I know you don't think so now, but it's quite true that the time may come when you'll feel that you acted like a madwoman — when you'd give anything on earth to be able to undo the mistake. Re- member that you will never be able to undo it ! You aren't making the sacrifice for six months, Betty, or for a year, but for always. And by-and- by, the gilt will be off the gingerbread, and the gingerbread may taste awfully stale, my love. That's all I can say, but I want you to think it over well, and to have a long talk with her."
" Do you suppose I haven't heard what she's got to say already ? " she replied proudly. " What can she tell you about my feelings ? She can only answer for her own. Is it Dardy Waldehast you want to marry, or me ? " Her chin went up. "I daresay all you have said is very honourable and high-minded and well meant, but I find it no compliment. I promised to be your wife ; I am not a little child, to have a gift handed back to her and be told that she doesn't know what she's doing."
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" Betty ! "
" I am an American girl, and "
" You're the dearest girl in the world, but "
" And I know my own mind. You offend me when you speak to me as if you thought I was a fool. If it's only my face you're in love with, I can't be very much to you; New York is full of men who're in love with me like that. I imagined your love was for myself."
" I love every mood of you ! I love you when you're cross with me, and I love you when you cry — and I love you when you laugh and your eyes turn blue and you show that dimple in your cheek ! 5:
Betty's chin was still disdainful. But the corner of her lips seemed to promise the dimple's dawn.
" Of course," she began, in her stateliest
tones, " if you are alarmed at the prospect "
His interruption couldn't be overlooked. " You don't deserve it," she demurred, melting. c Well then ! Don't be unkind to me any more. ... I had something quite important to say to you when you started that foolishness, you silly boy ! "
"God bless you!" exclaimed Keith. "I'll never start it again; it's over ! What is it you were going to say ? '
She stroked his hair the wrong way. " I have been thinking," she said, " that I can't be mean
62 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
and keep our news secret; I must write from Queenstown — or, anyhow, as soon as we're in London."
He nodded. " Of course."
" It 'd be rather horrid of me to leave people in the dark about it. Besides, Dardy's sure to write to him ! "
" You mean your father will try to prevent it?"
" No, I don't; I am my own mistress. But " — she hesitated—'' it's just possible he may decide to come over for it, though he won't be best pleased. I think I'd rather be married to you
quite quietly, with nobody there but her and
Do you want any relations ? '
" I've none that I see much of. Yes, that's how I'd like it to be, that's just what I'd have chosen ! " he said thankfully. " If you're sure you're not doing it merely for me ? ':
" I'd like it best myself. . . . Well, do you think it could be arranged — would it be too soon to please you ? '
" Too soon ? " he queried densely.
cc I couldn't cable ' don't come ' ; I can't do that ! Don't you see ? "
He groped confused among these feminine subtleties. " I'm afraid I'm stupid ? "
She could not deny it, but there was something of maternal pity in her touch. " The only thing I can do," she explained patiently, " is
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 63
to say in my letter that I'm marrying you before — before anybody could get there. It 'd be quite two weeks before anyone could arrive. Would you care to ? are you so impatient as all that?"
" I'd like to marry you the day we land ! " he cried, with enthusiasm; "I'll get a special licence. I don't know how long it takes, but "
" That's just what I was wondering," she said. " How do you find out ? '
" I suppose you ask people," said Keith vaguely. " It never occurred to me to wonder how anybody got married. Evidently it's not difficult."
" It's always happening, isn't it? " said Betty. " I expect there are books that tell you. An encyclopaedia wouldn't give it, would it ? "
" Whitaker ! " he said. " I should think Whita- ker would give it. Perhaps there's one in the library."
They rang the bell, and inquired. In a few minutes the book was in their hands. They bent together over the index.
" 4 Marriage ' ! " he read triumphantly. " Here we are ! ' Marriage before Registrar ' — they put that first. You wouldn't, though, would you?"
" No," she said, " I don't want a stuffy wedding like that. I'd like a little church, quite simple, and very, very old, with ivy on it, and But
64 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
we won't find that in the book ! Let's see what conies next ! — We can't attend to business if you try to kiss my fingers, Dick.—' British Subjects abroad,' ' By Banns ' "
" Banns take three Sundays," he said. " I know ; my father was a clergyman."
" Is that so? I never knew that ! I won — I wonder if that's why you're so good ? ':
He laughed, colouring. " ' Marriage Licences, Office for '—page 180. Don't these leaves stick ! "
" They've put it on the same page as the Bankruptcy Department ! " she said indignantly. " Now, isn't that tactless ? You go to Knight- rider Street — from ten till four. Well, just listen to this ! ' Office for granting marriage licences, and Court of Peculiars ' ! Aren't they rude ? Oh, this is all prosy, let's try back ! . . . ' Certi- ficates.' We haven't seen ' Certificates.' I daresay they'll tell us all about it — there are two pages of them."
Keith took the book. " This is it," he said : " ' Special licences,' that's what I want. * Are granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury
" The Archbishop of Canterbury ! That's just splendid ! " chirruped Betty.
" ' Under special circumstances ' 5:
" That's us ! "
" * For marriage at any place, with or without previous residence in the district, or at any time, et cetera.' Well, they couldn't say more ! "
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 65
"They do" — she leant over his shoulder; " you're skipping the fees."
" The fees don't matter twopence."
"I can't sanction any thing approaching extrava- gance," said Betty severely; " I hope I am not marrying an extravagant man? Anyhow, you aren't through yet— there's a ' But.' " She pointed. " ' But the reasons assigned must be such as to meet with his Grace's approval.' Oh ! Do you think the Archbishop of Canter- bury would approve of our reasons, Dick, if you put them to him very nicely ? "
"I don't know," said Keith; "I've never met him. Wait a minute — ' Licences are of two kinds,' let's try the other ! . . . ' Licence is available as soon as it is issued.' That's sensible. Hello, here's something in italics, though ! Er — * One of such parties hath had his or her usual place of abode for the space of fifteen days immediately preceding the issuing of the licence within the boundary.' Well, neither of us has ! I've been away for months." The artist's brow was harassed. " It's a very complicated matter, I had better go to a solicitor."
" There's nothing wrong with fifteen days," she declared; "if you get the licence fifteen days after I write, it'll just suit. I couldn't marry you sooner than that and leave Dardy
all alone, after bringing her away to please "
She stopped, embarrassed. " Oh, Dick ! I do
66 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
wish I had said c Yes ' at the beginning. I've been so hateful, you don't know. You do forgive me, don't you ? "
" Forgive you ! You're an angel from heaven ! "
" No," she pouted, "you're not to think about me like that ; it 'd be such a come down for me afterwards. Don't love me for an angel, Dick — I want you to love me for the little cat I am."
He took her in his arms, and pictured the life they were to lead. He kissed the pout from her lips and the shadow from her eyes. She cooed childish names to him, and they laughed to- gether.
This was the conclusion of his " serious talk " to her about giving her up.
CHAPTER VI
SHE wrote her letter from the Carlton. She began by saying that " Richard had been on the Caronia too," and felt guiltily that her father would have no faith in the implied coincidence. In Lynch's daughter the propensity to manoeuvre was even stronger than it is in most women, but it disturbed her more than it does most women to be found out. " Money wasn't everything, and she was quite sure she would never repent ; and she was going to be married on the 29th. Dardy, of course, would be present. Dardy was very much upset, and was writing to him herself."
It was a difficult letter. Though she phrased it as gently as she could, she had to dwell upon the point that he was to make no provision for her, and she knew that her acceptance of that condition would be crushing. She was un- comfortably conscious also that he would think less of her intelligence for it. She wanted to be alone when the letter was done. Mrs. Walde- hast heard without surprise that she " had a headache."
But an hour afterwards, when Keith called to put the engagement ring on her finger, she was
67
68 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
vividly happy again. He had known a night of boyish terrors lest his ring should look paltry to her. Not only was she the one girl in the world, she was Miss Lynch; and although she had worn no other jewellery than a rope of pearls, it was inevitable that she should compare his gift mentally with the rings of her friends. His anxiety had led him to choose one wildly dis- proportionate to his position. Her enthusiasm was not feigned when he opened the case. Mrs. Waldehast herself admitted later that it was " just sinfully sweet of him."
In the evening he took them to the theatre. He had been extending his knowledge of the marriage laws meanwhile, and Betty learnt that the address of his studio, near the Foundling, was an obstacle in the way of the little church with ivy on it. He had decided to remove to rooms " at Hampstead or somewhere for the fifteen days — it wouldn't be a scrap of trouble."
They argued the matter in whispers during the progress of the play. She said that she wasn't a baby, and, with the best of bridal egotism, pro- nounced " one church as good as another." He wasn't to be silly ! When was that studio of his to be exhibited to them? she was eager to see it. Talking of Hampstead, wasn't there a Jack Straw's Castle there? She doted on ruins — she'd like to go over it one day. There were a lot of other " sights " in London that she ought
THE HOUSE OF LYNCH 69
to have seen; he must remember she was a foreigner. They compared lists of their neglected duties, and she was amazed to discover that the Englishman had a worse record than she. Yes, this comedy was quite good ! She liked the Carlton very much, especially the servants; but the portions in the restaurant were ridiculously big, even as one for two persons— she had ordered a lovely dessert and been unable to touch it when the time came. Dardy expected him to come back with them to supper. He couldn't ? That was horrid. No, they wouldn't go somewhere with him instead ! Well, would he come back and smoke a cigarette in the hall? It was a very pleasant evening indeed — and the author of the piece, who was in the stalls behind them, felt homicidal.
The ladies were entertained at the studio on the next afternoon, and Betty was secretly dis- mayed by its aspect. Flights of stone steps, and a sparsity of comfort after one had toiled to the top, contrasted very badly with the studios of the eminent that she had viewed in Paris. She resolved that the studio when they took a house should be far worthier of the august pictures that she didn't understand. However, the host was so fervidly grateful for the visit that she offered to repeat the boon.
" I hope you didn't mind, Dardy — he couldn't have given us nicer cakes and candies, could he ? "
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" I mind nothing, except his income, and the absence of an elevator," sighed Mrs. Waldehast. " I'm sure the tea was as humorous as a bad picnic. The dilapidated crone who shuffled in with the cups as big as young wash-bowls was a dream."
