"Everything sort of glittering with the sunshine on the wet drops, and things smelling good, like they do after rain--leaves, and gra.s.s, and good earth. I tell you it made a fellow feel as if the whole world was his brother. And when Mr. Rob. lit on that twig and swelled his red breast as if he knew the whole thing was his, and began to let them notes out, calling for his lady friend to come and go halves with him, I just had to laugh and speak to him, and that was when Lord Mount Dunstan heard me and jumped over the hedge. He"d been listening, too."
The expression Reuben S. Vanderpoel wore made it an agreeable thing to talk--to go on. He evidently cared to hear. So Selden did his best, and enjoyed himself in doing it. His style made for realism and brought things clearly before one. The big-built man in the rough and shabby shooting clothes, his way when he dropped into the gra.s.s to sit beside the stranger and talk, certain meanings in his words which conveyed to Vanderpoel what had not been conveyed to G. Selden. Yes, the man carried a heaviness about with him and hated the burden. Selden quite unconsciously brought him out strongly.
"I don"t know whether I"m the kind of fellow who is always making breaks," he said, with his boy"s laugh again, "but if I am, I never made a worse one than when I asked him straight if he was out of a job, and on the tramp. It showed what a nice fellow he was that he didn"t get hot about it. Some fellows would. He only laughed--sort of short--and said his job had been more than he could handle, and he was afraid he was down and out."
Mr. Vanderpoel was conscious that so far he was somewhat attracted by this central figure. G. Selden was also proving satisfactory in the matter of revealing his excellently simple views of persons and things.
"The only time he got mad was when I wouldn"t believe him when he told me who he was. I was a bit hot in the collar myself. I"d felt sorry for him, because I thought he was a chap like myself, and he was up against it. I know what that is, and I"d wanted to jolly him along a bit. When he said his name was Mount Dunstan, and the place belonged to him, I guessed he thought he was making a joke. So I got on my wheel and started off, and then he got mad for keeps. He said he wasn"t such a d.a.m.ned fool as he looked, and what he"d said was true, and I could go and be hanged."
Reuben S. Vanderpoel laughed. He liked that. It sounded like decent British hot temper, which he had often found accompanied honest British decencies.
He liked other things, as the story proceeded. The picture of the huge house with the shut windows, made him slightly restless. The concealed imagination, combined with the financier"s resentment of dormant interests, disturbed him. That which had attracted Selden in the Reverend Lewis Penzance strongly attracted himself. Also, a man was a good deal to be judged by his friends. The man who lived alone in the midst of stately desolateness and held as his chief intimate a high-bred and gentle-minded scholar of ripe years, gave, in doing this, certain evidence which did not tell against him. The whole situation meant something a splendid, vivid-minded young creature might be moved by--might be allured by, even despite herself.
There was something fantastic in the odd linking of incidents--Selden"s chance view of Betty as she rode by, his next day"s sudden resolve to turn back and go to Stornham, his accident, all that followed seemed, if one were fanciful--part of a scheme prearranged
"When I came to myself," G. Selden said, "I felt like that fellow in the Shakespeare play that they dress up and put to bed in the palace when he"s drunk. I thought I"d gone off my head. And then Miss Vanderpoel came." He paused a moment and looked down on the carpet, thinking. "Gee whiz! It WAS queer," he said.
Betty Vanderpoel"s father could almost hear her voice as the rest was told. He knew how her laugh had sounded, and what her presence must have been to the young fellow. His delightful, human, always satisfying Betty!
Through this odd trick of fortune, Mount Dunstan had begun to see her.
Since, through the unfair endowment of Nature--that it was not wholly fair he had often told himself--she was all the things that desire could yearn for, there were many chances that when a man saw her he must long to see her again, and there were the same chances that such an one as Mount Dunstan might long also, and, if Fate was against him, long with a bitter strength. Selden was not aware that he had spoken more fully of Mount Dunstan and his place than of other things. That this had been the case, had been because Mr. Vanderpoel had intended it should be so. He had subtly drawn out and encouraged a detailed account of the time spent at Mount Dunstan vicarage. It was easily encouraged. Selden"s affectionate admiration for the vicar led him on to enthusiasm. The quiet house and garden, the old books, the afternoon tea under the copper beech, and the long talks of old things, which had been so new to the young New Yorker, had plainly made a mark upon his life, not likely to be erased even by the rush of after years.
"The way he knew history was what got me," he said. "And the way you got interested in it, when he talked. It wasn"t just HISTORY, like you learn at school, and forget, and never see the use of, anyhow. It was things about men, just like yourself--hustling for a living in their way, just as we"re hustling in Broadway. Most of it was fighting, and there are mounds scattered about that are the remains of their forts and camps.
Roman camps, some of them. He took me to see them. He had a little old pony chaise we trundled about in, and he"d draw up and we"d sit and talk. "There were men here on this very spot," he"d say, "looking out for attack, eating, drinking, cooking their food, polishing their weapons, laughing, and shouting--MEN--Selden, fifty-five years before Christ was born--and sometimes the New Testament times seem to us so far away that they are half a dream." That was the kind of thing he"d say, and I"d sometimes feel as if I heard the Romans shouting. The country about there was full of queer places, and both he and Lord Dunstan knew more about them than I know about Twenty-third Street."
"You saw Lord Mount Dunstan often?" Mr. Vanderpoel suggested.
"Every day, sir. And the more I saw him, the more I got to like him. He"s all right. But it"s hard luck to be fixed as he is--that"s stone-cold truth. What"s a man to do? The money he ought to have to keep up his place was spent before he was born. His father and his eldest brother were a b.u.m lot, and his grandfather and great-grandfather were fools. He can"t sell the place, and he wouldn"t if he could.
