The nine holes had been played, and by a single stroke Barbara had won the match, which pleased her very much, for she had done her best, and with such heavy odds in his favour Sir Robert, who had also done his best, was no mean opponent, even for a player of her skill. Indeed the fight had been quite earnest, for each party knew that it was but a prelude to another and more serious fight, and looked upon the result as in some sense an omen.
"I am conquered," he said in a voice in which vexation struggled with a laugh, "and by a woman over whom I had an advantage. It is humiliating, for I confess I do not like being beaten."
"Don"t you think that women generally win if they mean to?" asked Barbara. "I believe that when they fail, which is often enough, it is because they don"t care, or can"t make up their minds. A woman in earnest is a dangerous antagonist."
"Yes," he answered, "or the best of allies." Then he gave the clubs and half-a-crown to the caddies, and when they were out of hearing, added, "Miss Champers, I have been wondering for some time whether it is possible that you would become such an ally to me."
"I know nothing of business, Sir Robert; my tastes do not lie that way."
"You know well that I was not speaking of business, Miss Champers. I was speaking of another kind of partnership, that which Nature has ordained between men and women--marriage. Will you accept me as a husband?"
She opened her lips to speak, but he lifted his hand and went on.
"Listen before you give that ready answer which it is so hard to recall, or smooth away. I know all my disadvantages, my years, which to you may seem many; my modest origin; my trade, which, not altogether without reason, you despise and dislike. Well, the first two cannot be changed except for the worse; the second can be, and already is, buried beneath the gold and ermine of wealth and t.i.tles. What does it matter if I am the son of a City clerk who never earned more than 2 a week and was born in a tenement at Battersea, when I am one of the rich men of this rich land and shall die a peer in a palace, leaving millions and honours to my children? As for the third, my occupation, I am prepared to give it up. It has served my turn, and after next week I shall have earned the amount that years ago I determined to earn. Thenceforth, set above the accidents of fortune, I propose to devote myself to higher aims, those of legitimate ambition. So far as my time would allow I have already taken some share in politics as a worker; I intend to continue in them as a ruler which I still have the health and ability to do. I mean to be one of the first men in this Empire, to ride to power over the heads of all the nonent.i.ties whose only claim upon the confidence of their countrymen is that they were born in a certain cla.s.s, with money in their pockets and without the need to spend the best of their manhood in work. With you at my side I can do all these things and more, and such is the future that I have to offer you."
Again she would have broken in upon his speech and again he stopped her, reading the unspoken answer on her lips.
"Listen: I have not told you all. Perhaps I have put first what should have come last. I have not told you that I love you earnestly and sincerely, with the settled, unalterable love that sometimes comes to men in middle-age who have never turned their thought that way before.
I will not attempt the rhapsodies of pa.s.sion which at my time of life might sound foolish or out of place; yet it is true that I am filled with this pa.s.sion which has descended on me and taken possession of me.
I who often have laughed at such things in other men, adore you. You are a joy to my eyes. If you are not in the room, for me it is empty. I admire the uprightness of your character, and even your prejudices, and to your standard I desire to approximate my own. I think that no man can ever love you quite so well as I do, Barbara Champers. Now speak. I am ready to meet the best or the worst."
After her fashion Barbara looked him straight in the face with her steady eyes, and answered gently enough, for the man"s method of presenting his case, elaborate and prepared though it evidently was, had touched her.
"I fear it is the worst, Sir Robert. There are hundreds of women superior to myself in every way who would be glad to give you the help and companionship you ask, with their hearts thrown in. Choose one of them, for I cannot do so."
He heard and for the first time his face broke, as it were. All this while it had remained masklike and immovable, even when he spoke of his love, but now it broke as ice breaks at the pressure of a sudden flood beneath, and she saw the depths and eddies of his nature and understood their strength. Not that he revealed them in speech, angry or pleading, for that remained calm and measured enough. She did not hear, she saw, and even then it was marvellous to her that a mere change in a man"s expression could explain so much.
"Those are very cruel words," he said. "Are they unalterable?"
"Quite. I do not play in such matters, it would be wicked."
"May I ask you one question, for if the answer is in the negative, I shall still continue to hope? Do you care for any other man?"
Again she looked at him with her fearless eyes and answered:
"Yes, I am engaged to another man."
"To Alan Vernon?"
She nodded.
"When did that happen? Some years ago?"
"No, this morning."
"Great Heavens!" he muttered in a hoa.r.s.e voice turning his head away, "this morning. Then last night it might not have been too late, and last night I should have spoken to you, I had arranged it all. Yes, if it had not been for the story of that accursed fetish and your uncle"s illness, I should have spoken to you, and perhaps succeeded."
"I think not," she said.
He turned upon her and notwithstanding the tears in his eyes they burned like fire.
"You think--you think," he gasped, "but I know. Of course after this morning it was impossible. But, Barbara, I say that I will win you yet.