There were various things for the lovers to arrange during the next few days. To deter- mine their home before the 29th was impossible, and they resolved to do their house-hunting afterwards ; in the intervals, though, it would be fun to go out and acquire a few necessaries for it — just for an hour sometimes, when Dardy didn't feel like leaving the hotel ! They made two or three such expeditions, and Betty developed shining virtues in the process of qualifying herself for a poor man's wife.
She impressed upon him at the start that he was to be " very careful." She said, " There must be no more wicked loveliness like this ring; I mean it, Dick ! It would hurt me. You've got to treat me like a sensible woman." And her plan for coping with his tendency towards ex- travagance was charming — she forbade him to take out more than a certain amount, and set her dainty face against " cash on delivery." " Now, how much shall it be this morning? " she would say, perpending before she pinned on her hat. It might be that they agreed upon twenty pounds, or upon five ; but, whatever the sum was,
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it had to be the limit of the morning's expenditure. Excepting for two shillings ; she allowed him two shillings in excess of the sum, for the purpose of ice-cream.
Then they would sally forth in quest of an essential cabinet, or a dinner service, and come back the happy owners of a superfluous gramo- phone or a Nankin jar with a branch of almond blossom in it. It did not occur to Betty, to dim her complacence, that they had been less practical to spend the money on a superfluous gramo- phone than on the essential cabinet. Never did they spend more than he took out !— and her triumphant air of self-righteousness was beautiful to see.
Lynch's reply to the news came by cable, and it was brief. He said nothing of his chagrin, nor did he remonstrate; but plainly he had no belief that his daughter's spiritual elevation would be maintained : " When you propose to come off the roof, let me know." That was all. It vexed her. She did not ask for her renuncia- tion to be acclaimed, but she wished it to be respected. The reward for being a heroine is the approval of one's own conscience ; still, it is annoying when people don't recognise one's role.
The cable absolved Mrs. Waldehast from further responsibility, and she was able to countenance the situation with a lighter heart
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now. At this stage, too, it occurred to Keith that he ought to manifest the relatives of whom he had spoken. It would probably be the correct course to take, though he contemplated it with some aversion. His uncle had dissuaded him very strongly from resigning the clerkship, and had always been sore with him for disregarding the advice, especially so since his progress had proved him right. The gentleman, moreover, had small faith in the possibility of any really good woman being discovered outside the United Kingdom.
Sir Percival — he had been knighted during the last decade— was proud of many things. He was proud of his title, of his great business, which had been quadrupled since he succeeded to it, of his sons in the firm, and his youngest son, Stanley, who was in Holy Orders ; not least was he proud of his reputation for rectitude, which stood high in the City. But when he boasted— and it was often— one gathered that his noblest deed was to be born an Englishman.
Like his nephew, he held that every man had a duty to his country, and his patriotism took the form of disparaging every country on the Continent. He declined to cross the Channel ; his annual holiday, with a thrifty wife, was spent in Bognor, or some other south coast spot equally depressing, to which they travelled third class. " There is too much want in the world for us to
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waste money on self-indulgence," he would say. But he did nothing with his money to abate the want. He had admonished his brother for allow- ing Richard to study art in Paris— partly because art was frivolous ; and partly because Paris was in France. He frowned upon alien improve- ments, although the insular variety might be impracticable. No " time-saving appliance " emanating from foreign brains was ever favoured by Keith & Sons; the office was one of the last in East India Avenue to adopt the typewriter, and one of the few that still exalted the native mahogany desk, with drawers that took five minutes to lock, over the transatlantic article, in which they fastened automatically. Upon America, indeed, Sir Percival was particularly severe; he regarded its nation as swindlers to a man, and its achievements as an insult to the British Throne. No one could have seemed less likely to favour an engagement to Lynch's daughter.
Still, one ought to produce relations ! And Mrs. Waldehast had shown a lively interest in the title when she heard it. Keith went to call upon his uncle and aunt.
They had a large, meagrely furnished house, and utilitarian grounds, in Clapham Park, which was not the Clapham where Keith and his mother had had their lodgings. There are four Claphams. Clapham Park is imposing, Clapham
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Common is successful, Clapham Road is genteel, and Clapham Junction is low. Clapham Park, however, is as awkward a neighbourhood to reach as can be found in the whole of London, and a highly inconvenient place of residence for anybody who doesn't keep a motor-car or a carriage. Sir Percival disapproved of motor- cars and carriages for those blessed with health. On fine mornings he walked briskly to the station of the City and South London Railway ; on wet mornings the livery stables supplied a cab. As to Lady Keith's convenience, " I am grateful to say that my dear wife is vigorous," he would explain piously, " and the Lord gave her legs." Keith overtook the vigorous lady trudging re- signedly along the miles which have recently been re-christened " King's Avenue." She had been buying " serviceable things " in Brixton.
" Well, I never ! " she murmured. " I'm just going in. Your uncle ought to be back by now — I made him promise to come home early to-day, he's been poorly of late. Nothing serious; he's been suffering with a touch of rheumatic neuralgia. We were afraid it was his heart, but the doctor says it all comes from the same thing. Such a relief to us all ! The damp has been so trying, it's pulled him down terribly." After an ap- preciable pause, she added, " And how are you? "
" I'm all right, thanks," he said. " I've been away— in America."
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" Really ? Still painting, Richard ? "
" Yes," said Keith drily, " I'm still painting."
" Your uncle often speaks of you," she an- nounced.
He tried to look flattered. The lady sighed. " And what are you painting? " she asked, in the tone in which she might have said, " And what are you going to be when you grow up, my little man ? "
They had reached the gate, and the gardener informed them that Sir Percival had returned. They found him in the drawing-room, reading the evening papers.
" What, Richard ? This is indeed an unex- pected honour ! " he exclaimed, with ponderous pleasantry.
"How are you, sir? I'm sorry to hear you have been under the weather."
The knight related his symptoms. " Where do you spring from? " he inquired at last.
" He tells me he has been to America," said Lady Keith. " You might touch the bell, Richard; I'm dying for a cup o' tea."
46 America ? Have you ? A strange country ! " He shook his head heavily. " A very strange country ! "
44 A very wonderful country, sir."
44 Wonderful ? Well— y-e-s, yes, I suppose it may even be called ' wonderful.' Scarcely the word I should apply, though, I think. ' Wonder-
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ful ' suggests to the mind something worthy of
admiration. c Wonderful ' However ! Help
yourself to a cigarette." He was smoking a cigar. " What were you doing there ? "
" I went over to paint a portrait of a Society woman, Mrs. Waldehast. I don't know if you've heard of her? "
" I think I have heard the name," said Sir Percival. " A profitable commission ? "
" Very."
" Good ! I should like to see you have more encouragement. I'm afraid, though, that pic- tures " He shook his head again. " Well,
well, we mustn't cry over spilt milk ! ' Walde- hast ' ? Wall Street, I think ? "
" I really don't know," said Keith. " They're very well off, they entertain a great deal. . . . Mrs. Waldehast is very intimate with Miss Lynch."
" Lynch's daughter?" exclaimed his aunt. " I didn't know he had one. Did you see him too?"
" Lynch ! " put in Sir Percival sapiently. " The true embodiment of the American spirit ! v
" Surely, sir ? The outcry against him in
America is a thousand times stronger than it is here."
" My dear Richard " — his emphasis was touchy — " the Americans who cry out would all act in exactly the same way if they had the power.
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Commercial integrity is unknown in America— perfectly unknown ! You have just given us an instance; you speak of Society people who are ' very intimate ' with him. Do you imagine that English people in a similar position would be intimate with a — a notorious scoundrel, a man who has defied the laws of his country, who would be in prison if justice were administered there as
fearlessly as it is with Us? He is— he is
However ! v
" I am not defending Lynch ; I only say that he is not typical."
" I can tell you of one incident in the career of these Society people's intimate acquaintance," went on Sir Percival, addressing his wife, for the benefit of his nephew. " The Trust had ar- ranged a c deal ' in B stock, and Lynch ruined a medical man, with whom he was on most cordial terms, by deliberately giving to him, amongst others, a false tip. He advised the man to buy as much B stock as he could — and to buy before noon the next day, or che would have to pay twenty dollars more ; the tip was confidential ' ! Of course Lynch counted upon his telling just one friend, and upon the friend telling another, and so forth. The quotation opened firm the next day — nearly every broker seemed to have orders to buy B stock ; but before twelve o'clock it was known that the Trust had been a continuous seller, and was still forcing sales. It was sup-
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posed that something was wrong; there was a panic. Every buyer in the morning was a seller at best in the afternoon. The Trust had sold half a million stock by twelve o'clock — and had bought it back before evening at an average of ten points less! In other words, the Trust netted five million dollars, and hundreds of people were ruined in a day to pay for it. Lynch' s lie cost the medical man the savings of a lifetime, and he was found dead in his consulting room. When someone reproached Lynch for it, he sneered. ' What of it ? In business, every- body for himself ! ' he said."
The lady signified her horror, and passed the buttered buns. Keith decided not to announce his engagement this afternoon, the conversation had started on unfortunate lines ; he must make an excuse at the hotel. But when he rose to leave, they would not hear of his going : he was pressed to remain and dine. After all, it would be better to get the announcement over before he went — if he were to stay, there would be three or four hours before him ! He sat down again ; and his aunt displayed with reverent hands a stole that she was embroidering for Stanley. She was " sorry that Keith hadn't come on the morrow instead, when Stanley was expected." Sir Perci- cal hospitably interposed, " However ! "
It was a dismal household. The two elder boys had married hurriedly, and now that they
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had escaped, it was duller still. Keith scarcely knew them, but he sat regretting that they were not there. Dinner came when fortitude was at its last inch.
The adjournment was made in silence. A gloomy parlourmaid stood at attention by the sideboard. Sir Percival, erect, muttered in a deep bass, which had in it something peremptory, " O Lord, relieve the wants of others, and give us grateful hearts." And, having shifted the responsibility, tucked in.
He liked a good port— his prejudices against things Continental stopped short at vineyards — and it was when the port was reached that Keith plucked up courage to impart his news.
