The High Heart Part 20

My sensation can only be compared to that of a person who has got a terrific blow on the head from a trip-hammer. I seemed to wonder why I hadn't been crushed or struck dead. As it was, I felt that I could never move again from the spot on which I stood. I was vaguely conscious of something outraged within me and yet was too stunned to resent it. I could only gasp, feebly, after what seemed an interminable time: "In the first place, I'm not so awfully keen on getting married--"

She was examining her gloves.

"There, that stupid Sraphine has put me out two lefts. No, she hasn't; it's all right. Stuff, my dear! Every girl is keen on getting married."

"And then," I stammered on, "Mr. Strangways has never given me the chance."

"Oh, well, he will. Do hand me my wrap, like a love." I was putting the wrap over her shoulders as she repeated: "Oh, well, he will. I can tell by the way he looks at you. It would be ever so much more suitable. Jim says he'll be a first-cla.s.s man in time--if you don't rush in like an idiot and marry Hugh."

"I may marry Hugh," I tried to say, loftily, "but I hope I sha'n't do it like an idiot."

She swept toward the stairway, but she had left me with subjects for thought not only for that evening, but for the next day and the next.

Now that the first shock was over I managed to work up the proper sense of indignity. I told myself I was hurt and offended. She shouldn't have mentioned such a thing. I wouldn't have stood it from one of my own sisters. I had never thought of Larry Strangways in any such way, and to do so disturbed our relations. To begin with, I wasn't in love with him; and to end with, he was too poor. Not that I was looking for a rich husband; but neither was I a lunatic. It would be years before he could think of marrying, if there were no other consideration; and in the mean time there was Hugh.

There was Hugh with his letters from Boston, full of high ambitious hopes. Cousin Andrew Brew had written from Bar Harbor that he was coming to town in a day or two and would give him the interview he demanded.

Already Hugh had his eye on a little house on Beacon Hill--so like a corner of Mayfair, he wrote, if Mayfair stood on an eminence--in which we could be as snug as two love-birds. I was composing in my mind the letter I should write to my aunt in Halifax, asking to be allowed to come back for the wedding.

I filled in the hours wondering how Larry Strangways looked at me when there was only Mrs. Rossiter as spectator. I knew how he looked at me when I was looking back--it was with that gleaming smile which defied you to see behind it, as the sun defies you to see behind its rays. But I wanted to know how he looked at me when my head was turned another way; to know how the sun appears when you view it through a telescope that nullifies its defensive. For that I had only my imagination, since he had obtained two or three days' leave to go to New York to see his new employer. He had warned me to betray no hint as to the new employer's name, since there was a feud between the Brokens.h.i.+re clan and Stacy Grainger which I connected vaguely with the story I had heard of Mrs. Brokens.h.i.+re.

Then on the fourth day Hugh came back. He appeared as he had on saying good-by, while I was breakfasting with Gladys in the open air and Broke was with his mother. Hugh was more pallid than when he went away; he was positively woe-begone. Everything that was love in me leaped into flame at sight of his honest, sorry face.

I think I can tell his story best by giving it in my own words, in the way of direct narration. He didn't tell it to me all at once, but bit by bit, as new details occurred to him. The picture was slow in printing itself on my mind, but when I got it it was with satisfactory exact.i.tude.

He had been three days at the hotel in Boston before learning that Cousin Andrew Brew was actually in town and would see him at the bank at eleven on a certain morning. Hugh was on the moment. The prompt.i.tude with which his relative sprang up in his seat, somewhat as if impelled by a piece of mechanism, was truly cordial. Not less was the handshake and the formula of greeting. The sons of J. Howard Brokens.h.i.+re were always welcome guests among their Boston kin, on whom they shed a pleasant l.u.s.ter of metropolitan glory. While the Brews and Borrodailes prided themselves on what they called their Boston provinciality and didn't believe to be provinciality at all, they enjoyed the New York connection.

"h.e.l.lo, Hugh! Glad to see you. Come in. Sit down. Looking older than when I saw you last. Growing a mustache. Not married yet? Sit down and tell us all about it. What can I do for you? Sit down."

Hugh took the comfortable little upright arm-chair that stood at the corner of his cousin's desk, while the latter resumed the seat of honor.

Knowing that the banker's time was valuable, and feeling that he would reveal his apt.i.tude for business by going to the point at once, the younger man began his tale. He had just reached the fact that he had fallen in love with a little girl on whose merits he wouldn't enlarge, since all lovers had the same sort of things to say, though he was surer of his data than others of his kind, when there was a tinkle at the desk telephone.

"Excuse me."

During the conversation in which Cousin Andrew then engaged Hugh was able to observe the long-established, una.s.suming comfort of this friendly office, which suggested the cozy air that hangs about the smoking-rooms of good old English inns. There was a warm worn carpet on the floor; deep leather arm-chairs showed the effect of contact with two generations of moneyed backs; on the walls the lithographed heads of Brews and Borrodailes bore witness to the firm's respectability. In the atmosphere a faint odor of tobacco emphasized the human a.s.sociations.

