Mrs. Masterman smiled. It was her mission to conciliate. "And what will that be?"
"I know what it won"t be," Claude said, scornfully. "It won"t be anything that has to do with a pretty girl."
Thor flushed. It was one of the minutes at which Claude"s taunts gave him all he could do to contain himself. As far as his younger brother was concerned, he meant well by him. It had always been his intention that his first use of Grandpa Thorley"s money should be in supplementing Claude"s meager personal resources and helping him to keep on his feet.
He could be patient with him, too--patient under all sorts of stinging gibes and double-edged compliments--patient for weeks, for months--patient right up to the minute when something touched him too keenly on the quick, and his wrath broke out with a fury he knew to be dangerous. It was so dangerous as to make him afraid--afraid for Claude, and more afraid for himself. There had been youthful quarrels between them from which he had come away pale with terror, not at what he had done, but at what he might have done had he not maintained some measure of self-control.
The memory of such occasions kept him quiet now, though the irony of Claude"s speech cut so much deeper than any one could suspect. "Won"t be anything that has to do with a pretty girl!" Good G.o.d! When he was beginning to feel his soul rent in the struggle between love and honor!
It was like something sprung on him--that had caught him unawares. There were days when the suffering was so keen that he wondered if there was no way of lawfully giving in. After all, he had never asked Lois Willoughby to marry him. There had never been more between them than an unspoken intention in his mind which had somehow communicated itself to hers. But that was not a pledge. If he were to marry some one else, she couldn"t reproach him by so much as a syllable.
It was not often that he was tempted to reason thus, but Claude"s sarcasm brought up the question more squarely than it had ever raised itself before. It was exactly the sort of subject on which, had it concerned any one else, Thor would have turned for light to Lois herself. In being debarred from her counsels, he felt strangely at a loss. While he said to himself that after all these years there was but one thing for him to do, he was curious as to the view other people might take of such a situation. It was because of this need, and with Claude"s sneer ringing in his heart, that later in the day he sprang the question on Dearlove. Dearlove was the derelict English butler whom Thor had picked out of the gutter and put in charge of his office so that he might have another chance. He had been summoned into his master"s presence to explain the subsidence in the contents of a bottle of cognac that Thor kept at the office for emergency cases and had neglected to put under lock and key.
"That was a full bottle a month ago," Thor declared, holding the accusing object up to the light.
"Was it, sir?" Dearlove asked, dismally. He stood in his habitual att.i.tude, his arms crossed on his stomach, his hands thrust, monklike, into his sleeves.
"And I"ve only taken one gla.s.s out of it--the day that young fellow fell off his bicycle."
Dearlove eyed the bottle piteously. ""Aven"t you, sir? Perhaps you took more out that day than you thought."
But Thor broke in with what was really on his mind. "Look here, Dearlove! What would you say to a man who was in love with one woman if he married another?"
Dearlove was so astonished as to be for a minute at a loss for speech.
"What"d I say to him, sir? I"d say, what did he do it for? If it was--"
"Yes, Dearlove?" Thor encouraged. "If it was for--what?"
"Well, sir, if he"d got money with her, like--well, that"d be one thing."
"But if he didn"t? If it was a case in which money didn"t matter?"
Dearlove shook his head. "I never "eard of no such case as that, sir."
Thor grew interested in the sheerly human aspects of the subject.
Romance was so novel to him that he wondered if every one came under its spell at some time--if there was no exception, not even Dearlove. He leaned across the desk, his hands clasped upon it.
"Now, Dearlove, suppose it was your own case, and--"
"Oh, me, sir! I"m no example to no one--not with Brightstone "anging on to me the way she does. I can"t look friendly at so much as a kitten without Brightstone--"
"Now here"s the situation, Dearlove," Thor interrupted, while the ex-butler listened, his head judicially inclined to one side: "Suppose a man--a patient of mine, let us say--meant to marry one young lady, and let her see it. And suppose, later, he fell very much in love with another young lady--"
"He"d "ave to ease the first one off a bit, wouldn"t he, sir?"
"You think he ought to."
"I think he"d "ave to, sir, unless he wanted to be sued for breach."
"It"s the question of duty I"m thinking of, Dearlove."
"Ain"t it his dooty to marry the one he"s in love with, sir? Doesn"t the Good Book say as "ow fallin" in love"--Dearlove blushed becomingly--"as "ow fallin" in love is the way G.o.d A"mighty means to fertilize the earth with people? Doesn"t the Good Book say that, sir?"
"Perhaps it does. I believe it"s the kind of primitive subject it"s likely to take up."
"So that there"s that to be thought of, sir. They say the children not born o" love matches ain"t always strong." He added, as he shuffled toward the door, "We never had no little ones, Brightstone and me--only a very small one that died a few hours after it was born."
Thor was not convinced by this reasoning, but he was happier than before. Such expressions of opinion, which would probably be indorsed by nine people out of ten, a.s.sured him that he might follow the urging of his heart and yet not be a dastard.
He felt on stronger ground, therefore, when he talked with Fay one afternoon in the week following. "Suppose my father doesn"t renew the lease--what would happen to you?"
Fay raised himself from the act of doing something to a head of lettuce which was unfolding its petals like a great green rose. His eyes had the visionary look that marked his inability to come down to the practical.
"Well, sir, I don"t rightly know."
"But you"ve thought of it, haven"t you?"
"Not exactly thought of it. He"s said he wouldn"t two or three times already, and then changed his mind."
"Would it do you any good if he did? Aren"t you fighting a losing battle, anyhow?"
"That"s not wholly the way I judge, Dr. Thor. Neither the losing battle nor the winning one can be told from the balance-sheet. The success or failure of a man"s work is chiefly in himself."
Thor studied this, gazing down the level of soft verdure to the end of the greenhouse in which they stood. "I can see how that might be in one way, but--"
"It"s the way I mostly think of, sir. Every man has his own habit of mind, hasn"t he? I agree with the great prophet Thomas Carlyle when he says"--he brought out the words with a mild pomposity--"when he says that a certain inarticulate self-consciousness dwells in us which only our works can render articulate. He speaks of the folly of the precept "Know thyself" till we"ve made it "Know what thou canst work at." I can work at this, Dr. Thor; I couldn"t work at anything else. I know that making both ends meet is an important part of it, of course--"
"But to you it isn"t the _most_ important part of it."
Fay"s eyes wandered to the other greenhouse in which lettuce grew, to the hothouse full of flowers, and out over the forcing-beds of violets.
"No, Dr. Thor; not the most important part of it--to me. I"ve created all this. I love it. It"s my life. It"s myself. And if--"
"And if my father doesn"t renew the lease--?"
"Then I shall be done for. It won"t be just going bankrupt in the money sense; it"ll be everything else--blasted." He subjoined, dreamily: "I don"t know what would happen to me after that. I"d be--I"d be equal to committing crimes."
Thor couldn"t remember ever having seen tears on an elderly man"s cheeks before. He took a turn down half the length of the greenhouse and back again. "Look here, Fay," he said, in the tone of one making a resolution, "supposing my father would give _me_ a lease of the place?"
"You, Dr. Thor?"
"Yes, me. Would you work it for me?"
Fay reflected long, while Thor watched the play of light and shadow over the mild, mobile face. "It wouldn"t be my own place any more, would it, sir?"
"No, I suppose it wouldn"t--not strictly. But it would be the next best thing. It would be better than--"
"It would be better than being turned out." He reflected further. "Was you thinking of taking it over as an investment, sir?"
Not having considered this side of his idea, Thor sought for a natural, spontaneous answer, and was not long in finding one. "I want to be identified with the village industries, because I"m going into politics."