"Well, send it, then," said Cobb, relenting of his grim suggestion as to the best means of disposing of Dalls.
The door bell rang. A servant answered it. Into the house filed ten children, in all stages of wildness, accompanied by the mother. Seeing them rushing in like an invading army of young Turks, the visitors retreated with as little loss to their dignity as they could spare. And Peter was happy again in the bosom of his family--a Prince at home; a King at the office of Graft.
Mrs. Dieman was now the acme of reincarnation. The jaundice of a sorrowed life had been burned out of her face by the new brand of cosmetics, and she now stood before the world a justly deserving woman.
But such is the pa.s.sage of poverty when embellished by a little of the olive oil of good treatment, fairer living, and a chance. Instead of the downcast woman, with a heart laden with lead, as she once was, she was now an upcast personage, with a heart that was a jardiniere of roses, doing her duty, and bearing her old sorrows silently as the mistress of a mansion. Chance was all that were needed. But still she loved Billy Barton, the drunkard. And this is the way of woman, sometimes.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CONSPIRATORS" PLOT IS REVEALED.
Hiram Jarney sat in his lounging chair, in evening clothes, reading the daily newspapers, and smoking a Santa Clara cigar. His feet were encased in a pair of patent-leather slippers. A diamond sparkled on his spotless bosom front. His right leg hung comfortably crossed over his left. His clear cut features denoted his strength, and his active blue eyes his power; both combining to produce a wholesome pride of peace. There was not a s.m.u.tch to mar his impeccability. He was immaculate from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. His closely cropped hair revealed a head that might be taken as a perfect model by a phrenologist to show the parts of a well-balanced man. With a broad high forehead, high arched brows, fine nose, and a pink complexion, his completeness as a man of parts was unequaled.
As he read the news, turning his paper over and over, as he glanced at the head lines, or waded through the matter of some article that interested him most, an almost invisible vapor lazily ascended from his cigar--a man at ease in the bosom of his family.
Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Miram Monroe, the genteel ghost, was ushered in for a chat and to take dinner. When he saw who his visitor was, Mr. Jarney laid down his paper, crossed his left leg over his right, and leaned back in his chair, in such a resigned state of studied equanimity (always his pose in the presence of Monroe) that Monroe felt he must let loose one of his evanescent smiles.
"Have a seat," said Mr. Jarney, in his familiar way of greeting Monroe; "dinner will be ready soon."
"Thank you," said Monroe, as he stiffly bent himself into the capacious depths of an arm chair, sitting near.
Monroe was faultlessly groomed. He wore an evening suit, and had a diamond in a shirt front that looked no more starched than his frosted face.
"My daughter will be down tonight for the first time to take dinner with the family," said Mr. Jarney, in a conversational mood. "She is improving rapidly, Mr. Monroe; rapidly; and you don"t know, being a bachelor, how much I am relieved of worry since she began to mend."
"I imagine how one would feel," said the feeling Monroe, now inwardly cogitating over how to approach the subject that brought him there on this occasion.
Having no hint of Mr. Monroe"s intentions, Mr. Jarney proceeded:
"Yes; she has improved so rapidly lately that I feel, myself, like coming out of a long illness. My daughter and I are planning a trip, Monroe, just as soon as she is quite able."
"A trip!" said Monroe, without expressing his surprise in his visage.
"We had thought of going to Europe," pursued Mr. Jarney; "but my business affairs are such that I cannot leave here this summer."
"Where then?" asked Monroe, as if it were any of his affair where they went.
"We may go to the mountains for a few months, so that she can recuperate, and later in the summer we may go to Europe," answered Mr.
Jarney.
"Mr. Jarney," said the ghost, in a m.u.f.fled voice, as if he would burst with his secret, and as if his tongue were tied, "Mr. Jarney, what--what--do you--think of me--as a suitor for your--daughter"s--hand?" And then he looked as if he were made of translucent gla.s.s, or polished marble, or anything that was hard and white and had a polished surface, with sterile spots on top of it.
This was a stunner to the placid Mr. Jarney. The irrepressible Monroe looked stony enough that he might be taken for a real stone G.o.d of the Stares, as Mr. Jarney pierced him through with his piercingly keen eyes.
"You don"t mean it, Monroe?" he finally said, after looking at him a long time, with a smile of the ridiculous mould.
"I am in earnest, Mr. Jarney--never more in earnest," responded Monroe.
"Have you asked the young lady yet?" asked Mr. Jarney, still unable to believe the man was in earnest.