" By the way," he began, " I have something to tell you both : I'm going to be married."
"Married? " faltered Lady Keith. Her hus- band stared.
" Er— we must congratulate you," he said.
" Thanks very much. I hope — I should like her to meet you."
" Oh yes, you must bring the lady to see us one day. Your aunt will be Eh, Emily? "
" Oh yes, I'm sure," she said vaguely.
" An engagement of long duration ? '
" No, it's very recent. I met her when I was in New York."
" An American lady ? ' He was raising his glass, and it paused midway.
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" Yes. As a matter of fact, she's the daughter of the man we were speaking about — Lynch. I need hardly say she takes a very different view
of things from her father. She Nobody
could fail to admire her in every respect ! She "
" You're engaged to Lynch's daughter ? " Sir Percival gasped. His mouth remained ajar. He set his wine back on the table, untasted. After a second or two he ejaculated, with mingled awe and incredulity, " You? ':
" Lynch? " quavered his wife. " The richest man in the world ? "
" One of the richest. Of course she doesn't take any money from him now, or later. I stipulated for that. I think, sir " — he threw back his head proudly — " I think very few girls, American or English, could do a greater thing than she is doing? She won't touch a shilling of his money ; she is content to live on what I can make for her."
Sir Percival could be heard breathing. " You have stipulated that she shall take no money from him ? " he stuttered.
" Naturally."
" Richard ! " cried his aunt. " Why, he could give her millions ! "
" I suppose he could." He was beginning to feel astonished. " Shameful millions. The amount doesn't affect the question."
" My — my dear Richard," said Sir Percival
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stertorously, " you astound me ! You are en- gaged to Lynch's daughter — and you oppose his making a settlement on her, you oppose his taking a course that is only fit and proper? It's in- conceivable ! What — what possible justification have you for such a— such an act of madness? "
Dumfounded, Keith looked from the gentleman to the lady. She met him with, " I must say I think you're flying in the face of Providence ! " Her eyes were aghast.
" Your view is intemperate," continued Sir Percival, in a suaver and judicial tone. " Let us be just. Above all things, my dear boy, let us be just. The lady is his child; it is no more than right that on her marriage with one less richly blessed with worldly possessions her father should provide for her maintenance in the style she is accustomed to. It is his duty. You do not — if you will allow me to point it out to you — you do not influence him to fulfil the many duties that he neglects already by resisting his fulfilment of one more. You are marrying her, I take it, from motives of— er — esteem, and so forth; your sentiments cannot be in any way impugned by your participating in her financial advantages. It devolves upon you to do so. My own sense of honour " — he said it in large capitals — " is, I think, sufficiently well known for my assurance on the matter to have some weight."
Keith felt very young, and was very contemp-
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tuous of himself for being disconcerted. Mo- mentarily he was bending over a ledger again, nervous at the sound of his stately uncle's foot- step in the outer office.
" Do you consider that Lynch's money has been fairly made ? " he asked. " The whole thing resolves itself into that."
It was the other's turn to be disconcerted; his denunciation of Lynch was awkwardly recent. He sighed. " This takes me back — I recognise your mother," he murmured. " How I warned her against those wretched shares ! You re- member, Emily ? She also was However ! "
Keith squared his jaw. Was he to assert himself only to poor little Betty ?
" I'm afraid we're wandering from the point. The point is that I— in common with the rest of the world — regard Lynch's millions as damned "
" Hush ! " The knight's white hand expos- tulated.
" I beg Aunt Emily's pardon — and yours, if I have shocked you. We say that a fortune which has been acquired by wholesale trickery and oppression is an infamous fortune, that one man has no right to use his abnormal wealth to crush a poorer multitude out of existence. In half the States of America he has ground men to their death, and forced women and girls to worse than death "
" Really, I must remonstrate ! Such allusions
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are unseemly." His nostrils exhaled virtue. The lady pursed her mouth; if she had worn a fringe, her eyebrows would have disappeared altogether.
" And we hold him accursed for it," con- cluded Keith doggedly. " If we admit we were mistaken in thinking such methods evil, then he is owed a world- wide apology; but while we continue to think what we do of them, the man who was willing to profit by the methods would be as culpable as Lynch ! ?:
Sir Percival tapped the table, musing. He rose, and forced a smile.
" Always headstrong, Richard," he said, with affectionate regret; " always self-willed ! "
The drawing-room was more oppressive than before, and the visitor said " good-night " as early as he could. Lady Keith, who had re- sumed her reverential stitches for the clergyman, repeated her counsel against " flying in the face of Providence " as she turned a cheek to be saluted. The knight magnanimously asked for " Miss Lynch's address, that we may call upon our future niece."
They called, and toadied her.
This was Keith's first experience of the advice that people had to give him.
His second was with Tomlinson. Tomlinson shared a studio in the same block, and had chanced to be presented to Betty and Mrs
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Waldehast one day when they came. He was an elderly little failure, with an unobservant manner and acute observation — for everything except landscape, which he painted. Apparently he had been unconscious that the ladies were worth looking at, but the next time he met Keith on the stairs he said timidly, " It was a treat to see those friends of yours. They're the kind that glide and sink."
" That do what ?"
" They move and sit down properly — the right sort of women glide and sink ; the others bounce and bump. I should like to see them again."
" I daresay you will," said Keith. " Come inside and have a drink."
Tomlinson crept in, with his hands in his trouser-pockets and his pipe between his teeth. With early training, he might have been a successful journalist, or perhaps a detective; an enthusiasm for art had condemned him to cheer- fulness upon a pittance, and other men's whisky. But for a relative somewhere, he would have starved.
" Done anything with the studies you brought back from America yet ? " he inquired.
" No, I haven't been working, I'm not in the vein. Are you busy? "
Tomlinson nodded absently. He had been busy making the round with a couple of sketches and failing to sell them. His feet ached. Pre-
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sently he would put the canvases back on the easel and devoutly admire them. Mercifully he did not know that he couldn't paint, and no- body but a dealer would have been brutal enough to say so to his sensitive face.
66 Tomlinson, I'm going to be married."
Tomlinson smiled pensively. " Well ! " he said, not committing himself.
" To Miss Lynch, the lady you saw here. I shall be giving this place up as soon as I can. Know anyone who'd like to take it off my hands ? "
Tomlinson reflected. Not that there was the slightest prospect of his suggesting a tenant, but it had the air of being " more in the swim " to reflect. " No," he said, " at the moment I can't say I do. When is it to be ?"
" On the 29th."
" So soon ? No relation to Lynch, I suppose ? She is an American, I think ? "
" Yes. She's his daughter."
" My dear fellow ! " gasped Tomlinson, drop- ping his pipe. " I say ! I do congratulate you, upon my word. Lynch's daughter ! You aren't joking? "
" Oh no, it's right enough."
" And is he— agreeable ? "
"Well, I don't exactly know; it doesn't much matter. I'm marrying her because I'm fond of her, not because her father is a million-
aire."
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" Oh, just so, just so ! " said Tomlinson hastily. 44 Still, a million or two to go on with — what ? * Giving this place up ' ? " He laughed. " Yes, I suppose you will ! We — we shan't be able to know you soon, eh ? 5:
Keith explained, at some length, and Tomlinson listened with dumb attention. Then he chuckled knowingly.
44 You're pulling my leg," he said.
44 I'm perfectly serious. Why should it as- tonish you? You know what the Trust is; I think I've heard you rather eloquent on the subject."
44 Oh, as far as that goes All the same, I
mean to say Well, it's going rather to
extremes, isn't it ? 5!
44 What is ? Not to pocket one's conscience when there's money to be made by it ? "
44 My dear chap 1 4 Pocket one's conscience * ? It isn't a question of anything of the sort. The question is what good do you do? That's what you've got to look at— what good do you do?" In view of millions declined, the gentle, depreca- tory little man grew excited, even dogmatic. 44 Is anybody benefited ? does it improve matters in any way ? The Trust goes on whether you're sensible, or whether you choose to sacrifice a fortune to a theory. No one will thank you for such a piece of quixotism, no one will have any reason to thank you ! I think I may say my
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honesty is above the average, but I tell you frankly / should have no scruples." Et cetera.
Then there was Premlow, whose " Shelling the Peas " and " How Does it Suit Me? " had both been immortalised in Summer Numbers, and framed in so many lodging-houses. Premlow's argument was that one would be more than justified in luxuriating on a scandalous income if one devoted a considerable portion of one's wealth to charities. " A far more practical form of what d'ye call it, my dear boy, than riding the high horse ! ': And there was Tracey Wynne, the literary stylist, who ejaculated " Tosh ! " And there was the sceptic who was reminded of Carlyle's philosophy when his wife was excruciated with toothache — " It will not be permanent." It was remarkable how the news spread, and with what promptitude many persons who had called Lynch's business methods " an outrage on humanity " would have accepted a share of his profits.
For the honeymoon, Paris had been suggested. Betty had travelled on the Continent much more than Keith, but she had missed, or forgotten, most of the things that he craved to see there. From Rome she had brought only a vague remembrance of the Michael Angelos— " * The Eternal Separa- ting Light from Darkness ' was one of the frescoes on the ceiling somewhere, wasn't it ? '' She had spent a week in Vienna, but was not sure if she
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had seen Rembrandt's portrait of his mother. In Dresden, the Sistine Madonna had been im- pressed on her mind chiefly by the fact that it was reproduced on all the postcards in the shop windows. Eager to be a companion, she had told Keith that he must take her to the Louvre and teach her to understand— he must explain to her why the pictures that he loved best were beautiful. And he had promised, promising himself at the same time not to bore her. Then she decided that she would prefer the country in England—" that would be new to her." She refrained from adding that Paris, visited econo- mically, would also be new to her, and less pleasantly so. They wanted rusticity without discomfort, rural scenes to wander in, and civilised quarters to return to. Finally, an hotel between Tunbridge Wells and the village of Rusthall was chosen. If the weather were kind, the situation would fulfil their requirements perfectly; and if it were wayward, they would try the other side of the Channel after all.
