She dealt what she considered to be a body-blow by affirming
that your property would not be in your hands till you were
twenty-one.
I replied that I didn't care if it didn't reach you till you
were a hundred and twenty-one.
She said, "Don't be silly," and asked me if I had ever thought
of changing my name back to Forrest from Hogg.
I inquired in return if she would mind the loss of six thousand
dollars a year, supposing that I should take such a step.
She reflected and said that she should, but she would rather
lose it than take the name; and that we could rub along on
Dorothea's money, she supposed, if that was my idea of a
pleasant life.
I hastened to say that I would relinquish the six thousand
without a pang, confident that I could make a living anyway; but
that it would be disloyal to my good old uncle, whose bounty had
given me a college course, two years at Oxford and three at
Harvard Law School. It had also permitted me to give my services
to the United States Shipping Board without compensation.
She said she thought it was very selfish in a government to
accept a man's whole time and give him no remuneration; that the
Secretary of the Treasury had only to say to the banks, "Let
there be money," and there was money. There would be plenty for
everybody if only the engravers and laborers at the Mint would
not strike.
I reminded her that men were remunerated sufficiently in being
allowed to serve their country in time of war.
She returned that she thought that point of view foolish and
fantastic, but if she found, after a year, that her daughter's
peace of mind was threatened, would I then change my name and
live on Dorothea's income until I could establish myself in the
practice of the law? She said that I must acknowledge that this
was a ridiculously generous proposition and one that neither my
talents nor my station in life merited.
I replied that the proposition meant to me that I should simply
be selling myself and buying her daughter, and that I declined
to accept it.
("Oh, Charlotte!" the girl interrupted with a catch in her throat,
"don't you think that was splendid and clever, too?")
Your mother said that she wished to take the matter into
consideration during your absence [so the letter ran on], and
just as we were rising the Philadelphia aunt came in from one
door and General X, Senator Y, and Lord Z from another.
They are at the moment three of the most significant figures in
the moving picture of Washington society, and all women pursue
them. They beamed at me as if they had been commandeered for
that special purpose, and Senator Y said jovially: "How are you,
Duke? Glad to see you. Are you free to dine with us?"
I hastily turned to your mother, saying: "I was just going to
ask you and your sister if you would dine with me."
Lord Z, who was at Balliol with me, you remember, said: "Then
perhaps you will allow us to come to your table for coffee,
Hogg?" Your mother gazed at him, astounded that his noble tongue
could utter the name. Then she actually and gracefully "fell"
for the dinner, lured by the bait of the post-prandial coffee
with the distinguished trio, and the Philadelphia aunt kept
things going serenely. She is a delightful person and will be a
perfect companion for your mother when--you know when--when she
needs one--and I no longer do!
("There never was a man who said things like Duke!" interpolated Dolly
ecstatically.)
All would have gone swimmingly to the end had not a page
suddenly entered the room bawling: "Mr. Hogg wanted at the
telephone: Mr. Hogg? Telephone message for Mr. HOGG!"
Only capitals can give an idea of the volume of voice. My
ear-drum, grown painfully sensitive since I met your mother,
echoed and reechoed with the tone as I threaded my way through
the crowded room, followed by every eye, while I imagined people
saying: "I wonder if he's called to the stockyard?" (It is
queer, but I never felt this way in Oxford, for they still
remember Hogg, the Scottish poet, and I hung myself to his
revered coat-tails.)
The telephone message was from my secretary, and healed my
wounded vanity, for it came from the British Embassy conveying
the thanks of the Foreign Office for Mr. Hogg's friendly and
helpful action in conducting negotiations for the chartering of
ex-enemy ships lying in South American ports.
("You see what he is!" exclaimed Dolly, looking up from the letter
with eyes full of unshed tears! "Of course he has five or six
superiors in office but I suppose really that Duke's extraordinary
talent keeps that whole shipping board going! You mark my words,
Charlotte, when Duke gives up his position and goes to Plattsburg
there'll be an absolute slump in that office! But just hear what
follows; it is so discouraging!")
But when, glowing with the delight that always comes to me when
I have any little tribute to lay with my love at your charming
number-three feet, when I returned to my table your mother had
gone to her room and the Philadelphia aunt remained to explain
that she had been taken suddenly ill.
"It will all come right, Mr.--my dear boy!" she said. "My sister
has one weakness, an abnormal sensitiveness to public opinion.
She thinks constantly what people will say of this, that, or the
other trifling thing, and in that way perpetually loses sight of
the realities of life. There is a great deal of good in her that
you have never seen because for the moment she is absolutely
obsessed by her objection to your name and her conviction that
Dorothea might and should marry a title. My sister married
Reginald Valentine more for the effect on her future
visiting-card than anything else, but Dorothea's father
bequeathed his good looks, his sunny disposition, his charm, and
his generous nature to his daughter. You have chosen wisely, my
dear Mr.--boy, but not more wisely, to my mind, than Dorothea
has!"
So it ended, but I somehow hope that I may have converted your
mother from an enemy alien to an armed neutral!
"There is nothing more of--of--general interest," said Dolly
tearfully, as she slipped the letter in the envelope. "Aunt Maggie is
a trump. Oh, Charlotte! if only you had ever had a love-problem like
mine and could advise me! Duke always wondered that you never
married."
(Dorothea ought to be cuffed for impertinence, but she is too
unconscious and too pretty and lovable for corporal punishment.)
"Perhaps there may still be hope even at thirty!" I said stiffly.
"Oh, I didn't mean that! You might have anybody by lifting your
finger! We only wonder you've never lifted it! But you could be happy
only with a very learned and prominent man, you are so clever!"
"I'm clever enough to prefer love to learning, if I have to choose,
Dolly, my dear."
"I'm so sorry you didn't get a letter, Charlotte," said the girl,
snuggling sympathetically to my side on the bench.
This was more than flesh and blood or angel could bear!
I kissed her, and, shaking her off my shoulder vigorously, I said, as
I straightened my hat: "As a matter of fact, Miss Valentine, I have
had a letter every day since we left New York; a letter delivered
before breakfast by the steward. You have had but one, yet you are
twenty and I am thirty!"
"_Charlotte!_"
"Don't add to your impudence by being too astonished, darling," I
continued. "Come! let's go and pick bananas and pineapples and
tamarinds and shaddocks and star-apples and sapodillas!"
"I won't budge a step till you tell me all about it!"
"Then you'll grow to this green bench and have to be cut away by your
faithful Marmaduke!"
"Is it a secret?"
"It doesn't exist at all for you. You are not of age, Dolly."
"I'm old enough to know the things one can learn by heart!" was
Dolly's comment.
When the Diana was leaving St. Thomas at sunset and we were well on
our way to St. Croix, Dolly made a half confidence.
"You are not my chaperon, Charlotte, because in my hour of need I
simply fastened myself to you like a limpet, or an albatross, or a
barnacle, or any other form of nautical vampire that you prefer.
Still, I might as well confess that I cabled to Duke, or wirelessed,
or did something awfully expensive of that sort at St. Thomas while
you were having that interminable talk with the captain, who, by the
way, is married and devoted to his wife, they say."
"That was foolish and extravagant, my child," I answered. "I don't
know what you said, but I have the most absolute confidence in your
indiscretion. I hope you remembered that all messages are censored in
war-time?"
"I did, indeed," she sighed. "I was never so hampered and handicapped
in my life, but I think I have outwitted the censors. I wish I were as
sure about--mother!"
* * * * *