Mr. Penzance was so fond of him that sometimes he"d say things. But,"
hastily, "perhaps I"m talking too much."
"You happen to be talking about questions I have been greatly interested in. I have thought a good deal at times of the position of the holders of large estates they cannot afford to keep up. This special instance is a case in point."
G. Selden felt himself in luck again. Reuben S., quite evidently, found his subject worthy of undivided attention. Selden had not heartily liked Lord Mount Dunstan, and lived in the atmosphere surrounding him, looking about him with sharp young New York eyes, without learning a good deal.
He had seen the practical hardship of the situation, and laid it bare.
"What Mr. Penzance says is that he"s like the men that built things in the beginning--fought for them--fought Romans and Saxons and Normans--perhaps the whole lot at different times. I used to like to get Mr. Penzance to tell stories about the Mount Dunstans. They were splendid. It must be pretty fine to look back about a thousand years and know your folks have been something. All the same its pretty fierce to have to stand alone at the end of it, not able to help yourself, because some of your relations were crazy fools. I don"t wonder he feels mad."
"Does he?" Mr. Vanderpoel inquired.
"He"s straight," said G. Selden sympathetically. "He"s all right. But only money can help him, and he"s got none, so he has to stand and stare at things falling to pieces. And--well, I tell you, Mr. Vanderpoel, he LOVES that place--he"s crazy about it. And he"s proud--I don"t mean he"s got the swell-head, because he hasn"t--but he"s just proud. Now, for instance, he hasn"t any use for men like himself that marry just for money. He"s seen a lot of it, and it"s made him sick. He"s not that kind."
He had been asked and had answered a good many questions before he went away, but each had dropped into the talk so incidentally that he had not recognised them as queries. He did not know that Lord Mount Dunstan stood out a clearly defined figure in Mr. Vanderpoel"s mind, a figure to be reflected upon, and one not without its attraction.
"Miss Vanderpoel tells me," Mr. Vanderpoel said, when the interview was drawing to a close, "that you are an agent for the Delkoff typewriter."
G. Selden flushed slightly.
"Yes, sir," he answered, "but I didn"t----"
"I hear that three machines are in use on the Stornham estate, and that they have proved satisfactory."
"It"s a good machine," said G. Selden, his flush a little deeper.
Mr. Vanderpoel smiled.
"You are a business-like young man," he said, "and I have no doubt you have a catalogue in your pocket."
G. Selden was a business-like young man. He gave Mr. Vanderpoel one serious look, and the catalogue was drawn forth.
"It wouldn"t be business, sir, for me to be caught out without it," he said. "I shouldn"t leave it behind if I went to a funeral. A man"s got to run no risks."
"I should like to look at it."
The thing had happened. It was not a dream. Reuben S. Vanderpoel, clothed and in his right mind, had, without pressure being exerted upon him, expressed his desire to look at the catalogue--to examine it--to have it explained to him at length.
He listened attentively, while G. Selden did his best. He asked a question now and then, or made a comment. His manner was that of a thoroughly composed man of business, but he was remembering what Betty had told him of the "ten per," and a number of other things. He saw the flush come and go under the still boyish skin, he observed that G.
Selden"s hand was not wholly steady, though he was making an effort not to seem excited. But he was excited. This actually meant--this thing so unimportant to multi-millionaires--that he was having his "chance," and his young fortunes were, perhaps, in the balance.
"Yes," said Reuben S., when he had finished, "it seems a good, up-to-date machine."
"It"s the best on the market," said G. Selden, "out and out, the best."
"I understand you are only junior salesman?"
"Yes, sir. Ten per and five dollars on every machine I sell. If I had a territory, I should get ten."
"Then," reflectively, "the first thing is to get a territory."
"Perhaps I shall get one in time, if I keep at it," said Selden courageously.
"It is a good machine. I like it," said Mr. Vanderpoel. "I can see a good many places where it could be used. Perhaps, if you make it known at your office that when you are given a good territory, I shall give preference to the Delkoff over other typewriting machines, it might--eh?"
A light broke out upon G. Selden"s countenance--a light radiant and magnificent. He caught his breath. A desire to shout--to yell--to whoop, as when in the society of "the boys," was barely conquered in time.
"Mr. Vanderpoel," he said, standing up, "I--Mr. Vanderpoel--sir--I feel as if I was having a pipe dream. I"m not, am I?"
"No," answered Mr. Vanderpoel, "you are not. I like you, Mr. Selden. My daughter liked you. I do not mean to lose sight of you. We will begin, however, with the territory, and the Delkoff. I don"t think there will be any difficulty about it."
Ten minutes later G. Selden was walking down Fifth Avenue, wondering if there was any chance of his being arrested by a policeman upon the charge that he was reeling, instead of walking steadily. He hoped he should get back to the hall bedroom safely. Nick Baumgarten and Jem Bolter both "roomed" in the house with him. He could tell them both.
It was Jem who had made up the yarn about one of them saving Reuben S.
Vanderpoel"s life. There had been no life-saving, but the thing had come true.
"But, if it hadn"t been for Lord Mount Dunstan," he said, thinking it over excitedly, "I should never have seen Miss Vanderpoel, and, if it hadn"t been for Miss Vanderpoel, I should never have got next to Reuben S. in my life. Both sides of the Atlantic Ocean got busy to do a good turn to Little Willie. Hully gee!"
In his study Mr. Vanderpoel was rereading Betty"s letters. He felt that he had gained a certain knowledge of Lord Mount Dunstan.