On the evening of the 28th, Betty opened a door and saw her maid packing for her. The ward- robe that was to serve as her trousseau was not particularly extensive, nor was there any valuable lace among it — she had always elected to dress with comparative simplicity and seldom paid more than thirty or forty guineas for a frock. Having sailed in May, and expecting to be absent
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only for a month, she had brought scarcely any of her furs, overlooking the fact that she was bound for a country where the winter often began in September and continued into June. The only precious thing among her belongings here was her rope of pearls, and that was worth so great a sum that she felt she would be inconsis- tent to keep it. She meant to give it to Dardy Waldehast— she had it in her hands as she watched the maid kneeling before a trunk. The woman was going back to New York at the end of the week, and the thought came to Betty, as she paused there, that she was watching a maid pack for the last time. The task looked more than ever odious. She was about to part with her pearls cheerfully, but it dismayed her to reflect that henceforward she would have to submit herself to the turmoil of packing. However, she would not dwell on the point.
" I want you to have this, Dardy," she said presently; " I shan't put it in."
" What on earth ? " said the other.
"I don't think it would be fair; I promised empty pockets — it wouldn't be playing the game to go to him with a property round my neck."
" I never heard anything to equal you ! It's too beautiful to last. Anyhow, I can't take a gift like that from you. If you're anxious to get rid of it, you had better send it back to your father."
" What do you propose that my father should
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do with it — wear it in his hair? I want you to take it, Dardy; you will oblige me."
Mrs. Waldehast shrugged her shoulders : " I'll take it, but I shall give it to him when I arrive. You're a regular simpleton to let it go."
But Betty did not feel a simpleton, she felt very happy — and very brave. The prospect of the packing was forgotten — it was the eve of her wedding day. " I'd think you a nobler woman," he had said. And she was being nobler ! she triumphed in the consciousness. Oh, she would always live up to his ideal — no doubt one could get used to anything. Besides, — she hated to hear Dardy suggest it, and she never harboured the thought, but she couldn't help its encouraging flight across her reverie in moments, — it was just possible that later on he might change his mind ! Not that she would ever ask him to do such a thing ! — she was thoroughly sincere.
She felt very happy — and very brave. There would be none of the pageantry that she had always pictured for her wedding day — no strings of carriages, no train-bearers and bridesmaids, no dazzle of presents at a reception, no motor-car to take her away. But she was marrying the man she loved. And after she had kissed her friend good-night, she knelt, and pleaded, " Help me to be as good as I mean to be ! And if I do find it a little rough sometimes, O God, pray don't let Dick guess ! "
CHAPTER VII
" LOVELIEST ! "
"Mmps?"
" What shall we do this afternoon? "
" It's time you did some real work, lazy- bones. Come out and paint the Happy Valley."
" I can't paint out of doors this afternoon, the changes are so rapid when it's sunny. Let me do another sketch of you— I haven't painted your dimple yet."
" It makes one awful conceited to marry an artist — there'll be enough portraits of me soon to fill a gallery. Where shall I sit, Master? "
" Here, Most Unique ! "
Then she would sit in his chair, and stroke his hair the wrong way again, and be tender, or wayward, but always the most wonderful thing that ever wore hairpins and was miscalled " mortal." He had told her on the third day that there were twelve of her, and that he never knew which " Betty " he was to see next. She said she wouldn't allow him to be nice to the " other eleven," but he found it entrancing. He was the playmate of a child, and the disciple of a woman; he was teased by a coquette, and captured her to clasp a wife.
91
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Aflame, he painted her in a white dinner- gown, and in a rose peignoir; he painted her coiling her hair before the mirror. He painted her with that chin of hers scorning him, and called the sketch, " Mr. Keith, You will please Take Me Back to the Room." " Oh, the dis- dain of the dearest ! " he cried, and showered kisses on her, rejoicing.
Also he was the lady's maid of a girl who didn't know how to fasten her frocks — and who found it perplexing that her hat, and her gloves, and her sunshade failed to come to her of their own accord.
The white dinner-gown had been especially maddening. It became her so well, and she had wanted to surprise him in it one evening; she sent him away long before the first gong was beaten, so that she might have plenty of time. It was not until she had done her hair and was approving it in the glass, that she remembered that the bodice fastened down the back.
She rang for help from the chambermaid, but the woman's fingers seemed to be all thumbs, and at last, when she uttered a triumphant " There ! " after twenty exhausting minutes, it was perceived that she had strained all the hooks into the wrong loops. A tantrum sent her flying to her washhand-stands.
And the second gong had sounded a long while ago.
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It dashed the bride's pretty intentions to the ground that Keith knocked at the door, and was admitted, looking very nice and composed, while she sat deserted on the edge of the ottoman, hot and despairing.
" Oh, Dick," she exclaimed tearfully, " I'm such a fraud ! ?:
"What's the matter?"
" I can't fasten this loathsome dress down the back. That Annie's a born fool ! Go and have your dinner, darling — don't wait for me."
" My poor little kiddy malinks ! Let me try if I can button it." She laughed.
"I might," he urged; "I'd be better than Annie."
44 1 was laughing at the 4 button ' — they aren't buttons, savage, they're little hooks and loops. Well, go on then, try — if you don't want anything to eat."
It was a superhuman task. The hidden hooks began on the right-hand side, and, when he was getting in the way of discovering them there, dodged on to the left. The evasive loops were even more infuriating; it demanded genius to decide, without fatal experiment, which was the loop and which was the pattern of the lace. Yet his perseverance was likewise superhuman. And wasn't it Olympian to be fastening her bodice? Although their dinner when they got
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it had lost the bloom of its first youth, they were joyous— and deserved their champagne.
They had no fault to find with their Eden. In their indolent moods they sauntered, or sat, under the great trees of the grounds. If the thought of shops tempted, they strolled across the common to the Pantiles, where the airs from a modern bandstand did not drown the rustle of a stately past. They bought the print of bygone belles and gallants, or book-markers and brushes of the native ware. One evening they witnessed Dick Turpiris Ride to York, in a tent, and when Tom King, the Gentleman High- wayman, cried, " We are pursood ! 'Ark, I 'ear the sound of 'orses' 'ooves ! " Betty was in raptures with the performance.
Oftenest they turned to the right, past the little post office next door to the hotel, where they sent their telegram to Mrs. Waldehast before she sailed. Then they wandered into Rusthall. Village children who had never smelt the sea ran perilously on the rocks that it had left behind, but after the sand-castles and the children, all was grass and silence, excepting for the birds.
Betty liked Rusthall better than " The Wells." She liked the sight of the little ivy-clad church on the edge of the Happy Valley; and there was the nook that she had found, perched above the sweep of woodland. She said that they
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" must often come back there when they grew up."
" It's just the kind of church I meant," she explained once.
" But we couldn't be more content," said Keith. It was the day that he had painted her contemptuous, and the marvel of their marriage was full upon him. The nook was newly magical this afternoon. " To think how nearly I lost you ! To think that I might have been in the studio now "
" Being industrious ! "
" Eating my heart out ! I wonder if you'd have been remembering me — I wonder what you'd have been doing now if we hadn't married ? "
" What time is it in New York ? "
He looked at his watch : " It's still morning — about twelve."
" Isn't that funny ! Perhaps I'd have been in bed and asleep, if I had been out late last night."
" Then you wouldn't have been thinking of me at all. While / was "
" Stamping up and down the studio and calling for Miss Lynch ! Well, I might have been dreaming about you, you know. Or perhaps I'd have given a thought to you when they brought in my coffee."
" Had you a wonderful room, Betty? "
She nodded.
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" Tell me what it was like."
" What do you want to know for? "
" How I wish / could give you a room like it!"
44 Goose ! Do you think I care ? "
"Don't you?"
"Do I?" she whispered.
Their eyes dwelt together, and he grasped her hand.
Rain clouds had sombred the sky, and the landscape was purpling. Far afield little curls of smoke wreathed bluely in the haze — the smoke of homes.
44 I'm afraid there's a storm brewing ! 5:
But the power of the church survived; she loitered before the gate, as she always did.
" We'll come here on Sunday morning if you like?" he said.
" I'd like to peep in now," she told him, and he followed her inside.
It was very quiet and dim there. They waited for a moment by the door, looking towards the east window.
" It's just the kind of church I meant," she repeated under her breath.
He answered with a touch upon her arm, and they crept across the tiled floor together, and paused at the foot of the chancel steps.
She murmured, " It's just here we should have stood."
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The man's touch slid from her arm to her hand, and the hand welcomed it. Then, as they moved away, she dropped behind him. When he looked round she was but half-way down the aisle, musing again.
Her fingers greeted his return, but her gaze still brooded on the window. Presently she faltered, " Dickie, I want to 'fess. I wasn't surprised that day."
"When?"
" On the boat. I told her to tell you I was going, Dickie; I meant to make you give in. ... I feel so small ! "
CHAPTER VIII
THE accommodation at the studio was much too primitive for them to live there even for a few weeks, so on their return to town they stayed at another hotel, and were provided with a fresh list of disappointments by a house agent every day. It was not such a spacious hotel as the one that they had left, nor was it quite so opulent. The other women's appraising gaze at Betty was not always due to the fact that the newspapers had made her marriage famous — every woman there did not recognise her name; but every startled pair of feminine eyes recognised the hang of her skirt. Despite the hooks and loops, Keith had privately resolved that if he could help it she should never dress more cheaply — the man no longer exists who sees a girl perfectly gowned and, " duped by the subtle simplicity," thinks that her clothes cost ten pounds a year. His ghost still haunts fiction, but the man is in his proper place.
After various expeditions to Chelsea, where everything was either too dear or too nasty, they decided upon a semi-detached house in St. John's Wood. The street, unspoilt by the
98
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railway, was called Sibella Road, and the house was called something grandiloquent. However, there was the simple remedy of reducing it to a number. A small cheque improved the land- lord's taste in wall-papers, and it remained for Mr. and Mrs. Keith to furnish the villa more completely than with a gramophone and a Nankin jar.
"Nothing happens but the unforeseen " — a proverb that has more truth than most of its com- panions. When Keith had vaguely imagined himself enlisting among the Benedicts, he had had visions of wanderings and hunts, of delight- ful "finds" and precious "bits"; to go to a firm and order en bloc had seemed to him a frenzy of philistinism ; yet this was just what he and Betty did, for they were eager to be settled as soon as possible.
