IN WHICH PAUL GRESHAM PROPOSES A VERY PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENT
"Mr. Gresham is calling," announced Aunt Pattie Boyden with some
trepidation; for Constance, besides being ill, had not been in the best
of humor during the last two weeks.
"Paul?" commented Constance with a pleased smile, which both delighted
and surprised Aunt Pattie. "I didn't expect him for half an hour," and
she completed her toilet by adorning herself with a choice collection
of Johnny Gamble's roses.
"You are looking your best, I must say," admired Aunt Pattie after a
critical survey, for she was particularly anxious about this visit of
Paul Gresham's.
"She ought to," interjected Polly, busy at the telephone; "that's the
third gown she's tried on. She's expecting particular company."
"Any one besides Paul?" inquired Aunt Pattie, elevating her eyebrows.
"Lots of people," returned Constance with a gaiety she had not
exhibited for many days. "Mr. Gamble for one."
Aunt Pattie's countenance underwent an instant change, and it was not a
change for the better.
"Mr. Gamble!" she exclaimed, quite properly shocked. "I shouldn't think
he'd feel in the humor for social calls just now. He's lost all his
money."
"You wouldn't believe it if you had heard him laugh over the 'phone
just now when I told him to bring his straw hat," declared Polly.
"Who told you the news?" asked Constance, feeling sure of the answer.
"Mr. Gresham," hesitated Aunt Pattie.
"I bet he couldn't keep his face straight," Polly vindictively charged.
"You do Mr. Gresham an injustice, Polly," protested Aunt Pattie
severely.
"It isn't possible," insisted Polly. "If it were not giving him too
much credit for brains I'd swear he'd helped break Johnny."
"I'm afraid you don't give him quite enough credit for brains," said
Constance, and giving her roses a deft parting turn she went
down-stairs to meet Paul Gresham.
If Aunt Pattie had been pleased by the change in Constance, Gresham was
delighted. This was the first time she had really beamed on him since
she had met Johnny Gamble.
"You are always charming," he observed, taking pleasure in his own
gallantry, "but to-day you seem unusually so."
"That's pretty," dimpled Constance. "I wanted to look nice to-day."
Mr. Gresham's self-esteem arose several degrees. He smiled his thanks
of her compliment to the appointment he had made with her.
"My call to-day is rather a formal one," he told her, smiling, and
approaching the important subject-matter in hand directly but quite
easily, he thought. "It is in relation to the will of your Aunt
Gertrude, which has been the cause of some embarrassment to us both,
and to you particularly, I fear."
"Naturally," she assented, still smiling, however.
This was easy sailing. Gresham walked over and took the chair nearest
her.
"It is, of course, unnecessary to discuss the provisions made by your
Aunt Gertrude," he stated. "Even had such a will never been written, I
am quite sure that the result would have been the same, and that
to-day, after the long friendship which I have enjoyed with you, I
should be asking you, as I am now, to become my wife," and taking her
hand in his, he very gracefully kissed it.
Constance as gracefully drew it away.
"You have done your duty very nicely, Mr. Gresham," she said. "It must
have been as awkward for you to be compelled to make this proposal as
it is for me to be compelled to refuse it. It would be wicked for us to
marry."
"You are very harsh," he managed to protest. "I am sure that I should
not feel wicked in marrying you."
"Perhaps you haven't my sort of conscience," answered Constance,
laughing to conceal her intense hatred and contempt of him.
Gresham, adopting also the light manner of small talk, laughed with her.
"Really it wouldn't be so bad," he urged. "We would make a very fair
couple when we were averaged. You are beautiful and accomplished enough
to make up for all the deficiencies I may have."
"You do say nice things to me," acknowledged Constance, "but there is
one deficiency you have overlooked. We do not love each other, and that
is fatal to Aunt Gertrude's rather impertinent plans. It renders even a
discussion of the matter impossible. I can not marry you ever."
Gresham's lips turned dry.
"I believe you really mean that," he stumbled, unable quite to
comprehend it.
"Certainly I do," she assured him.
"But you don't understand," he protested. "You can't understand or you
would at least take time for more serious consideration. You are
relinquishing your entire fortune!"
"Making myself a penniless pauper," she mocked with a light-hearted
feeling that some one--description mentally evaded--would make a
fortune unnecessary.
"It is a million dollars," he insisted.
"A million--that sounds familiar!" and she laughed in remembrance of
her tilt with Polly.
Gresham swallowed three separate and very distinct times.
"A half-interest in that million is mine," he complained. "You can not
turn over your share to an absurd charity without also throwing mine
away. It is not fair."
"Fair?" repeated Constance. For an instant she felt her temper surging,
then caught herself and took refuge in burlesque. "The only fair thing
about it is that my Aunt Gertrude's will gave her orphaned niece the
choice between a title with riches and poverty with freedom," and
raising her eyes and hand toward heaven she started to sweep from the
room with queenly grace, stifling a giggle as she went.