"Not yet; but I want your opinion first, Mr. Jarney," answered Monroe, fingering his watch fob.
"You are very amusing, Mr. Monroe; very amusing," said Mr. Jarney, facetiously.
"Then you don"t look upon me with favor?" asked Monroe.
"Mr. Monroe, I am afraid you lack experience--at least in this respect,"
said Mr. Jarney.
"I have money--I have ancestry," said the imperturbable Monroe.
"Oh, fudge, Monroe! fudge on your money, and your ancestry!" said Mr.
Jarney. "You need a little schooling in the art of love-making," he said, smiling at the audacity of the ghost. "Do you suppose I would put my daughter up to be sold to the highest bidder, and knocked down to any old money bag that should come along? Do you? Do you? Answer me that?"
No answer.
"Do you think, or presume to think," he continued, "that I would allow a child of mine to be bandied about in this mercenary manner? She is my daughter--my only child; she has a mind of her own; she is independent; so when she makes up her mind to that end, I shall consider it. She will first counsel with me before her intended suitor does. Mr. Monroe, it is very unbecoming, ungentlemanly, ungracious in you to come here this evening, and speak as you have spoken, not having seen her in months, or talked with her at all on the subject. I would do well, Mr. Monroe,"
continued Mr. Jarney, in the same equinimity of temper, "to dismiss you from my house, and from my service; don"t you think so?"
"Beg your pardon, Mr. Jarney; beg your pardon, if I have given offense,"
said the ghost, with frozen affability. "I have given these thoughts considerable consideration, and I thought it only proper and meet in me to ask your opinion--it was only your opinion I asked, Mr. Jarney; so I beg your pardon. May I ask the young lady, then?"
"You may do as you like about that," said Mr. Jarney, knowing, in his kind fatherly heart, the finality of such a procedure.
"Mr. Winthrope has been permitted to see--" pursued Monroe; but Mr.
Jarney broke him off by saying: "Don"t mention Mr. Winthrope"s name in this connection as an excuse for your imbecility."
Mr. Monroe sat through this grilling, unmoved as a donkey might. After cogitating again for a moment, he said: "I thought I was as good as anyone else, when I broached the subject."
"You have lost the point of view, Mr. Monroe; lost it entirely,"
answered Mr. Jarney. "Lest you fall into brambles, you would better brush yourself up a little on the subject of courting. You will find a book of rules, perhaps in a ten cent store; get one, and brush up a little, Mr. Monroe."
Dinner was announced. Monroe, unabashed and stiffly congruous, descended upon the dining table with such great gravity that he was likely to break in two before his hunger could be appeased. Opposite him sat Edith and Star. Edith, in her pale blue evening gown, was the essence of delicacy. Her face was fulling into health again, though showing the toning wounds of long illness. Her eyes sparkled almost as the diamonds that were set in ring and brooch. Star was like a fresh young sun on a bright summer day. Mrs. Jarney was as bouncing as ever in her sprightliness. Monroe was cold, as marble-like, as statue-like, as ever.
The dinner was very formal, very cheerless, very unappetizing to every one, save Monroe, who ate with relish everything set before him.
The cause of all this coldness may be laid to the front door of Mr.
Monroe. He had cast a shade of the grouch over them all. Somehow, the mother was calmed by the sense of some pervading evil thing, inexpressibly unaccountable. Somehow, the two young ladies felt the chilly presence of a tentacled fish out of water, that was wholly inexplicable. Somehow, the father (unknown to the rest) could not raise himself out of the coolness, into which the ghost had plunged him.
The two young ladies had greeted Monroe very gracefully and profusely, when they first came down stairs; but they momentarily lapsed into mediocre silence by the all pervading something they could not fathom.
The mother started out to be very gleeful over her daughter"s recovering health: but instinctively having a premonition of a mysterious caul overhanging her, she slumped into an unbearable quietude. So dinner was eaten with a sort of wingless spirit in them all, proving a discomforting failure in its pleasureableness.
Monroe, in his impenetrability, did not see anything unusual. Had he seen, had he noticed, had he heeded, he would have departed at the most opportune time. But no; he loitered in the parlor, after dinner, and sought to engage Edith in quiet conversation. And he succeeded. Edith was sitting on a settee, with a silk mantle thrown over her shoulders.
Star was drumming on the piano, on which she was now taking lessons, the father and mother being out. Monroe sat down by Edith. After foolishly gazing about the room, as if in an indecisive state of mind about how to entertain himself, he said, icily:
"Miss Jarney, may I have the pleasure of calling on you sometimes?"