There was an establishment in the West End which undertook to equip anything from a cottage to a mansion, and to show in advance precisely what effect the customer would obtain for his money. The report ran that it was merely necessary to state the sum that one meant to spend, and, with the celerity of Aladdin's Lamp, Commercial Enterprise displayed one's future dwelling. Keith meant to spend much more than he could afford — he had felt that to be reasonable in the preparation of Betty's home would be an act of barbarity. The
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painter's profession makes erratic accountants; the artist who, by a lucky chance, sells a month's work for a hundred guineas is liable to say, " That means nearly thirteen hundred a year," and to live up to it till the writs come in. Three hundred pounds Keith meant to spend; and Betty— to whom it was something in the nature of a revelation that this didn't imply an ab- sence of carpets — protested valiantly that it was " too much." They took a cab to the establish- ment.
The amount sounded less important to him when he mentioned it amid the splendours of the showroom, but the gentleman who received them heard it with respectful interest, and accompanied them part of their way. Their future residence, they learnt, was upstairs; a lift would bear them to its door.
The door stood hospitably ajar; there was no need for them to try whether the antique bell- pull would pull a bell. They entered, smiling, and stole through the tiny hall. Beyond the mimic casements they had glimpses of a canvas garden. No maid was manifest, but their abode stood ready for their coming. Flowers gave them welcome from a table; books invited from a Sheraton recess beside the hearth.
They discovered the Best Bedroom. He saw her open with her own hands the wardrobe where she was to hang her sacred things. On
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the dummy window the morning sun shone bright, and he pictured it shining on her face between those draperies when she woke. Grow- ing bold in domesticity, they chose their pet corners in the drawing-room. " Could you be satisfied here, darling? " he whispered; and she nodded surely. " You shall have that chair, Dickie, and this one shall be mine." She sat. " It's good to be at home, my husband ! " she laughed. And in the cardboard house he bent and kissed her.
They viewed the room where they would sup, where champagne should celebrate the triumph of a picture, and where the queen, in the rose peignoir, should be pampered when tired. And then, just as they were remembering that there were preliminaries to be performed, there ap- peared on the enchanted scene a young and winning hostess.
Under the lady's graceful guidance they in- spected more practically. She hinted that the " leaded panes " which gave on to the painted garden would be " extras " if imitated in Sibella Road. There were one or two such trifling disillusions. For instance, Keith had taken a fancy to the antique brass fire-irons and electric fittings in the room, and those were not included in the three hundred pounds either. But the charming hostess reminded him that there were probably some other articles here that he would
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not need at all, and if that were so, the antique brass could be had instead. She seemed to take as kind an interest in the happy pair as if she had made up the match, and Betty said after- wards that, dainty as the House on the Landing was, its young hostess was the most delightful thing that it contained.
It was much simpler to furnish than to find two servants. The capital cook and accom- plished house-parlour-maid who advertised for employment at such moderate wages had always taken a situation on the day that Betty wrote to the address that was given. And the address always proved to be a registry office, where a booking fee failed to disclose any domestic com- parable with the treasures that had simultane- ously vanished. But even two servants were obtained at last, and the evening came when the love scene in the cardboard house was re-enacted in Sibella Road. Mr. and Mrs. Keith were at home.
It was beautiful, next morning, to send him upstairs to the studio after breakfast and kiss him for luck. He had told her that he expected her to come in there as often as she liked, but she was much too clever to have the illusion that frequent visits would make for progress, and she intended that his work-hours should be respected. After she had sat by the window, glancing at the newspaper—which was so stingy
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with its news of America — it occurred to her to put a few touches to the little drawing-room. Its aspect would be improved by some more cushions and flowers, and the piano needed draping. To buy some of the things before Keith came down would pass the time ! She wondered if there were any good shops close by, and rang on impulse for her hat and shoes.
It disconcerted her that the ring evoked a frowsy and forbidding cook, who said shortly, " Good-mornin', ma'am. Shall I take the horders ? "
Betty caught her breath. To her the comic element of the surprise was lacking. The moment was no less grave to the girl than to the man confronting his work overhead. She knew that it was a crisis; that, underlying the petty shock, was the test of her fitness to be his wife — and her hopeless inexperience frightened her. But it was Lynch' s daughter who, on the brink of disaster, answered, "'Yes, please, cook, I have got to see you now." And it was said very well; so far the cook hadn't found her out.
" What about lunch and dinner 'm ? "
Excepting in a restaurant, she had never ordered a meal in her life.
" We don't want anything elaborate," she said; " we live very simply."
" Yes 'm."
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" We shall want some hors-d'oeuvres, and a little consomme, and— and some supreme de sole "
"Some what of sole?" asked the woman, bridling. " What might it all be in Henglish 'm ? I was given to understand as it was plain cooking you required."
" Yes," murmured Betty. " Give us a little caviare, or a few anchovies, and some soup. And we shall want some fish, and so on."
"How much?"
" Oh, I don't wish for any waste — say, one portion between two," said Betty laudably, and realised that she had blundered by the stare.
Here was meanness ! And with a dress like that on her back ! " One portion between the two?" stammered the cook, agape.
ft Well, you get what you think right." It was distressingly new to her to be timid of a servant.
" You'll leave the quantities to me, ma'am? " She smirked. Not meanness after all — only idiocy ! She viewed her harvest. " And will you want a joint ? ':
" No. We might have a few sweetbreads, and a little poultry, and— well, yes, I suppose Mr. Keith would like some meat. Lamb."
The harvest demanded labour; the smirk subsided. " And— er— vegetables ? "
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" Why, yes," said Betty, " of course ! "
"' I meant, what are they to be 'm ? "
She sighed. " Well, green peas and beans," she said.
"Both of em?"
" Well, one or the other."
"No potatoes 'm? "
" Oh, of course, I want potatoes," gasped Betty ; "do you think I dine without potatoes ? ':
The woman sniffed. " What about sweets ? '! she asked, with umbrage.
" You can make us a macedoine."
" A what ? " The tone was grim.
" What do you suggest ? " inquired the mistress feebly.
" Would you like a nice rice pudden, or a happle pie? "
" I think we will have meringues."
" Meringues ? Of course, then, you'll border 'em when you go hout ? Hi couldn't undertake 'em."
" You will send your fellow-servant. And you will send up some strawberries and pears, please."
" There's no pears in."
"I don't want them till the evening; there is plenty of time to get them in before dinner."
" They ain't c in,' " explained the woman curtly, " ain't in season."
Were there seasons to be considered? Were
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there such servants to be endured? Nothing comic for the girl, indeed ! It was painful, piteous, worse — immeasurably worse, than the studio on one of the days when the hand was but a brush-holder and refused to " speak."
And there was luncheon to be arranged; and the knowledge that, with the morrow, the duty would recur. She had no wish to go and buy flowers, when the door closed behind a complaint about the kitchen range.
She sat back, and looked at the room with other eyes. Beyond it she saw the palace in Fifth Avenue, and the mansion that was called a "cottage " in Newport. For the first time she paid a tribute to the silence of their domestic machinery. Now that she came to think about it, it was surprising how everything had ar- ranged itself !
In the early afternoon, a headlong rush of rattling traffic, followed by the clatter and crash of cans, shook her from her chair, dismayed. She found that small quantities of milk, from various dairies, were being taken to some of the doors. The violence raged from two o'clock till three, and she wondered at the strange land where a pennyworth of milk was delivered with the frenzy of a revolution.
Later, she and Keith went for a walk. St. John's Wood did not prove to be a very ex- hilarating quarter, and the sad Wellington Road
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offered few attractions as a promenade. She felt no enthusiasm when he mentioned that they might drop in to Lord's and watch the cricket sometimes. Though he had trembled in thinking that the rooms were not large enough for her, that the furniture was not good enough, his misgivings hadn't comprised the thought that she might be dejected by the housekeeping, and he attri- buted her depression to the hours that she had passed alone. He suggested that she should subscribe to Mudie's on the morrow, and re- minded her that he knew one or two men in the neighbourhood whose wives would be glad of her friendship.
On their return, she changed her frock, and Keith, who had not guessed that she was going to do so, looked rather slovenly beside her smartness when he hooked it. But it was too late to repair his omission now.
The evening meal was indifferently cooked, and it was abominably served. The maid, who had been merely awkward during the brief luncheon, lost her wits among the unaccustomed courses of dinner. The wife had entered wistful for a few words of praise, but soon she yearned only for the ordeal to conclude.
The salt had not been smoothed. Bread, in the monstrosity of a cottage loaf, had been set at a corner of the table, and, in the process of cutting it, there were shot across the cloth
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enough crumbs for a chicken-run. A spot from the luncheon's gravy proclaimed that the cloth had done previous service; the napkins were tumbled.
" I thought they would know enough to put on others," she exclaimed penitently.
" These are all right, aren't they?" he said, surprised.
She kept her eyes down. " Well, yes," she faltered, " I suppose they'll do." She wouldn't let him see it, but it startled her to learn that he didn't expect clean napery at every meal.
There were intervals that threatened to be endless, followed by cascades of cutlery, as the flustered servant, in her creaking boots, bustled back with the knives and forks that had been forgotten. She popped the vegetable dishes in front of Betty, and when she was instructed to hand them, breathed heavily on the wrong side.
" It's an awful change for you, dear," said Keith, during one of the excited colloquies in the kitchen.
She struggled for a smile. " Oh, it's no- thing ! "
But the tension was greater for her than he divined, sorry and shamefaced as he was. She could have dined happily on bread-and-butter in a clean field; this vulgar racket set her nerves quivering.
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" I expect it's my own fault ; I've given them too much to do," she murmured, with dry lips. " Perhaps it would be better if we had just one or two things in future ? "
" Well, I don't think we need be quite so extensive, certainly," he agreed. He had been thinking that they could not afford it, and unconsciously the thought was in his voice.
Misery gripped her throat. She stared dumbly through the open window into the back yard. The toilette that she made weighed on her — she felt ridiculous to be well dressed. Her husband had sat down in a tweed jacket, the table linen was soiled, the servants were un- speakable, it was all revolting— and he hinted to her that it was extravagance !
Years of her life she would have given at that instant to be alone, to be free to scream unheard. Down her arms, to her very finger-tips, hysteria was clamouring in her.
