All the same, I should be sorry to see you entering into a loveless marriage."
For a moment she was silent, then she suddenly plunged into speech.
"Dear Mr. Helmsley, do you really think all the silly sentiment talked and written about love is any good in marriage? We know so much nowadays,--and the disillusion of matrimony is so _very_ complete! One has only to read the divorce cases in the newspapers to see what mistakes people make----"
He winced as though he had been stung.
"Do you read the divorce cases, Lucy?" he asked. "You--a mere girl like you?"
She looked surprised at the regret and pain in his tone.
"Why, of course! One _must_ read the papers to keep up with all the things that are going on. And the divorce cases have always such startling headings,--in such big print!--one is obliged to read them--positively obliged!"
She laughed carelessly, and settled herself more cosily in her chair.
"You nearly always find that it is the people who were desperately in love with each other before marriage who behave disgracefully and are perfectly sick of each other afterwards," she went on. "They wanted perpetual poetry and moonlight, and of course they find they can"t have it. Now, I don"t want poetry or moonlight,--I hate both! Poetry makes me sleepy, and moonlight gives me neuralgia. I should like a husband who would be a _friend_ to me--a real kind friend!--some one who would be able to take care of me, and be nice to me always--some one much older than myself, who was wise and strong and clever----"
"And rich," said Helmsley quietly. "Don"t forget that! Very rich!"
She glanced at him furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then, rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, she accepted his remark smilingly.
"Oh, well, of course!" she said. "It"s not pleasant to live without plenty of money."
He turned from her abruptly, and resumed his leisurely walk to and fro, much to her inward vexation. He was becoming fidgety, she decided,--old people were really very trying! Suddenly, with the air of a man arriving at an important decision, he sat down again in the armchair opposite her own, and leaning indolently back against the cushion, surveyed her with a calm, critical, entirely businesslike manner, much as he would have looked at a Jew company-promoter, who sought his aid to float a "bogus"
scheme.
"It"s not pleasant to live without plenty of money, you think," he said, repeating her last words slowly. "Well! The pleasantest time of my life was when I did not own a penny in the bank, and when I had to be very sharp in order to earn enough for my day"s dinner. There was a zest, a delight, a fine glory in the mere effort to live that brought out the strength of every quality I possessed. I learned to know myself, which is a farther reaching wisdom than is found in knowing others. I had ideals then,--and--old as I am, I have them still."
He paused. She was silent. Her eyes were lowered, and she played idly with her painted fan.
"I wonder if it would surprise you," he went on, "to know that I have made an ideal of _you_?"
She looked up with a smile.
"Really? Have you? I"m afraid I shall prove a disappointment!"
He did not answer by the obvious compliment which she felt she had a right to expect. He kept his gaze fixed steadily on her face, and his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows almost met in the deep hollow which painful thought had ploughed along his forehead.
"I have made," he said, "an ideal in my mind of the little child who sat on my knee, played with my watch-chain and laughed at me when I called her my little sweetheart. She was perfectly candid in her laughter,--she knew it was absurd for an old man to have a child as his sweetheart. I loved to hear her laugh so,--because she was true to herself, and to her right and natural instincts. She was the prettiest and sweetest child I ever saw,--full of innocent dreams and harmless gaiety. She began to grow up, and I saw less and less of her, till gradually I lost the child and found the woman. But I believe in the child"s heart still--I think that the truth and simplicity of the child"s soul are still in the womanly nature,--and in that way, Lucy, I yet hold you as an ideal."
Her breath quickened a little.
"You think too kindly of me," she murmured, furling and unfurling her fan slowly; "I"m not at all clever."
He gave a slight deprecatory gesture.
"Cleverness is not what I expect or have ever expected of you," he said.
"You have not as yet had to endure the misrepresentation and wrong which frequently make women clever,--the life of solitude and despised dreams which moves a woman to put on man"s armour and sally forth to fight the world and conquer it, or else die in the attempt. How few conquer, and how many die, are matters of history. Be glad you are not a clever woman, Lucy!--for genius in a woman is the mystic laurel of Apollo springing from the soft breast of Daphne. It hurts in the growing, and sometimes breaks the heart from which it grows."
She answered nothing. He was talking in a way she did not understand,--his allusion to Apollo and Daphne was completely beyond her. She smothered a tiny yawn and wondered why he was so tedious.
Moreover, she was conscious of some slight chagrin, for though she said, out of mere social hypocrisy, that she was not clever, she thought herself exceptionally so. Why could he not admit her abilities as readily as she herself admitted them?
"No, you are not clever," he resumed quietly. "And I am glad you are not. You are good and pure and true,--these graces outweigh all cleverness."
Her cheeks flushed prettily,--she thought of a girl who had been her schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could a.s.sume the dainty simpering air of maiden--modest perfection at the moment"s notice. She wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley watched her attentively--almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the tips of his fingers together, looked at her over this pointed rampart of polished nails as though she were something altogether curious and remarkable.
"The virtues of a woman are her wealth and worth," he said sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child"s copybook. "A jewel"s price is not so much for its size and weight as for its particular l.u.s.tre. But common commercial people--like myself--even if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpa.s.s all others in the market, are never content till they have tested it. Every Jew bites his coin. And I am something of a Jew. I like to know the exact value of what I esteem as precious. And so I test it."
"Yes?" She threw in this interjected query simply because she did not know what to say. She thought he was talking very oddly, and wondered whether he was quite sane.
"Yes," he echoed; "I test it. And, Lucy, I think so highly of you, and esteem you as so very fair a pearl of womanhood, that I am inclined to test you just as I would a priceless gem. Do you object?"
She glanced up at him flutteringly, vaguely surprised. The corners of his mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile, and she was rea.s.sured.
"Object? Of course not! As if I should object to anything you wish!" she said amiably. "But--I don"t quite understand----"
"No, possibly not," he interrupted; "I know I have not the art of making myself very clear in matters which deeply and personally affect myself.
I have nerves still, and some remnant of a heart,--these occasionally trouble me----"
She leaned forward and put her delicately gloved hand on his.
"Dear King David!" she murmured. "You are always so good!"
He took the little fingers in his own clasp and held them gently.
"I want to ask you a question, Lucy," he said; "and it is a very difficult question, because I feel that your answer to it may mean a great sorrow for me,--a great disappointment. The question is the "test"
I speak of. Shall I put it to you?"
"Please do!" she answered, her heart beginning to beat violently. He was coming to the point at last, she thought, and a few words more would surely make her the future mistress of the Helmsley millions! "If I can answer it I will!"
"Shall I ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an audacious, impudent question, Lucy,--one that no man of my age ought to ask any woman,--one that is likely to offend you very much!"
She withdrew her hand from his.
"Offend me?" and her eyes widened with a blank wonder. "What can it be?"
"Ah! What can it be! Think of all the most audacious and impudent things a man--an old man--could say to a young woman! Suppose,--it is only supposition, remember,--suppose, for instance, I were to ask you to marry me?"
A smile, brilliant and exultant, flashed over her features,--she almost laughed out her inward joy.
"I should accept you at once!" she said.
With sudden impetuosity he rose, and pushing away his chair, drew himself up to his full height, looking down upon her.
"You would!" and his voice was low and tense. "_You!_--you would actually marry me?"
She, rising likewise, confronted him in all her fresh and youthful beauty, fair and smiling, her bosom heaving and her eyes dilating with eagerness.
"I would,--indeed I would!" she averred delightedly. "I would rather marry you than any man in the world!"