The Beggar Man Part 17

"Oh, yes, I see," he said. "Well, good-night. I'll be round early to-morrow to make arrangements."

Peg shut the door after him, and went back to Faith. The girl was awake, and sitting up in bed with feverish eyes.

"Has he gone?" she asked in a whisper.

"Yes." Peg sat down beside the bed. "Here, have you two been and had a real row?" she demanded.

"Yes," Faith whispered.

Peg said "Humph! You mean a proper old glory-row like they have in novelettes, eh? Don't mean to make it up till the last chapter, if ever, eh?"

"I never mean to make it up."

There was a little silence; then Peg said:

"With all his money, it might be worth while."

Faith hid her face.

"I don't want his money. I only want my mother," she sobbed.

"You poor chicken!" Peg took her into motherly arms.

"You shan't ever see him again if you don't want," she promised rashly.

"He shan't come in here except over my dead body," she added, with tragic emphasis, and a sudden memory of a pink-backed novelette still lying at home unfinished....

But she found the Beggar Man more difficult to manage than she had imagined. He demanded to see Faith, and being determinedly repulsed, asked reasons.

Peg hesitated; then she said with evident enjoyment:

"Well, you'll have to know in the end, so I may as well tell you now!

She's found out something about you."

Forrester changed colour a little.

"What the deuce do you mean?" he demanded.

Peg shrugged her shoulders.

"I only mean that she told me so last night. Of course, she's sick and ill, and everything looks its blackest, and I told her she was making too much of it, but she wouldn't listen! I'm not sensitive myself, but she seems to think you're responsible for her father's death. Her father was a gentleman, you know," she added in emphatic parenthesis.

The Beggar Man laughed.

"I never knew her father. I never saw him in my life to the best of my knowledge."

Peg regarded him with her handsome head on one side, and her arms akimbo.

"Have you ever read a book called 'Revenge is Sweet'?" she asked.

The Beggar Man moved impatiently.

"No, I haven't, and even if I had----"

She interrupted mercilessly.

"Well, you should! It's on at the pictures, too, this week, and it reminds me of what Faith told me about her father and you! It's all about a man who ruined another man in business and broke his heart, so that he died! Well, that's what happened to Faith's father--through you!"

The Beggar Man walked over to the window and stood looking out into the ugly street.

A dull flush had risen to his face. He was not proud of everything that had happened in his life, and he was perfectly well aware that his great wealth could not always have been acc.u.mulated without distress to others.

Until now those "others" had been vague, unreal figures, but it gave him a sick feeling of shame to think that perhaps Peg was speaking the truth when she said that one of them had been Faith's father.

"Business is business," he began angrily in self-defence.

Peg nodded.

"That's what I say! I said so to Faith, and told her that it would very likely be worth while to overlook things for the sake of your money, but...."

The Beggar Man turned with a roar like a wounded lion.

"You told her that!"

"I did." Her hard blue eyes met his unflinchingly. "Money's the only thing in the world worth having when you've never had any, and I know! I believe I'd marry Old Nick himself if he offered me ten thousand a year and a car of my own."

Forrester swore under his breath.

"Women are all the same," he said bitterly. "Ready to sell their souls for jewels and luxury."

"Well," said Peg, "I don't know that _you_ can talk! Anyway, it's no business of mine, only that's why Faith won't see you."

The Beggar Man's face hardened in a way that made him almost ugly; he was not used to being thwarted.

He went close to Peg as she stood guarding the doorway.

"Are you going to move?" he asked quietly, "or have I got to make you?"

Peg grew very red. She began to say, "Make me?" but changed her mind and stood on one side with a sudden meekness that would have amazed anyone who knew her. And the Beggar Man opened the door and went out into the pa.s.sage.

She followed him then and spoke in a subdued way. "Look here, I'm not taking sides any longer, so don't you think it. But Faith's a little bit of a thing, and she's sad, and she's sick. I can't stop you going in to her if you mean to, but----" She paused. "If you're the sport I almost think you are, you won't, at any rate not to-day," she added earnestly.

It was very clever of her, and the Beggar Man stopped and wavered.

For an instant they looked at one another silently, eye to eye; then he turned back.

"Very well; but as soon as she's well enough you understand that nothing you can say or do will prevent me." Peg laughed grimly.

"Oh, yes, I understand that," she said.