The relief was physical when she rose at last ; but though she hurried to her room, she dared not scream. She clenched her hands and beat them hard against the wall instead.
She could not stay away long.
Dusk was gathering when she descended. In the half-light the little drawing-room had a melancholy air. Farther down Sibella Road an ancient toper, with a harp, was quavering :
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" My mother is with the Hangels now, She is waiting for me there ! "
The feet of the servant pounded along the passage. The clatter from the kitchen con- tinued to be maddening. A lugubrious church- clock droned a quarter past eight. She recog- nised that there were nearly two hours to be borne before she could credibly assert that she was tired.
CHAPTER IX
SHE went to bed faint with the fear of the morrow. Like a shy child away from home and yearning to be " fetched " — like a prisoner the first time that a sentence of years knells on his consciousness — she shrank from the terrors of the life before her. Of course, the servants were exceptionally bad for the wages that they were receiving; of course it is not usual for even a second-class servant to put a loaf on a dinner- table ; and of course that first full day was the most poignant of all. But if her husband had not been dearer to her than the man with whom she fell in love, she would have broken down before a week. Not for a single week could she have stood the strain. Whatever the conse- quences, she must have owned herself incapable.
Besides, if he really understood how wretched she was, she could not doubt that he would yield and consent to her father's providing for them. It was not the dread of a refusal that tied her tongue, nor was it the shame of confessing herself a failure — it was her reluctance to pain him, to stab him by admitting that all his efforts for her
happiness were so futile that she could not
ill
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support the change even for a week. She felt that it would be a cruel thing to do.
" If he really understood " ! Sometimes she wondered if she could have made him under- stand, if she could have made anybody under- stand whom usage had dulled to the life's unrest. He and others would say, " Oh, naturally you don't like being poor ; you miss your big house, and your carriage, and your French cook ! 5: But it wasn't that the villa was little, though the walls' nearness to one another pent her in mo- ments; it wasn't that she walked to St. John's Wood Road Station, instead of having carriages and motor cars at her command ; it wasn't that her food was cooked by an incompetent slattern, instead of by a famous chef. It was the vulgarity pertaining to small means that crushed her. "What about the kitchen coal 'm?" "The butcher hasn't called for orders 'm ! " " We're out of hale 'm, and the shops are shut ! " There were women in all the villas of the street; she saw some of them pass the window. They looked complacent, and she envied them. Did they realise the ceaseless preparation behind their cur- tains ? Did they know that a house where one was for ever arranging never became a home ?
Within, there was not, during the day, one hour when she could claim peace and feel safe against intrusion. There was not, during the day, one meal when the sight of the table didn't jar
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upon her, though she could have eaten the cold beef with contentment. The service, and the bathroom ! — she had not dreamed till now that it could be nauseous to bathe. The continuous preparation for what was sickening when it came ! And the doors that banged, banged, banged, until every pulse in her was expectant of the next slam !
Several pressing invitations had reached them from Clapham Park, and once they had paid a duty visit, but they had always excused themselves from dining there. Lady Keith had, moreover, called at the villa, and attempted gingerly to condole with Betty on " dear Richard's eccen- tricities." The girl read her like a tale in words of one syllable, and the lady could only gather, to her consternation, that his wife cordially endorsed his views.
Returning good for evil, she introduced the subject of housekeeping, and was dismayed to learn that nothing here was locked beyond the servants' maw. What an establishment from A to Z!
" Oh, my dear, but you ought to have every- thing under lock and key ! " she sighed. " My cook comes to me at half-past nine every morning with a trayful of cups, and I measure out just what is needed for the next twenty-four hours — so much tea, and so much sugar, and so much rice,
and so forth." She had picked up " so forth "
i
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from the knight. " I think it is our duty to keep temptation out of our servants' way and discourage waste. I look forward to my tray ! "
" Fd rather be dead," said Betty carelessly.
It was a shocking sentiment — but the speaker might have revelled in millions ! There was nothing to be gained from her — even if Richard had apostatised, their wealth would have yielded not a sovereign to the coffers of Clapham Park; yet the mere thought of the millions exalted her to a pinnacle, and " Aunt Emily " had only simpered her dissent.
The girl had not written to her father or brother since her marriage; her father's cable- gram rankled in her memory, and Howard had not shown enough interest in the matter to wish her happiness. To Mrs. Waldehast, however, she had written gaily hitherto; now she found it difficult to write, though as a rule even formal correspondence was no effort to her. There had been occasion for Keith to communicate with the landlord, and Betty, the butterfly, had suggested phrases that sounded as business- like as if they had come out of East India Avenue. Her letter from Sibella Road to her friend was accomplished only after she had wasted a good deal of the new stationery. Her first attempts had been very much out of tune, and " I am perfectly happy," added as an improvement, seemed only to call attention to the flatness of
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what came before. She was thankful when she finished at last; the thought of the mail would be no pleasure to her in future, nor was she sorry that the Waldehasts' intended trip to Europe had been postponed.
Though she was at pains to affect good spirits when Keith was present, he was distressfully conscious of a change in her; and the women whose complacence she envied, envied the woman whose housemaid " was always whistling on the doorstep for cabs in the evening." He examined the rooms, trying to conjecture what deficiency must mean the greatest hardship to her. Her toilet-service looked very meagre, and he de- termined to surprise her with a better one. He was surprised himself to learn the prices, but paid ten pounds for little silver pots and bottles, delighted with his inspiration.
" You won't feel such a pauper when you go to your dressing-table now ! " he crowed as she unpacked the parcel. The toilet-service that she had left on her table in New York had been acquired in the rue Drouot for seventy-five thousand francs, and had once belonged to the Empress Josephine.
" You angel ! Aren't they sweet ? I am proud of them ! " she exclaimed. But she felt poorer than before, because the tenderness of his error made the gift pathetic to her.
How could she say to this man, " I am miser-
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able " ? When he questioned her, she vowed that there was nothing the matter.
For a long while he had had elusive visions of a picture which had named itself in his mind, " The Harbour of Souls." He saw the misty forms of frail craft floating out of shadow into the whiteness of dawn. Some of the craft had been storm-tossed on the way. Age and youth were among the vague figures; a girl had sunk under torn sails, but her gaze was calm now. Over all was silence. The light, the still water, the faces, all meant peace.
The mental impression attracted him power- fully, but the whole scheme remained indefinite because his recent expenses had reduced his capital so much that he feared to begin the sketches for the picture. He knew very well that, if he did so, he would crave to work on it exclusively, and he could not afford the indul- gence. Instead, he worked on a canvas that he had blocked in roughly in America ; and he sold two smaller studies that he had brought back; he sold them to Vivard, the dealer, a cad in the clothes of a gentleman. It had once happened that an unfamiliar artist, intruding into the sanctity of Vivard's, had been mistaken for a customer — and the artist had never forgotten his experience of Vivard's two manners.
Betty had dimly supposed that painters sent nearly all their pictures in cabs to the Academy,
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or that Vivard, or Kluht, or one of those people, came to the studios and made respectful offers; to see Keith prepare to go forth with two can- vases for sale under his arm had been not a little startling. But here, the American spirit in her made her dauntless; she was no snob. While the managing clerk's wife across the way sneered at " such a common business," the multi-million- aire's daughter went to the gate with her husband and wished him luck.
One afternoon, when they had been in Sibella Road between two and three weeks, the servant came to the studio to tell Keith that her mistress was not at home, and that a gentleman was asking for them.
" What name did he give ? "
" He told me to say it was Mrs. Keith's father,
sir."
Keith started ; no visitor could have been less welcome. " Oh ! " he said. " All right. Is he in the drawing-room ? "
" No, sir; I left 'im in the 'all."
" Well, show him into the drawing-room, and say I'll be with him in a few minutes."
Lynch settled himself on the six-pound settee leisurely, drawing deductions. On the whole, his girl's room was not so bad as he had dreaded, —the aspect of the street had foretokened some- thing meaner, — but it was piteous and impossible. He rejoiced that he had come — she might have
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been too proud to own her mistake for months. As to this husband of hers, he was doubtless kicking himself for his heroics by now, even assuming that they were more than a manoeuvre at the start. In Betty's interests, though, one must affect to be fooled by him. It would have been refreshing to hear that he had met with an accident and been killed.
Keith came in. " Mr. Lynch ? I am sorry my wife is out." He did not offer his hand.
" Well, Mr. Keith ! I am glad to meet you* I have neglected some business to do so."
"Won't you sit down? "
" Thank you. Is Betty well ? "
" Yes, thanks. I expect she'll be back before very long."
They regarded each other curiously— the swind- ler trying to see into the mind of his son-in- law; his son-in-law loathing the necessity for receiving the swindler with politeness.
" Mr. Keith, you and I have got to have quite a chat; I guess we have got to arrive at a friendly understanding."
" Do you think it's essential for us to introduce any painful subject? " asked Keith nervously.
" I shall make a blunt answer to that : if Betty was not married to you, it would not concern me to correct your prejudices. But my daughter cannot continue to be dependent on her husband's professional earnings— we are not play-
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ing opera-bouffe. I have too much affection for my child to let her suffer rather than put myself in a humiliating position. I will only ask you to make it as little humiliating to me as your views permit— I am an old man, and a more sensitive one than I allow my enemies to believe."
Involuntarily Keith liked him better. " My own wish would be to avoid the position alto- gether," he said gently.
" I appreciate your meaning. But my girl is dear to you too ; for her sake you will see that it is our duty not to spare ourselves. You have a very remarkable character, Mr. Keith; I have the very highest admiration for your principles; but — I shall be candid — I have no admiration for your financial judgment. You have shown me that it is too impulsive."
"How?"
" By forming a decision before you had an opportunity to investigate the system that you have condemned. You let yourself be carried away by the side that shouted, and you forgot that it might be the silent side that was right. Now I am going to say to you what it don't interest me to say to any other of my critics : my enterprises are open to your inspection, Mr. Keith— ask me any questions you please, and I will answer them."
" You pay me a great compliment," said
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Keith drily, " but, as you may be aware, I am not qualified to examine you on financial matters, even if I wished to do it."
" Should not examination precede the ver- dict?"
" Mr. Lynch, the examination has been made by experts, and the verdict returned by the world."
