"Did that foreigner go down there while you were there?"
"The Count?"
"The No-Count."
"No, of course not. Where did you get such an idea?"
He lighted his cigar with a look of relief, put it in his mouth, and sat back in his chair.
"Don"t let your Aunt Sophia go and make a fool of you. She is a very good business woman, but you know she is not exactly--Solomon, and she is stark mad about t.i.tles. When you marry, marry a man."
"Mr. Canter, for example?" laughed the girl. "He is Aunt Sophia"s second choice. She is always talking about his money."
"She is always talking about somebody"s money, generally her own. But before I"d let that fellow have you I"d kill him with my own hand. He"s the worst young man I know. Why, if I could tell you half--yes, one-tenth, of the things I have heard about him--But I can"t tell you--only don"t go and let anybody pull the wool over your eyes."
"No fear of that," said the girl.
"No, I don"t know that there is. I think you"ve got a pretty clear little head on your shoulders. But when any one gets--gets--why, gets her feelings enlisted you can"t just count on her, you know. And with your Aunt Sophy ding-donging at you and flinging her sleek Count and her gilded fools at you, it takes a good head to resist her."
The girl rea.s.sured him with a smile of appreciation.
"I don"t know where she got that from," continued her father. "It must have been that outside strain, the Prenders. Your mother did not have a trace of it in her. I never saw two half-sisters so different. She"d have married anybody on earth she cared for--and when she married me I had nothing in the world except what my father chose to give me and no very great expectations. She had a rich fellow from the South tagging after her--a big plantation and lots of slaves and all that, and your Aunt Sophy was all for her marrying him--a good chap, too--a gentleman and all that; but she turned him down and took me. And I made my own way. What I have I made afterward--by hard work till I got a good start, and then it came easy enough. The trouble since has been to keep others from stealing it from me--and that"s more trouble than to make it, I can tell you--what between strikers, gamblers, councilmen, and other knaves, I have a hard time to hold on to what I have."
"I know you have to work very hard," said the girl, her eyes on him full of affection. "Why, this is the first time I"ve had you up to lunch with me in months. I felt as much honored as if it had been the King of England."
"That"s it--I have to stay down there to keep the robbers from running off with my pile. That young fellow thought he"d get a little swipe at it, but I taught him a thing or two. He"s a plunger. His only idea is to make good by doubling up--all right if the market"s rising and you can double. But it"s a dangerous game, especially if one tries to recoup at the faro table."
"Does he play faro?" asked the girl.
"He plays everything, mainly Merry H--l. I beg your pardon--I didn"t mean to say that before you, but he does. And if his father didn"t come to his rescue and plank up every time he goes broke, he"d have been in the bankrupt court--or jail--and that"s where he"ll wind up yet if he don"t look out."
"I don"t believe you like him," laughed the girl.
"Oh! yes, I do. I like him well enough--he is amusing rather, he is gay, careless, impudent--he"s the main conduit through which I extract money from old Prender"s coffers. He never spends anything unless you pay him two gold dollars down for one paper one on the spot. But I want him to keep away from you, that"s all; I suppose I"ve got to lose you some time, but I"ll be hanged if I want to give you up to a blackguard--a gambler--a rou--a lib--a d----d blackguard like that."
"Well, you will never have that to do," said the girl; "I promise you that."
"How is the strike coming on?" asked his daughter. "When I went away it was just threatening, and I read in the papers that the negotiations failed and the men were ordered out; but I haven"t seen much about it in the papers since, though I have looked."
"Oh! Yes--it"s going on, over on the other lines across town, in a desultory sort of way," said her father wearily--"the fools! They won"t listen to any reason."
"Poor people!" sighed the girl. "Why did they go out?"
"Poor fools!" said Mr. Leigh warmly; "they walked out for nothing more than they always have had."
"I saw that they had some cause; what was it?"
"Oh! they"ve always some cause. If they didn"t have one they"d make it.
Now they are talking of extending it over our lines."
"Our lines! Why?"
"Heaven knows. We"ve done everything they demanded--in reason. They talk about a sympathetic strike. I hear that a fellow has come on to bring it about. Poor fools!"
The girl gave him a smile of affection as he pushed back his chair. And leaning over her as he walked toward the door, he gave her a kiss of mingled pride and affection. But when he had left the room she sat still for some moments, looking straight ahead of her, her brow slightly puckered with thought which evidently was not wholly pleasant, and then with a sweeping motion of her hand she pushed her chair back, and, as she arose from the table, said: "I wish I knew what is right!" That moment a new resolution entered her mind, and, ringing the bell for the servant, she ordered her carriage.
XIV
MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK
She drove first to Dr. Capon"s church and, going around, walked in at the side door near the east end, where the robing rooms and the rector"s study were. She remembered to have seen on a door somewhere there a sign on which was painted in gilded letters the fact that the rector"s office hours were from 12 to 1 on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and this was Thursday. The hour, however, was now nearly three, and she had called only on a chance of catching him, a chance which a stout and gloomy looking verger, who appeared from somewhere at her foot-fall, told her at first was lost; but when he recognized her, he changed his air, grew quite interested, and said he would see if the doctor was in.
He had been there he knew after lunch, but he might have left. He entered and closed the door softly behind him, leaving the girl in the gloom, but a moment later he returned and showed her in. The rector, with a smile of unfeigned pleasure on his face, was standing just beside a handsome mahogany writing desk, near a window, awaiting her entry, and he greeted her with cordiality.
"Oh! my dear young lady, come in. I was just about going off, and I"m glad I happened to have lingered a little--getting ready to launch a new year-book." He laid his fingers on a batch of printer"s proof lying on the desk beside a stock bulletin. "I was just thinking what a bore it is and lo! it turned into a blessing like Balaam"s curse. What can I do for you?" The rector"s large blue eyes rested on his comely parishioner with a spark in them that was not from any spiritual fire.
"Well, I don"t know," said the girl doubtfully.
"I see you were at the grand ball, or whatever it was last night, and I was so delighted to see that it was for a charitable object--and the particular object which I saw."
"Yes, it is for Mr. Marvel"s work out among the poor," said Miss Leigh.
The rector"s expression changed slightly.
"Oh! yes, that is our work. You know that is our chapel. I built it. The ball must have been a great success. It was the first knowledge I had that you and your dear aunt had returned." His voice had a tone of faint reproach in it.
"Yes, we returned yesterday. I wish the papers would leave me alone,"
she added.
"Ah! my dear young lady, there are many who would give a great deal to be chronicled by the public prints as you are. The morning and evening star is always mentioned while the little asteroids go unnoticed."
"Well, I don"t know about that," said the girl, "but I do wish the papers would let me alone--and my father too."
"Oh! yes, to be sure. I did not know what you were referring to. That was an outrageous attack. So utterly unfounded, too, absolutely untrue.
Such scurrilous attacks deserve the reprobation of all thinking men."
"The trouble is that the attack was untrue; but the story was not unfounded."
"What! What do you mean?" The clergyman"s face wore a puzzled expression.
"That our car was. .h.i.tched on to the train----"
"And why shouldn"t it be, my dear young lady? Doesn"t the road belong to your father; at least, to your family--and those whom they represent?"
"I don"t know that it does, and that is one reason why I have come to see you."