Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 45

He stared down at her, pulling his lip moodily. "I was thinking,"

said he, "to ask Langton to be my steward. Would you really choose to be c.u.mbered with all this business?"

She held her breath for a moment; for his question meant that he had no design to take her with him. Her face paled a little, but she answered steadily.

"It will at least fill my empty hours. . . . Better, dear--it will keep you before me in all the day's duties; since, though I miss you, all day long I shall be learning to be a good wife."

As she said it her hand went up to her side beneath her left breast, as something fluttered there, soft as a bird's wing stirring.

It fluttered for a moment under her palm, then ceased. The room had grown strangely still. . . . Yet he was speaking.

He was saying--"I'll teach these good people who's Head of the Family!"

Ah, yes--"the Family!" Should she tell him? . . . She bethought her of Mrs. Harry's sudden giddiness in the waggon. Mrs. Harry was now the mother of a l.u.s.ty boy--Sir Oliver's heir, and the Family's prospective Head. . . . Should she tell him? . . .

He stooped and kissed her. "Love, you are pale. I have broken this news too roughly."

She faltered. "When must you start?"

"In three days. That's as soon as the _Maryland_ can take in the rest of her cargo and clear the customs."

"They will be busy days for you."

"Desperately."

"Yet you must spare me a part of one, and teach me to keep accounts,"

said she, and smiled bravely albeit her face was wan.

Chapter III.

MISCALCULATING WRATH.

Mr. Langton sat in his private apartment by Boston Quay trying the balance of a malacca cane.

Sir Oliver had sailed a week ago. Mr. Langton had walked down to the s.h.i.+p with him and taken his farewell instructions.

"By the way," said Sir Oliver, "I want you to make occasion to visit Eagles now and again, and pay your respects. I shall write to you as well as to her; and the pair of you can exchange news from your letters. She likes you."

"I hope so," answered Langton, "because 'tis an open secret that I adore her."

Sir Oliver smiled, a trifle ruefully. "Then you'll understand how it hits a man to leave her. Maybe--for I had meant to make you paymaster in my absence--you'll also forgive me for having changed my mind?"

"I'd have called you a d.a.m.ned fool if you hadn't," said Langton equably. "She's your wife, hang it all: and I'll lay you five pounds you'll return to find her with hair dishevelled over your monstrous careless bookkeeping. My dear Noll, a woman--a good woman--is never completely happy till convinced that she, and only she, has saved the man she loves from ruin; and, what's more, she's a fool if she can't prove it."

"Nevertheless she's a beginner; and I'll be glad of your promise to run over from time to time. A question or two will soon discover if things are running on an even keel."

"I shall attempt no method so coa.r.s.e," Langton a.s.sured him. "I don't want to be ordered out of the house--must I repeat that I adore her?

It may be news to you that she repays my attachment with a certain respect. . . . Should she find herself in any difficulty--and she will not--I shall be sent for and consulted. In any event, fond man, you may count on my calling."

As they shook hands Sir Oliver asked, "Don't you envy me, Batty?"

"Constantly and in everything," answered Langton; "though--a.s.s that I am--I have rather prided myself on concealing it."

"I mean, don't you wish that you, and not I, were sailing for England? For that matter, though, there's nothing prevents you."

"Oh yes--there is."

"What, then?"

"Use and wont, if you will; indolence, if you choose; affection for you, Noll, if you prefer it."

"That had been an excellent reason for coming with me."

"It may be a better one for staying. . . . Well, as you walk up St.

James's, give it my regards."

"For so fine an intelligence Noll can be infernally cra.s.s at times,"

muttered Mr. Langton to himself as he walked back to his lodgings.

He kept his promise and rode over to Eagles ten days later, to pay Ruth a visit. He found her astonis.h.i.+ngly cheerful. The sum left by Sir Oliver for her stewards.h.i.+p had scared her at first. It scared her worse to discover how the heap began to drain away as through a sieve. But slowly she saw her way to stop some of the holes in that sieve. He had calculated her expenses, taking for basis the accounts of the past few months; and in the matter of entertaining, for example, she would save vast sums. . . . She foresaw herself a miser almost, to earn his praise.

"_--Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

The heart of her husband shall safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of his life_."

"_She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.

She is like the merchants's s.h.i.+ps; she bringeth her food from afar.

She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household. . . . She considereth a field and buyeth it. . . .

She looketh well into the ways of her household_."

"_Her children rise up, and call her blessed. . . ._" Her children?

But she had let him go, after all, without telling her secret.

Mr. Langton sat and balanced a malacca cane in his hand. When his man announced the Reverend Mr. Silk, he laid it down carefully on the floor beside him.

"Show Mr. Silk up, if you please."

Mr. Silk entered with an affable smile. "Ah, good-morning, Mr.

Langton!" said he, depositing his hat on the table and pulling off a pair of thick woollen gloves. "I am prompt on your call, eh?

But this cold weather invites a man to walk briskly. Not to mention," he added, with an effort at facetiousness, "that when Mr.

Langton sends for a clergyman his need is presumably urgent."

"It is," said Mr. Langton, seemingly blind to the hand he proferred.

"Would you, before taking a seat, oblige me by throwing a log on the fire? . . . Thank you--the weather is raw, as you say."

"Urgent? But not serious, I hope?"