I have never failed in any object that I set before myself, and do not suppose that I shall fail in this. Although in a way I liked and respected him, I have always felt that Vernon was my enemy, one destined to bring grief and loss upon me, even if he did not intend to do so.
Now I understand why, and he shall learn that I am stronger than he. G.o.d help him! I say."
"I think He will," Barbara answered, calmly. "You are speaking wildly, and I understand the reason and hope that you will forget your words, but whether you forget or remember, do not suppose that you frighten me. You men who have made money," she went on with swelling indignation, "who have made money somehow, and have bought honours with the moneys somehow, think yourselves great, and in your little day, your little, little day that will end with three lines in small type in _The Times_, you are great in this vulgar land. You can buy what you want and people creep round you and ask you for doles and favours, and railway porters call you "my Lord" at every other step. But you forget your limitations in this world, and that which lives above you. You say you will do this and that. You should study a book which few of you ever read, where it tells you that you do not know what you will be on the morrow; that your life is even as a vapour appearing for a little time and then vanishing away. You think that you can crush the man to whom I have given my heart because he is honest and you are dishonest, because you are rich and he is poor, and because he chances to have succeeded where you have not.
Well, for myself and for him I defy you. Do your worst and fail, and when you have failed, in the hour of your extremity remember my words to-day. If I have given you pain by refusing you it is not my fault and I am sorry, but when you threaten the man who has honoured me with his love and whom I honour above every creature upon the earth, then I threaten back, and may the Power that made us all judge between you and me, as judge it will," and bursting into tears she turned and left him.
Sir Robert watched her go.
"What a woman!" he said meditatively, "what a woman--to have lost. Well she has set the stakes and we will play out the game. The cards all seem to be in my hands, but it would not in the least surprise me if she won the rubber, for the element that I call Chance and she would call something else, may come in. Still, I never refused a challenge yet and we will play the game out without pity to the loser."
That night the first trick was played. When he got back to The Court Sir Robert ordered his motorcar and departed on urgent business, either to his own place, Old Hall, or to London, saying only that he had been summoned away by telegram. As the 70-horse-power Mercedes glided out of the gates a pencilled note was put into Mr. Haswell"s hand.
It ran: "I have tried and failed--for the present. By ill-luck A.V. had been before me, only this morning. If I had not missed my chance last night owing to your illness, it would have been different. I do not, however, in the least abandon my plan, in which of course I rely on and expect your support. Keep V. in the office or let him go as you like.
Perhaps it would be better if you could prevail upon him to stop there until after the flotation. But whatever you say at the moment, I trust to you to absolutely veto any engagement between him and your niece, and to that end to use all your powers and authority as her guardian. Burn this note.
"R.A."
CHAPTER VI
MR. HASWELL LOSES HIS TEMPER
Alan and Barbara sat in Mr. Champers-Haswell"s private sitting-room with the awful decorations, and before them by the fire Mr. Champers-Haswell reclined upon his couch. Alan in a few, brief, soldier-like words had just informed him of his engagement to Barbara. During the recital of this interesting fact Barbara said nothing, but Mr. Haswell had whistled several times. Now at length he spoke, in that tone of forced geniality which he generally adopted towards his cousin.
"You are asking for the hand of a considerable heiress, Alan my boy," he said, "but you have neglected to inform me of your own position."
"Where is the use of telling you what you know already, Mr. Haswell? I have left the firm, therefore I have practically nothing."
"You have practically nothing, and yet----Well, in my young days men were more delicate, they did not like being called fortune-hunters, but of course times have changed."
Alan bit his lip and Barbara sat up quite straight in her chair, observing which indications, Mr. Haswell went on hurriedly:
"Now if you had stopped in the firm and earned the very handsome competence in a small way which would have become due to you this week, instead of throwing us over at the last moment for some quixotic reasons of your own, it might have been a different matter. I do not say it would have been, I say it might have been, and you may remember a proverb about winks and nods and blind horses. So I ask you whether you are inclined to withdraw that resignation of yours and bring up this question again let us say, next Sunday?"
Alan thought a while before he answered. As he understood Mr. Haswell practically was promising to a.s.sent to the engagement upon these terms.
The temptation was enormously great, the fiercest that he had ever been called upon to face. He looked at Barbara. She had closed her eyes and made absolutely no sign. For some reason of her own she had elected that he should determine this vital point without the slightest a.s.sistance from her. And it must be determined at once; procrastination was impossible. For a moment he hesitated. On the one side was Barbara, on the other his conscience. After long doubts he had come to a certain conclusion which he quite understood to be inconvenient to his partners.
Should he throw it over now? Should he even try to make a sure and certain bargain as the price of his surrender? Probably he would not suffer if he did. The flotation was underwritten and bound to go through; the scandal would come afterwards, months or years hence, long before which he might get out, as most of the others meant to do. No, he could not. His conscience was too much for him.
"I do not see any use in reconsidering that question, Mr. Haswell," he said quietly; "we settled it on Friday night."
Barbara reopened her brown eyes and stared amiably at the painted ceiling, and Mr. Haswell whistled.