The Firm of Girdlestone Part 34

"It makes courting a good deal easier," Ezra answered.

"If a girl will answer up and give you an opening now and then, it makes all the difference."

"You can't write poetry, can you?"

"Not much," Ezra said with a grin.

"That's a pity. I believe it goes a long way with women. You might get some one to write some, and let her think it is yours. Or you could learn a little off and repeat it."

"Yes, I might do that. I'm going to buy a collar for that beast of a dog of hers. All the time that I was talking to her yesterday she was so taken up with it that I don't believe she heard half that I said.

My fingers itched to catch it up and chuck it through the window."

"Don't forget yourself, my boy, don't forget yourself!" cried the merchant. "A single false step might ruin every thing."

"Never fear," Ezra said confidently, and went off upon the dog-collar mission. While he was in the shop he bought a dog-whip as well, which he locked up in his drawers to use as the occasion served.

During all this time Kate had been entirely unconscious of her companion's intentions and designs. She had been a.s.sociated with Ezra for so many years, and had met such undeviated want of courtesy from him, that the idea of his presenting himself as a suitor never came into her head. She hailed his charge of demeanour, therefore, as being the result of his larger experience of the world, and often wondered how it was that he had profited so much by his short stay at the Cape. In the cheerless house it was pleasant to have at least one companion who seemed to have kindly feelings towards her. She was only too glad, therefore, to encourage his advances, and to thank him with sweet smiles and eloquent eyes for what appeared to her to be his disinterested kindness.

After a while, however, Ezra's attentions became so marked that it was impossible for her to misunderstand them any longer. Not only did he neglect his usual work in order to hang round her from morning to night, but he paid her many clumsy compliments and gave other similar indications of the state of his affections. As soon as this astounding fact had been fairly realized by the girl, she at once changed her manner and became formal and distant. Ezra, nothing daunted, redoubled his tender words and glances, and once would have kissed her hand had she not rapidly withdrawn it. On this Kate shut herself up in her room, and rarely came out save when the other was away in the City. She was determined that there should be no possibility of any misunderstanding as to her feelings in the matter.

John Girdlestone had been watching these little skirmishes closely and with keen interest. When Kate took to immuring herself in her room he felt that it was time for him to interfere.

"You must go about a little more, and have more fresh air," he said to her one day, when they were alone after breakfast. "You will lose your roses if you don't."

"I am sure I don't care whether I lose them or not," answered his ward listlessly.

"You may not, but there are others who do," remarked the merchant.

"I believe it would break Ezra's heart."

Kate flushed up at this sudden turn of the conversation. "I don't see what reason your son has to care about it," she said.

"Care about it! Are you so blind that you don't see that he loves the very ground you walk on. He has grown quite pale and ill these last few days because he has not seen you, and he imagines that he may have offended you."

"For goodness' sake!" cried Kate earnestly, "persuade him to think of some one else. It will only be painful both to him and to me if he keeps on this way. It cannot possibly lead to anything."

"And why not? Why should--"

"Oh, don't let us argue about it," she cried pa.s.sionately. "The very idea is horrible. It won't bear talking about."

"But why, my dear, why? You are really too impulsive. Ezra has his faults, but what man has not? He has been a little wild in his youth, but he is settling down now into an excellent man of business. I a.s.sure you that, young as he is, there are few names more respected on 'Change. The way in which he managed the business of the firm in Africa was wonderful. He is already a rich man, and will be richer before he dies. I cannot see any cause for this deep-rooted objection of yours.

As to looks he is, you must confess, as fine a young fellow as there is in London."

"I wish you not to speak of it or think of it again," said Kate.

"My mind is entirely made up when I say that I shall never marry any one--him least of all."

"You will think better of it, I am sure," her guardian said, patting her chestnut hair kindly as he stood over her. "Since your poor father handed you over to me I have guarded you and cared for you to the best of my ability. Many a sleepless night I have spent thinking of your future and endeavouring to plan it out so as to secure your happiness.

I should not be likely to give you bad advice now, or urge you to take a step which would make you unhappy. Have you anything to complain of in my treatment of you?"

"You have been always very just," Kate said with a sob.

