Sir Richmond Hardy was not the only man who was thinking intently about
Miss Grammont at that particular moment. Two gentlemen were coming
towards her across the Atlantic whose minds, it chanced, were very
busily occupied by her affairs. One of these was her father, who
was lying in his brass bed in his commodious cabin on the Hollandia,
regretting his diminishing ability to sleep in the early morning now,
even when he was in the strong and soothing air of mid-Atlantic, and
thinking of V.V. because she had a way of coming into his mind when it
was undefended; and the other was Mr. Gunter Lake on the Megantic,
one day out from Sandy Hook, who found himself equally sleepless and
preoccupied. And although Mr. Lake was a man of vast activities and
complicated engagements he was coming now to Europe for the express
purpose of seeing V.V. and having things out with her fully and
completely because, in spite of all that had happened, she made such an
endless series of delays in coming to America.
Old Grammont as he appeared upon the pillow of his bed by the light of a
rose-shaded bedside lamp, was a small-headed, grey-haired gentleman with
a wrinkled face and sunken brown eyes. Years of business experience,
mitigated only by such exercise as the game of poker affords, had
intensified an instinctive inexpressiveness. Under the most solitary
circumstances old Grammont was still inexpressive, and the face that
stared at the ceiling of his cabin and the problem of his daughter
might have been the face of a pickled head in a museum, for any
indication it betrayed of the flow of thought within. He lay on his back
and his bent knees lifted the bed-clothes into a sharp mountain. He was
not even trying to sleep.
Why, he meditated, had V.V. stayed on in Europe so much longer than she
need have done? And why had Gunter Lake suddenly got into a state of
mind about her? Why didn’t the girl confide in her father at least
about these things? What was afoot? She had thrown over Lake once and
it seemed she was going to turn him down again. Well, if she was an
ordinary female person that was a silly sort of thing to do. With her
fortune and his--you could buy the world. But suppose she was not all
ordinary female person.... Her mother hadn’t been ordinary anyhow,
whatever else you called her, and no one could call Grammont blood all
ordinary fluid. ... Old Grammont had never had any delusions about Lake.
If Lake’s father hadn’t been a big man Lake would never have counted for
anything at all. Suppose she did turn him down. In itself that wasn’t a
thing to break her father’s heart.
What did matter was not whether she threw Lake over but what she threw
him over for. If it was because he wasn’t man enough, well and good. But
if it was for some other lover, some good-looking, worthless impostor,
some European title or suchlike folly--!
At the thought of a lover for V.V. a sudden flood of anger poured across
the old man’s mind, behind the still mask of his face. It infuriated
him even to think of V.V., his little V.V., his own girl, entertaining
a lover, being possibly--most shameful thought--IN LOVE! Like some
ordinary silly female, sinking to kisses, to the deeds one could buy
and pay for. His V.V.! The idea infuriated and disgusted him. He fought
against it as a possibility. Once some woman in New York had ventured
to hint something to him of some fellow, some affair with an artist,
Caston; she had linked this Caston with V.V.’s red cross nursing in
Europe.... Old Grammont had made that woman sorry she spoke. Afterwards
he had caused enquiries to be made about this Caston, careful enquiries.
It seems that he and V.V. had known each other, there had been
something. But nothing that V.V. need be ashamed of. When old Grammont’s
enquiry man had come back with his report, old Grammont had been very
particular about that. At first the fellow had not been very clear,
rather muddled indeed as to how things were--no doubt he had wanted
to make out there was something just to seem to earn his money. Old
Grammont had struck the table sharply and the eyes that looked out of
his mask had blazed. “What have you found out against her?” he had asked
in a low even voice. “Absolutely nothing, Sir,” said the agent, suddenly
white to the lips....
Old Grammont stared at his memory of that moment for a while. That
affair was all right, quite all right. Of course it was all right. And
also, happily, Caston was among the dead. But it was well her broken
engagement with Lake had been resumed as though it had never been broken
off. If there had been any talk that fact answered it. And now that Lake
had served his purpose old Grammont did not care in the least if he was
shelved. V.V. could stand alone.
Old Grammont had got a phrase in his mind that looked like dominating
the situation. He dreamt of saying to V.V.: “V.V., I’m going to make
a man of you--if you’re man enough.” That was a large proposition; it
implied--oh! it implied all sorts of things. It meant that she would
care as little for philandering as an able young business man. Perhaps
some day, a long time ahead, she might marry. There wasn’t much reason
for it, but it might be she would not wish to be called a spinster.
“Take a husband,” thought old Grammont, “when I am gone, as one takes a
butler, to make the household complete.” In previous meditations on his
daughter’s outlook old Grammont had found much that was very suggestive
in the precedent of Queen Victoria. She had had no husband of the lord
and master type, so to speak, but only a Prince Consort, well in hand.
Why shouldn’t the Grammont heiress dominate her male belonging, if it
came to that, in the same fashion? Why shouldn’t one tie her up and tie
the whole thing up, so far as any male belonging was concerned, leaving
V.V. in all other respects free? How could one do it?
The speculative calm of the sunken brown eyes deepened.
His thoughts went back to the white face of the private enquiry agent.
“Absolutely nothing, Sir.” What had the fellow thought of hinting?
Nothing of that kind in V.V.’s composition, never fear. Yet it was a
curious anomaly that while one had a thousand ways of defending one’s
daughter and one’s property against that daughter’s husband, there was
no power on earth by which a father could stretch his dead hand between
that daughter and the undue influence of a lover. Unless you tied her up
for good and all, lover or none....
One was left at the mercy of V.V.’s character....
“I ought to see more of her,” he thought. “She gets away from me. Just
as her mother did.” A man need not suspect his womenkind but he should
know what they are doing. It is duty, his protective duty to them. These
companions, these Seyffert women and so forth, were all very well in
their way; there wasn’t much they kept from you if you got them cornered
and asked them intently. But a father’s eye is better. He must go about
with the girl for a time, watch her with other men, give her chances
to talk business with him and see if she took them. “V.V., I’m going
to make a man of you,” the phrase ran through his brain. The deep
instinctive jealousy of the primordial father was still strong in old
Grammont’s blood. It would be pleasant to go about with her on his
right hand in Paris, HIS girl, straight and lovely, desirable and
unapproachable,--above that sort of nonsense, above all other masculine
subjugation.
“V.V., I’m going to make a man of you....”
His mind grew calmer. Whatever she wanted in Paris should be hers. He’d
just let her rip. They’d be like sweethearts together, he and his girl.
Old Grammont dozed off into dreamland.