"Wait just a minute," begged Gresham, suppressing his anger. "We should
arrange in some way to keep the money. We can, at least, be practical."
Constance, whose faculties were not so concentrated as his, heard a
rustle on the stairs and glancing out through the portieres into the
hall, saw Polly, without her hat, hurrying to the front door. The bell
had not rung, and she divined that Polly, out of the boudoir window,
had seen some particular company approaching.
"It seems impossible," she returned, and waited.
"Not quite," Gresham assured her with a smile. "There is one way we
could carry out the provisions of your aunt's will and still force no
repugnant companionship upon you."
"I think I see," replied Constance--"you mean that we part at the
altar," and in spite of all her efforts to keep her face straight she
finally laughed.
"Well, I didn't intend to put it quite in that melodramatic way,"
resented Gresham.
"Polly wins," declared Constance. "She bet me a five-pound box of
chocolates that you would make that proposal, but I didn't really think
you would do it."
"This is too serious a matter for flippancy," and Gresham bit his lip.
"The plan I suggest is thoroughly sensible."
"That's why I reject it," stated Constance.
Gresham bent his frowning brows on the floor. Constance, through the
portieres, saw Polly and Johnny Gamble.
"I think we shall consider the incident as closed," she added hastily,
with a wicked desire to have him go out and meet Johnny in the hall.
"You are making a horrible mistake," Gresham told her, losing his
restraint and raising his voice. "I think I know the reason for your
relinquishing your Aunt Gertrude's million so lightly. You expect to
share the million Mr. Gamble is supposed to have made!"
Constance paled and froze. Despite her low opinion of Gresham she had
not expected this crudity.
"You may as well dismiss that hope," he roughly continued--"Mr. Gamble
has no million to give you!"
Mr. Gamble at that moment bulged through the portieres, with Polly
Parsons hanging to his coat tails. He laid an extremely heavy hand on
Gresham's shoulder and turned him round.
"I want to see you outside!" declared Johnny, husky with rage.
Polly, at the risk of life and limb, placed her ample weight between
them. "Don't, Johnny!" she implored. "Don't! Constance doesn't want any
door-step drama, with all the neighbors for audience. Wait till you get
him down an alley and then give him an extra one for me!"
Gresham had retired behind a chair.
"This is no place for a personal encounter," he urged.
Johnny turned to Constance, pitifully afraid that he should be denied
his rights.
"Can't I put him out?" he begged.
Constance had been panic-stricken, but on this she smiled easily.
"Only gently, Johnny," she granted.
"Remember there are ladies present," urged Polly.
"I won't hurt Paul," promised Johnny, responding to her smile with a
suddenly relieved grin, and, taking Gresham daintily by the coat sleeve
with his thumb and forefinger, he led the unresisting cousin of Lord
Yawpingham to the front door. Polly opened it for him, and, grabbing
Gresham's silk hat, put it hastily askew and hindside before upon his
bewildered head.
Johnny did not strike him or shove him, but the graceful and
self-possessed Gresham, attempting desperately to recover those
qualities and to leave with dignity, stumbled over the door-mat and
scrambled wildly down the stone steps, struggling to retain his balance.
Colonel Bouncer, just starting up the steps with Loring, Sammy Chirp,
Winnie, Val Russel and Mrs. Follison, hastily and automatically gave
him a helping shove on the shoulder which sent him sprawling to the
walk, where he completed his interesting exhibition by turning a back
somersault.
"Glimmering gosh, Colonel!" protested Val, as he hurried to pick up
Gresham, laughing, however, as did the others, on account of the
neighbors. "Why did you do that?"
"I thought Johnny Gamble pushed him," humbly apologized the colonel.
Bruce Townley and the Courtney girls arrived, and in the gay scramble
for wraps Johnny had a moment with Constance.
"Well, I lose," he said regretfully. "There isn't much chance to make
that million between now and four o'clock to-morrow afternoon."
"What's the difference?" inquired Constance, smiling contentedly into
his eyes.
Only the presence of so many people prevented her fichu from being
mussed.
"There's a lot of difference," he asserted with a suddenly renewed
impulse, the world being greatly changed since she had refused Gresham.
"I set out to get it, and I won't give it up until four o'clock
to-morrow afternoon."
"If you want it so very badly I hope that you get it then," she gently
assured him.
Her shoulder happened to touch his arm and he pressed against it as
hard as he could. She resisted him.
"Ready, Constance?" called Polly.
"In just a minute," Johnny took it on himself to reply. "How does the
score board look by this time?"
Constance hesitated, then she blushed and drew from a drawer of the
library table the score board. The neatly ruled pasteboard had been
roughly torn into seven pieces--but it had been carefully pasted
together again!