MALONE. [interrupting] Oh, her name is Robinson, is it? Thank you.
STRAKER. Why, you don"t know even her name?
MALONE. Yes I do, now that you"ve told me.
STRAKER. [after a moment of stupefaction at the old man"s readiness in repartee] Look here: what do you mean by gittin into my car and lettin me bring you here if you"re not the person I took that note to?
MALONE. Who else did you take it to, pray?
STRAKER. I took it to Mr Ector Malone, at Miss Robinson"s request, see?
Miss Robinson is not my princ.i.p.al: I took it to oblige her. I know Mr Malone; and he ain"t you, not by a long chalk. At the hotel they told me that your name is Ector Malone.
MALONE. Hector Malone.
STRAKER. [with calm superiority] Hector in your own country: that"s what comes o livin in provincial places like Ireland and America. Over here you"re Ector: if you avn"t noticed it before you soon will.
The growing strain of the conversation is here relieved by Violet, who has sallied from the villa and through the garden to the steps, which she now descends, coming very opportunely between Malone and Straker.
VIOLET. [to Straker] Did you take my message?
STRAKER. Yes, miss. I took it to the hotel and sent it up, expecting to see young Mr Malone. Then out walks this gent, and says it"s all right and he"ll come with me. So as the hotel people said he was Mr Ector Malone, I fetched him. And now he goes back on what he said. But if he isn"t the gentleman you meant, say the word: it"s easy enough to fetch him back again.
MALONE. I should esteem it a great favor if I might have a short conversation with you, madam. I am Hector"s father, as this bright Britisher would have guessed in the course of another hour or so.
STRAKER. [coolly defiant] No, not in another year or so. When we"ve ad you as long to polish up as we"ve ad im, perhaps you"ll begin to look a little bit up to is mark. At present you fall a long way short. You"ve got too many aitches, for one thing. [To Violet, amiably] All right, Miss: you want to talk to him: I shan"t intrude. [He nods affably to Malone and goes out through the little gate in the paling].
VIOLET. [very civilly] I am so sorry, Mr Malone, if that man has been rude to you. But what can we do? He is our chauffeur.
MALONE. Your what?
VIOLET. The driver of our automobile. He can drive a motor car at seventy miles an hour, and mend it when it breaks down. We are dependent on our motor cars; and our motor cars are dependent on him; so of course we are dependent on him.
MALONE. I"ve noticed, madam, that every thousand dollars an Englishman gets seems to add one to the number of people he"s dependent on.
However, you needn"t apologize for your man: I made him talk on purpose.
By doing so I learnt that you"re staying here in Grannida with a party of English, including my son Hector.
VIOLET. [conversationally] Yes. We intended to go to Nice; but we had to follow a rather eccentric member of our party who started first and came here. Won"t you sit down? [She clears the nearest chair of the two books on it].
MALONE. [impressed by this attention] Thank you. [He sits down, examining her curiously as she goes to the iron table to put down the books. When she turns to him again, he says] Miss Robinson, I believe?
VIOLET. [sitting down] Yes.
MALONE. [Taking a letter from his pocket] Your note to Hector runs as follows [Violet is unable to repress a start. He pauses quietly to take out and put on his spectacles, which have gold rims]: "Dearest: they have all gone to the Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed headache and have the garden all to myself. Jump into Jack"s motor: Straker will rattle you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your loving Violet."
[He looks at her; but by this time she has recovered herself, and meets his spectacles with perfect composure. He continues slowly] Now I don"t know on what terms young people a.s.sociate in English society; but in America that note would be considered to imply a very considerable degree of affectionate intimacy between the parties.
VIOLET. Yes: I know your son very well, Mr Malone. Have you any objection?
MALONE. [somewhat taken aback] No, no objection exactly. Provided it is understood that my son is altogether dependent on me, and that I have to be consulted in any important step he may propose to take.
VIOLET. I am sure you would not be unreasonable with him, Mr Malone.
MALONE. I hope not, Miss Robinson; but at your age you might think many things unreasonable that don"t seem so to me.
VIOLET. [with a little shrug] Oh well, I suppose there"s no use our playing at cross purposes, Mr Malone. Hector wants to marry me.
MALONE. I inferred from your note that he might. Well, Miss Robinson, he is his own master; but if he marries you he shall not have a rap from me. [He takes off his spectacles and pockets them with the note].
VIOLET. [with some severity] That is not very complimentary to me, Mr Malone.
MALONE. I say nothing against you, Miss Robinson: I daresay you are an amiable and excellent young lady. But I have other views for Hector.
VIOLET. Hector may not have other views for himself, Mr Malone.
MALONE. Possibly not. Then he does without me: that"s all. I daresay you are prepared for that. When a young lady writes to a young man to come to her quick, quick, quick, money seems nothing and love seems everything.
VIOLET. [sharply] I beg your pardon, Mr Malone: I do not think anything so foolish. Hector must have money.
MALONE. [staggered] Oh, very well, very well. No doubt he can work for it.
VIOLET. What is the use of having money if you have to work for it? [She rises impatiently]. It"s all nonsense, Mr Malone: you must enable your son to keep up his position. It is his right.
MALONE. [grimly] I should not advise you to marry him on the strength of that right, Miss Robinson.
Violet, who has almost lost her temper, controls herself with an effort; unclenches her fingers; and resumes her seat with studied tranquillity and reasonableness.
VIOLET. What objection have you to me, pray? My social position is as good as Hector"s, to say the least. He admits it.
MALONE. [shrewdly] You tell him so from time to time, eh? Hector"s social position in England, Miss Robinson, is just what I choose to buy for him. I have made him a fair offer. Let him pick out the most historic house, castle or abbey that England contains. The day that he tells me he wants it for a wife worthy of its traditions, I buy it for him, and give him the means of keeping it up.
VIOLET. What do you mean by a wife worthy of its traditions? Cannot any well bred woman keep such a house for him?
MALONE. No: she must be born to it.
VIOLET. Hector was not born to it, was he?
MALONE. His granmother was a barefooted Irish girl that nursed me by a turf fire. Let him marry another such, and I will not stint her marriage portion. Let him raise himself socially with my money or raise somebody else so long as there is a social profit somewhere, I"ll regard my expenditure as justified. But there must be a profit for someone. A marriage with you would leave things just where they are.
VIOLET. Many of my relations would object very much to my marrying the grandson of a common woman, Mr Malone. That may be prejudice; but so is your desire to have him marry a t.i.tle prejudice.
MALONE. [rising, and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there is a good deal of reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforward downright sort of a young woman.
VIOLET. I do not see why I should be made miserably poor because I cannot make profits for you. Why do you want to make Hector unhappy?
MALONE. He will get over it all right enough. Men thrive better on disappointments in love than on disappointments in money. I daresay you think that sordid; but I know what I"m talking about. My father died of starvation in Ireland in the black 47, Maybe you"ve heard of it.
VIOLET. The Famine?
MALONE. [with smouldering pa.s.sion] No, the starvation. When a country is full of food, and exporting it, there can be no famine. My father was starved dead; and I was starved out to America in my mother"s arms. English rule drove me and mine out of Ireland. Well, you can keep Ireland. I and my like are coming back to buy England; and we"ll buy the best of it. I want no middle cla.s.s properties and no middle cla.s.s women for Hector. That"s straightforward isn"t it, like yourself?