Cousin Andrew emphasized them, too. "Now!" He put down the receiver and turned to Hugh with an air of relief at being able to give him his attention. He was a tall, thin man with a head like a nut. It would have been an expressionless nut had it not been for a facile tight-lipped smile that creased his face as stretching creases rubber. Coming and going rapidly, it gave him the appearance of mirth, creating at each end of a long, mobile mouth two concentric semicircles cutting deep into the cheeks that would have been of value to a low comedian. A slate-colored morning suit, a white piqu edge to the opening of the waistcoat, a slate-colored tie with a pearl in it, emphasized the union of dignity and lightness which were the keynotes to Cousin Andrew's character.

Blended as they were, they formed a delightfully debonair combination, bringing down to your own level a man who was somebody in the world of finance. It was part of his endearing quality that he liked you to see him as a jolly good fellow no whit better than yourself. He was fond of gossip and of the lighter topics of the moment. He was also fond of dancing, and frequented most of the gatherings, private and public, for the cultivation of that art which was the vogue of the year before the Great War. With his tall, limber figure he pa.s.sed for less than his age of forty-three till you got him at close quarters.

On the genial "Now!" in which there was an inflection of command Hugh went on with his tale, telling of his breach with his father and his determination to go into business for himself.

"I ought to be independent, anyhow, at my age," he declared. "I've my own views, and it's only right to confess to you that I'm a bit of a Socialist. That won't make any difference, however, to our working together, Cousin Andrew, for, to make a long story short, I've looked in to tell you that I've come to the place where I should like to accept your kind offer."

The statement was received with cheerful detachment, while Cousin Andrew threw himself forward with his arms on his desk, rubbing his long, thin hands together.

"My kind offer? What was that?"

Hugh was slightly dashed.

"About my coming to you if ever I wanted to go into business."

"Oh! You're going into business?"

Hugh named the places and dates at which, during the past few years, Cousin Andrew had offered his help to his young kinsman if ever it was needed.

Cousin Andrew tossed himself back in his chair with one of his brisk, restless movements.

"Did I say that? Well, if I did I'll stick to it." There was another tinkle at the telephone. "Excuse me."

Hugh had time for reflection and some irritation. He had not expected to be thrust into the place of a pet.i.tioner, or to have to make explanations galling to his pride. He had counted not only on his cousins.h.i.+p, but on his position in the world as J. Howard Brokens.h.i.+re's son. It seemed to him that Cousin Andrew was disposed to undervalue that.

"I don't want to hold you to anything you don't care for, Cousin Andrew," he began, when his relative had again put the receiver aside, "but I understood--"

"Oh, that's all right. I've no doubt I said it. I do recall something of the sort, vaguely, at a time when I thought your father might want-- In any case we can fix you up. Sure to be something you can do. When'd you like to begin?"

Hugh expressed his willingness to be put into office at once.

"Just so. Turn you over to old Williamson. He licks the young ones into shape. Suppose your father'll think it hard of us to go against him. But on the other hand he may be pleased--he'll know you're in safe hands."

It was a delicate thing for Hugh to attempt, but as he was going into business not from an irresistible impulse toward a financial career, but in order to make enough money to marry on, he felt obliged to ask, in such terms as he could command, how much money he should make.

"Just so!" Cousin Andrew took up the receiver again. "Want to speak to Mr. Williamson. . . . Oh, Williamson, how much is Duffers getting now?

. . . And how much before that? . . . Good! Thanks!"

The result of these investigations was communicated to Hugh. He should receive Duffers's pay, and when he had earned it should come in for Duffers's promotion. The immediate effect was to make him look startled and blank. "What?" was his only question; but it contained several shades of incredulity.

Cousin Andrew took this dismay in good part.

"Why, what did you expect?"

Hugh could only stammer:

"I thought it would be more."

"How much more?"

Hugh sought an answer that wouldn't betray the ludicrous figure of his hopes.

"Well, enough to live on as a married man at least."

The banker's good nature was proved by the creases of his rubber smile.

"What did you think you'd be worth to us--with no backing from your father?"

The question was of the kind commonly called a poser. Hugh had not, so I understood from him, hitherto thought of his entering his kinsfolks'

banking-house as primarily a matter of earning capacity. It wasn't to be like working for "any old firm." He had prefigured it as becoming a component part of a machine that turned out money of which he would get his share, that share being in proportion to the dignity of the house itself and bearing a relation to his blood connection with the dominating partners. When Cousin Andrew had repeated his question Hugh was obliged to reply:

"I wasn't thinking of that so much as of what you'd be worth to me."

"We could be worth a good deal to you in time."