"I can"t do it, Joe; and I won"t. So don"t ask me."
"Wait a bit--wait a bit, Lotty, my love. Don"t be in a hurry, now.
Don"t say rash things, there"s a good girl." Joe spoke quite softly, as if he were not the least angry, but, perhaps, a little hurt.
"There"s not a bit of a hurry. You needn"t decide to-day, nor yet to-morrow."
"I couldn"t do it," she said. "Oh, it"s a dreadful, wicked thing even to ask me. And only five weeks to-morrow since we married!"
"Lotty, my dear, let us be reasonable." He still spoke quite softly.
"If we are not to go on like other people; if we are to be continually bothering our heads about honesty, and that rubbish, we shall be always down in the world. How do other people make money and get on?
By humbug, my dear. By humbug. As for you, a little play-acting is nothing."
"But I am not the man"s daughter, and my own father"s alive and well."
"Look here, Lotty. You are always grumbling about the music-halls."
"Well, and good reason to grumble. If you heard those ballet girls talk, and see how they go on at the back, you"d grumble. As for the music--" She laughed, as if against her will. "If anybody had told me six months ago--me, that used to go to the Cathedral Service every afternoon--that I should be a Lion Masher at a music-hall and go on dressed in tights, I should have boxed his ears for impudence."
"Why, you don"t mean to tell me, Lotty, that you wish you had stuck to the moldy old place, and gone on selling music over the counter?"
"Well, then, perhaps I do."
"No, no, Lotty; your husband cannot let you say that."
"My husband can laugh and talk with barmaids. That makes him happy."
"Lotty," he said, "you are a little fool. And think of the glory.
Posters with your name in letters a foot and a half long--"The People"s Favorite." Why, don"t they applaud you till their hands drop off?"
She melted a little.
"Applaud! As if that did any good! And me in tights!"
"As for the tights," Joe replied with dignity, "the only person whom you need consult on that subject is your husband; and since I do not object, I should like to see the man who does. Show me that man, Lotty, and I"ll straighten him out for you. You have my perfect approval, my dear. I honor you for the tights."
"My husband"s approval!"
She repeated his words again in a manner which had been on other occasions most irritating to him. But to-night he refused to be offended.
"Of course," he went on, "as soon as I get a berth on another ship I shall take you off the boards. It is the husband"s greatest delight, especially if he is a jolly sailor, to brave all dangers for his wife.
Think, Lotty, how pleasant it would be not to do any more work."
"I should like to sing sometimes, to sing good music, at the great concerts. That"s what I thought I was going to do."
"You shall; you shall sing as little or as often as you like. "A sailor"s wife a sailor"s star should be." You shall be a great lady, Lotty, and you shall just command your own line. Wait a bit, and you shall have your own carriage, and your own beautiful house, and go to as many b.a.l.l.s as you like among the countesses and the swells."
"Oh, Joe!" she laughed. "Why, if we were as rich as anything, I should never get ladies to call upon me. And as for you, no one would ever take you to be a gentleman, you know."
"Why, what do you call me, now?"
He laughed, but without much enjoyment. No one likes to be told that he is not a gentleman, whatever his own suspicions on the subject may be.
"Never mind. I know a gentleman when I see one. Go on with your nonsense about being rich."
"I shall make you rich, Lotty, whether you like it or not," he said, still with unwonted sweetness.
She shook her head.
"Not by wickedness," she said stoutly.
"I"ve got there," he pulled a bundle of papers out of his pockets, "all the doc.u.ments wanted to complete the case. All I want now is for the rightful heiress to step forward."
"I"m not the rightful heiress, and I"m not the woman to step forward, Joe; so don"t you think it."
"I"ve been to-day," Joe continued, "to Doctors" Commons, and I"ve seen the will. There"s no manner of doubt about it; and the money--oh, Lord, Lotty, if you only knew how much it is!"
"What does it matter, Joe, how much it is, if it is neither yours nor mine?"
"It matters this: that it ought all to be mine."
"How can that be, if it was not left to you?"
Joe was nothing if not a man of resource. He therefore replied without hesitation or confusion:
"The money was left to a certain man and to his heirs. That man is dead. His heiress should have succeeded, but she was kept out of her rights. She is dead, and I am her cousin, and ent.i.tled to all her property, because she made no will."
"Is that gospel truth, Joe? Is she dead? Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," he replied. "Dead as a door-nail."
"Is that the way you got the papers?"
"That"s the way, Lotty."
"Then why not go to a lawyer and make him take up the case for you, and honestly get your own?"
"You don"t know law, my dear, or you wouldn"t talk nonsense about lawyers. There are two ways. One is to go myself to the present unlawful possessor and claim the whole. It"s a woman; she would be certain to refuse, and then we should go to law, and very likely lose it all, although the right is on our side. The other way is for some one--say you--to go to her and say: "I am that man"s daughter. Here are my proofs. Here are all his papers. Give me back my own." That you could do in the interests of justice, though I own it is not the exact truth."
"And if she refuses then?"
"She can"t refuse, with the man"s daughter actually standing before her. She might make a fuss for a bit. But she would have to give in at last."
"Joe, consider. You have got some papers, whatever they may contain.
Suppose that it is all true that you have told me--"
"Lotty, my dear, when did I ever tell you an untruth?"
"When did you ever tell me the truth, my dear? Don"t talk wild.
Suppose it is all true, how are you going to make out where your heiress has been all this time, and what she has been doing?"