The heroics were genuine, the man meant it ! If Betty had only stood firm ! But she had given him full swing, so he had to be conciliated. There was hatred in Lynch's heart, and good- humour in his smile.
" Has experience in your own line convinced you that the world's verdict is always sound ? I guess I have heard of great artists much mis- apprehended by the world ? "
Keith found no reply.
" Come, Mr. Keith, I want you to see it my way ! Put these difficulties of yours before me, and I will meet them squarely — and not entirely for Betty's sake now; I like your grit. You haven't cool brains, but you have something more wonderful ; I should be proud to shake your hand before I go, and you have got to do me justice before that can happen. See here, Betty's husband has got to be right on top ! I hear you are a genius— and everybody has got to recog- nise it. I don't know much about your pro- fession, but I know something about life. I presume that the artist who can take a big
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house and entertain big people will get there considerably sooner than the artist who has no dollars to speak for him. I aim at seeing you President of the Royal Academy. What is there between us? There always have been, and there always must be, a few very rich men; and there always have been, and there always must be, many more very poor ones. To abuse a millionaire because there are bankrupts on the earth is as unreasonable as to sling mud at Niagara because there are droughts."
" Nobody but an anarchist, or some other sort of lunatic, would abuse a man merely for being a millionaire, or a multi-millionaire. One reviles methods, not millions."
" Well, let us get down to business ! Between you and I there can be a perfect frankness. What are the methods that are worrying you ? "
" I'd rather not go into details — to Betty's father, and in my own house."
" It's just strait-laced square dealing that you quit talking generalities and specify your objections."
" Well, then, I object to a fortune amassed by refusing poorer men the power to live. I find the methods of such a Trust as yours, sir, as devoid of Christianity, and patriotism, and sympathy as the methods of the primeval ages, when Might was Right. And I object to a fortune amassed by plunder, by wholesale
122 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
trickery, and perjury, and corruption ; by bribing a Press to spread lies broadcast for the snare of the life-earnings of thousands, and the iniqui- tous enrichment of a few millionaires who have already more millions then they can spend— lies of enormous finds in mines that are worthless, and of enormous profits from shares that are being given a fictitious value by bogus trans- actions. I object to a fortune that creates defaulters, and suicides, and prostitutes — and I object to my wife battening on them ! "
He had said it, although his voice had shaken and his pulses had thumped ; and though he was too unnerved now to look at Lynch, he was glad that it was said. Behind Lynch's impassive features fury was blazing; and behind the fury was one poignant, pure regret : " That's how he speaks of me to my girl ! "
It was not a moment when he could afford fury— the moment demanded prompt, grave, and whole-hearted lying.
" You would be quite right to object," he said smoothly. " So would any honest man ! But why accept this poppycock without in- vestigation? You repeat the charge that I bribe a section of the Press to spread lies for the snare of investors. Mr. Keith, that charge is itself a lie which a section of the Press was bribed to spread. It was the other side of the game ! ?: He smiled wistfully. Richard, meeting his gaze,
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confused, found it deep with reproachful sorrow. If a stranger had entered the room, he would have taken the accuser for a culprit, and the scoundrel for a benefactor whose confidence had been betrayed. " Might is not necessarily Right ? No, sir. But do not imagine that Noise is necessarily Truth. A man cannot make millions without making enemies too. I do not say I am a philanthropist, I shall not pretend to you for a single instant that my notions are as lofty as all your own — the world has been too rough on me for me to have a wholesale tenderness for the world. You have spoken of ' patriotism.' W-e-11, I am a naturalised American citizen; but I was born in this wet little island, and as a poor boy I found England no more interested in my miseries than I afterwards found America. When I went without shoes, the stones of Lan- cashire were no gentler to my feet because I trod my native land. When I had empty pockets, the British storekeepers were no more benevolent than the aliens. If I had died of starvation on the street, my death would have caused no more concern to England than to any other country. I do not know what c patriotism ' means ; I do not allow that any callous parent is entitled to affection. Tenderness deserves tenderness, but I cannot understand why an outcast should feel more sentimental about the soil of the land he was born in than about the planks of the ship if
124 THE HOUSE OF LYNCH
he was born in mid-ocean. You have spoken of ' sympathy.' I have seen no results from it. If you expect advancement from sympathy, I warn you that you are putting your hopes into rotten stock. Sympathy is the emotion that accom- plishes nothing. Ambition, love, hate, jealousy, greed, they all hustle, and make history; sym- pathy loafs, and makes phrases. It is the weakling of the emotional group. I say these things because I wish to be sincere with you; I do not propose to claim any virtues that I do not possess. But, Mr. Keith, I do claim, and I have the right to claim, that throughout my career I have never committed a dishonourable act, never wronged man, woman, or child. I will illustrate; I will show you what I mean by the ' other side of the game.' You shall see how a man who has treated his friends and his business associates with the utmost generosity may be attacked by some of the men who he has served most, and how these very indictments, that arouse indignation against him, are hatched simply to divert the public's dollars into schemes more lucrative to the organisers."
With a patience that was marvellous he led Keith, step by step, through transactions of magnitude— translating, descanting, yet talking with so much tact that he instructed a novice with the air of confiding to a mind as astute as his own. " Till you can crush your opponent,
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flatter him ! " had been one of the maxims of his life. He had matched his wits against some of the keenest financial intellects of the world, and emerged triumphant; but, in its way, as clever a thing as he had ever done was the task of the next hour, while, without a trace of weariness, he reduced the intricacies of Wall Street operations to terms intelligible to a schoolboy, and simul- taneously invented conspiracies and figures to prove his falsehoods.
And at the end, Keith looked him in the eyes and said, " My wife does not touch a shilling of such money, as God hears ! "
The average man's self-control would have snapped. Lynch desired a conversation with Betty before she had been prepared for it; to take offence would mean to take leave and give her husband an opportunity to coach her. He indulged in the faintest shrug.
" We are told, ' The truth is mighty, and will prevail,' : ' he said pleasantly, " but there is no clause re time-limit. I will illustrate further."
Only when she had come in and they were left together did he permit himself the luxury of vehemence. He read her mind in her first evasion, and wrath and protest poured from him as he paced the room. But she would not acknowledge that she was dissatisfied. She spoke of Keith's devotion. She gave instances of his tenderness. She boasted that she had never
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known what it meant to ask him for money, or to have an empty purse. And at the back of her brain all the while was the longing for him to yield, the regret at hearing that he had been firm.
" Betty," said Lynch, " I have been proud of you — don't make me think you a fool, honey. I've got a fool for a son — leave me my daughter ! Have I been so harsh to you that you should punish me this way ? Can't you feel what it '11 mean to me to leave you in a house like this ? I can't stand it. I guess a father has got rights too. / loved you when you were a baby, Pve been tender to you all your life; what has this man done, who comes around when you're a woman, to wipe me out in your affections? You ain't fair with me. I can't do anything if you're dogged — it's waste of time my making a settlement if you won't spend the money. It's right here that you have got to put this thing through ! Handle it while his love's fresh. See here, women kick up a rumpus about men having too much power, but I tell you this, with a lifetime of experience behind me— there's no power on earth like a pretty woman's. Only she's like a horse — she don't know her own strength, or no man could boss her. What you've got to do is to tell him that it don't suit you to play at being crazy any longer. The bigger his love, the safer your position ! He'll climb down."
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" I promised him," she reiterated, " I pro- mised him before we were married. Please don't say any more. It's no good. I can't do it."
" W-e-11, I am beaten ! I came for nothing. I guess I'll go back by the next boat. Shall I see you again ? Will you come and stay with me till I sail?"
" I'll come, of course, but I won't stay."
44 Why not?"
" I think we understand all each other's reasons, poppa," said Betty, smiling crookedly. " If I went to stay with you, it wouldn't make this look much better to me afterwards, eh ? ''
His purpose was detected — but it was his own daughter who had seen through him; Lynch sighed— but patted her hand with approval.
CHAPTER X
No, she wouldn't stay at the hotel, but the waiters and the table appointments were not without an influence when she lunched or dined there; nor was Lynch the person to accept defeat so easily as he had pretended.
He harped no more on his own feelings, nor on her privations; he questioned her about Keith's work : and she had never liked her father so well as while he listened to her rhapso- dies, with an assumption of growing interest, and made generous remarks about the man who, she gathered, had abused him. " The Harbour of Souls," she declared, would be a great picture one day — by far the most important thing that Richard had ever done— but the day was distant ; naturally, he had other things to do in the mean- time. It was to this that Lynch had been guiding her. Wealth, he exclaimed, would have absolved her husband from the need for doing the " other things " — wealth would have given his genius full play. As it was — well, of course, marriage was bound to handicap him ; he could not hope to be famous so young as if he hadn't a wife to support ! Even the luncheons and
128
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dinners provided opportunities, though they fell short of the temptations projected.
Betty was much too acute to miss the motive for such regrets — she realised, directly they were uttered, that she had been adroitly led to a desired cue— but, for all that, there was sufficient truth in the words for them to stick.
Though Keith did his best to disguise aversion, the sight of her going forth to visit her father every day was far from being pleasant. He was infinitely relieved one evening, when she had come back, to hear that the date for Lynch's departure was fixed.
"I suppose you're not sorry to hear it?" she said. There was a new umbrage in her tone.
"Have I made any complaint about your- going? " he returned, startled.
" I haven't noticed much enthusiasm."
" You can hardly expect me to be ' enthusias- tic.' I shouldn't be enthusiastic about your being out all day, wherever you went."
She drummed her fingers on the mantelshelf : " If my father came here, I shouldn't have to go to him so often."
" The house is open to him, Betty."
" Well, I should hope so ! — if he chose to come to it after the way you received him," she said.
It was the^first hint of dissension. He took
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a turn about the room — and put an arm round her.
" I've been afraid of this— don't let it hap- pen ! "
Her figure was not responsive.
" I told you the same night that I was sorry I had said so much. But it had to be then, or not at all."
" It might have been ' not at all.' "
" It isn't easy to refuse to let a man do things for his own child and to hold back your reason for it. You told me you understood ? " His caress tightened. " You aren't going to be angry with me ? 5!