"And this is how you repay me! You are going to break my son's heart, and through his mine. He is my only boy, and if anything went wrong with him I tell you that it would bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. You have it in your power to do this, or, on the other hand, you may make my old age a happy one by the knowledge that the lad is mated with a good woman, and has attained the object on which his whole mind and heart are set."

"Oh, I can't, I can't. Do let the matter drop."

"Think it over," the old man said. "Look at it from every point of view. Remember that the love of an honest man is not to be lightly spurned. I am naturally anxious about it, for my future happiness, as well as his, depends upon your decision."

John Girdlestone was fairly satisfied with this interview. It seemed to him that his ward was rather less decided in her refusal at the end of it, and that his words had had some effect upon her, which might possibly increase with reflection.

"Give her a little time now," was his advice to his son. "I think she will come round, but she needs managing."

"If I could get the money without taking her it would be better for me,"

Ezra said with an oath.

"And better for her too," remarked John Girdlestone grimly.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MRS. SCULLY OF MORRISON'S.

One day Major Tobias Clutterbuck was sitting at the window of his little room smoking his cigarette and sipping his gla.s.s of wine, as was his custom if times were reasonably good. While thus agreeably employed he chanced to look across the road and perceived a little fringe of dark hair, and a still darker eye, which surveyed him round the border of one of the curtains which flanked a window opposite. The gallant major was much interested in this apparition, and rose to make a closer inspection of it, but, alas! before he could focus it with his eye-gla.s.s it was gone! He bent his gaze resolutely in that direction for a long time, and smoked at least half a dozen cigarettes, besides finis.h.i.+ng the bottle of wine; but although he thought he saw certain flittings and whiskings of garments in the dark background of the opposite room, he could not make out anything more definite.

Next day the soldier was on the look-out at the same hour, and was rewarded by the appearance of two eyes, very mischievous and dangerous ones too, which were set in a buxom and by no means unprepossessing face. The lady who owned these charms looked very deliberately up the street, and very deliberately down the street, after which she bethought herself to look across the street, and started to perceive a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with a fiery face, who was looking at her with an expression of intense admiration. So much alarmed was she that she vanished behind the curtains and the major feared that he would see her no more. Fortunately, however, it became evident that the lady's alarm was not very overpowering, for within five minutes she was back at the window, where her eyes again fell upon the beaming face and jaunty figure of the major, who had posed himself in a striking att.i.tude, which was somewhat marred by the fact that he was still enveloped in his purple dressing-gown. This time her eyes lingered a little longer than before and the suspicion of a smile appeared upon her features. On this the major smiled and bowed, and she smiled also, showing a pretty little line of white teeth as she did so. What the veteran's next move might have been no one can tell, for the lady solved the problem by disappearing, and this time permanently. He was very well satisfied, however, and chuckled much to himself while arraying himself in his long frock coat and immaculate collar before setting out for the club.

He had been a sly old dog in his day, and had followed Venus almost as much as he had Mars during his chequered career.

All day the recollection of this little episode haunted him. So much pre-occupied was he at the club that he actually played out the thirteenth trump upon his partner's long suit and so sacrificed the game--being the first and only time that he was ever known to throw away a point. He told Von Baumser all about it when he came back.

"She's a demned foine-looking woman, whoever she may be," he remarked, at they sat together before turning in. "Be George! she's the foinest woman I've seen for a long time."

"She's a window," said the German.

"A what?"

"A window--the window of an engineer."

"Is it a widow you mane? What d'ye know about her? What's her name, and where does she come from?"

"I have heard from the slavey that a win--a widow lives over dere in those rooms. She boards mit Madame Morrison, and that window belongs to her privacy zimmer--dat is, chamber. As to her name, I have not heard it, or else I disremember it."

"Ged!" said the major, "she'd eyes that looked right through ye, and a figure like Juno."

"She's vierzig if she's a day--dat is, forty," Von Baumser remarked.

"Well, if she is, me boy, a woman of forty is just in the proime o'

loife. If you'd seen her at the window, she would have taken ye by storm. She stands like this, and she looks up like this, and then down in this way." The major pursed up his warlike features into what he imagined to be an innocent and captivating expression. Then she looks across and sees me, and down go the lids of her eyes, like the shutting off of a bull's-eye lantern. Then she blushed and stole just one more glance at me round the corner of the curtain. She had two peeps, the divil a doubt of it."

"Dat is very good," the German said encouragingly.