She uttered a little choky cry and clutched at him. " We might have been so comfortable ! " she quavered.
His heart seemed to stand still. He had failed, then! The drawing-room that he had thought rather luxurious looked pathetically stupid across her shoulder. There was a long pause.
She wished he would speak. She wished she hadn't said it. " Oh, Dick ! "
" I didn't know," said Keith drearily. " I- yes, I've wondered."
" It's nothing. I didn't mean to tell you; I meant to tell you about something quite differ- ent ! But Oh, you think me such a sneak,
don't you, after I promised ? "
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" I want you to tell me the truth always. Has it — have you been uncomfortable long? '
" It's so hard ! "
"I mean, is it only since he came over? I don't want to deceive myself, but has it been so hard all the time ? "
" Not at first — I mean, not till we were here. Don't think that, oh no ! "
"It's this, the house? You— oh, don't tremble, don't be afraid ! Whom should you speak to, if not me? aren't we one? Why, I want to hear your troubles; it brings me closer to you to hear your troubles than your pleasures. Tell me everything, just as if you were thinking aloud."
" It's because I'm a fool. I don't know how to manage — and the servants see it. They're awful. They make it worse for me. I think of them when I wake up, the first thing. Dick, they're spoiling our home to me ! I'm afraid of them."
He strangled an oath. " Afraid of them ? I'll pitch them out of the house neck and crop to-morrow morning ! I'd send them off to-night if it weren't too late. Why didn't you say so ? why didn't you come to me about it ? My poor little girl ! "
" The new ones 'd be just the same. I daresay they don't mean any harm— it's my own fault; I don't understand." She clung to him tear-
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fully. " Dickie, duckie, you know I loathe going back on what I said, but don't you think we might let poppa do a little for us — just a little ? I don't ask you to take much — I know you'd feel too bad about it— but if we had just a few thousand pounds a year, it'd make every- thing so different. It would all be lovely then ! It isn't only me— there's you too; you'd get on so much faster. You could start on your picture right away. If we go on like this, I know very well that by-and-by you'll be sorry you cared for me. You can't succeed so soon as if you weren't married. I want to be of use to you, I want to be a chum ; I can't be a chum if I'm a burden, and it makes me feel miserable, know- ing I could do so much if you'd only let me. It humiliates me to think I'm a drawback to my husband — I never thought I'd be that ! Poppa likes you; he admires you for your pluck in standing up to him, though he says your ideas about it are quite wrong. If you'd only say ' Yes,' I could tell him in the morning, and he could fix it up before he goes. Think what it would be ! All of a sudden ! In five minutes all the horrors would be over— all our life would be just as beautiful as our Honeymoon ! Just a little, Dickie — what is it out of all the millions ? Couldn't we take just enough to make things smooth ? "
It was one of the moments when man strives,
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speechless and voiceless, for words to utter his very soul. What could he answer that would make him seem less than brutal to her ?
" I'd do anything else on earth for you," he stammered— and execrated his own triteness.
To her the blow was as heavy as to him. He wasn't going to yield ! She had not realised till now how it had supported her to believe that the remedy was within her reach; she had not meant to take it, she had only glanced at it sometimes for encouragement. All at once it had vanished — the future was bare. It was to go on like this for years and years ! What he was saying came to her muffled.
" Don't you see that it doesn't matter whether we take much or little ? " he pleaded wretchedly. " It's not the amount that makes it right or wrong ; if it were right of me to say ' Yes ' to a little, it would be wrong of me to draw the line at all. Oh, Betty darling, you know the broken lives behind this money ! You know what I say about it is true — you've told me that you know ! For God's sake, don't ask me to hold you at a price like that !— it would degrade us, it would poison our love. Our marriage will never be a drawback to me if we play the game honestly — you will be a help, you will be a chum, just as you want to be. It's not you who've been a fool, it's I— I ought to be kicked for giving you housekeeping to do. I ought to have
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remembered. I hate myself for being such a blockhead ! "
66 Oh, nonsense," she said dismally.
"That's the only thing, isn't it? You say you were happy before ? If it weren't for that, you wouldn't mind ? "
She shook her head.
" Well, we'll give the house up ! We'll take a flat where there's a restaurant downstairs. We ought to have done it at the beginning."
"As if I'd let you be so crazy, when we've only just come in ! ?:
" It doesn't matter when we came in, I'm not going to have you made miserable if I can help it. Oh, kiddy, don't think me cruel to you. I know it sounds the cheapest thing in the world to say I'd do anything excepting what you ask, but I can't do that— I can't, I can't ! I'll take you out of the house to-morrow; you shan't spend another day in it. We'll go to an hotel till we've found what we want — and we'll go to a nice one. Curse the servants ! When I think what you've been going through while I was imagining I had
done all I could to make you happy, I
c Afraid of them ' ! " Pain and rage mastered him. He flung to the electric button, and was sorry that it wasn't a bell-handle that he could wrench.
" What are you going to do? ':
" I'm going to give them notice ! ''
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" They can't go now."
"I can give them notice now, though ! What do you suppose I'm made of? Do you suppose I'm made of bricks-and-mortar, that I can bear to see you cry and have to look like a tyrant, and know that it all comes from those ? "
" Dick ! " she said urgently, " Dick, don't ! They've never been rude, never. Please ! Don't make a fuss to-night ! "
He sat down, trembling.
The housemaid opened the door : " Yes 'm ? ':
" You've forgotten the syphon," said Betty.
" It's on the little table 'm."
"Oh, is it? I didn't notice. Very well."
She had no passion for money as the senten- tious knight, and his wife, who doled out the sugar, had a passion for it ; she did not worship money for money's sake. Measured by the profusion that she had been taught to take for granted, her requirements had, indeed, been reduced to the point of heroism — she asked only for peace. The prospect of being relieved from the house- keeping had lightened her mood almost as much as if he had consented to her appeal. Laughter quivered in her voice now, though it was more than a shade hysterical.
" She little knows what I've saved her from ! "
Keith could not laugh yet. She knelt on a pouf beside him : " You'll make me sorry I told you."
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" You aren't to say that ! I'm thankful — I've never been more thankful for anything in my life. It isn't your telling me that upsets me, it's my own idiocy in needing to be told. You don't know how bitter it is to a man, when he loves a woman, to hear she has had a big trouble that he didn't see. Well, I'll try to make up to you for it ! You won't have to think of the servants when you wake to-morrow, kiddy."
" You really mean it? I feel awful selfish. I do, I feel a monster ! ?:
" Where's your face, monster ? Don't keep it such a long way off."
" A flat will cost ever so much more, you know it will," she purred, nestling to him. " With a restaurant downstairs, it'll be perfectly ruinous to you. And where will you work ? 5:
" I'll work in my old studio — it's lucky I've still got it."
" That'll be two rents, then. Besides this one ! We won't be able to get rid of it in a hurry, you may be sure. And think of the money it has cost — look at the windows, and the wall-papers. Oh, it's wicked ! " She sprang up resolutely. " No, we can't do it. I mean it. I won't do it ! ): She was quite sincere, she didn't mean to do it.
16 Of course the wall-papers must be considered before you" said Keith; "what else are wall- papers made for? Do you mind bringing that
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cheek back — I'm taking a chill. . . . Do you know — is that right, are you comfortable ? — do you know, I'm not sorry to get out of this ! I'm not, upon my word ! " he went on, with rising spirits. " There's something rather de- pressing about it, I think — perhaps it's a gravel soil."
"What does that do?"
" I don't know exactly, but I know it isn't right. Or perhaps it's a clay soil that isn't right — I know when people take a house there's some sort of soil they don't want. A flat will be ever so much cosier— much better for me, too. I hate the tradesmen banging at the side door all the morning ; and the woman opposite is such an object."
" She doesn't interfere with us, does she? "
" I don't like her profile ; it infuriates me. I'm glad we're going, for lots of reasons."
" Fd sing for joy, if I didn't feel so mean. Lucky thing for you I feel mean ! ?:
" If you talk any more nonsense about feeling * mean,' I'll shake you. Are you going to be good ? "
" Mmps."
" Well, then, let's decide everything. Now I
come to think of it Why do you always
push my hair backwards ? ':
" I d'n' know— I like it. Don't be so vain ! Well ? Now you come to think of it ? ':
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" Now I come to think of it, I believe flats of that kind are always let furnished. I'm not sure if you can get an unfurnished flat with catering."
" What's to become of our furniture, then? "
66 We might give it to the servants, as a token of appreciation."
"No, but really?"
" Well, I suppose we'd better sell it. Tread on the carpet lightly and keep it new ! By Jove, an auction '11 put us in funds again— we'll go out to dinner on the strength of it ! "
" We might find an unfurnished flat, mightn't we? " said Betty.
"We might." He pondered. "But there'd be no use for the stair-carpets, anyhow. Nor the rods."
"No." She also reflected. "And the flat wouldn't be as big as the house — we couldn't get all the things into it."
" I hadn't thought of that. Well, it's all the more reason why we should sell them — it's no good storing them for years. Besides, when we take a house again, they'd be lost in it."
" Buckingham Palace ? "
" No, it's too near the railway line — we'll want something select. We'll do it properly next time — servants that know their business. I hope the flat won't be too poky, though ! "
" It can be as poky as it likes, we don't want
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to play hide-and-seek. It doesn't matter how small it is, if you have your studio outside. All
we need is It oughtn't to cost so much more,
after all, ought it?"
" I should think we could go West for about the same rent. If we only need a drawing-room and a bedroom "
" It— it '11 have to be more than that," she murmured.
" We shall take our meals in the restaurant, you know."
" Still we'll want a third room "
" For our luggage ? "
" No." She slipped a little closer, and her eyes were hidden from him. " We'll want a third room, Dickie — for someone else by-and-by."
CHAPTER XI
REALISING the vision in the cardboard house, the morning sun shone on her face between the draperies when she woke, but Keith was too busy packing to appreciate that gleam of irony.
" If we make haste, we can be out of the place and comfortably settled at the hotel before luncheon," he explained.
She contemplated the confusion with her arms round his neck. Among her charms was the one that no beauty specialist undertakes to restore with a " remarkable preparation " — the charm of waking up lovely.
" It looks as if it had been raining shirts," she pouted.
" You should