On the following day Margaret received a note from Schreiermeyer
informing her in the briefest terms and in doubtful French that he had
concluded the arrangements for her to make her _debut_ in the part of
Marguerite, in a Belgian city, in exactly a month, and requiring that
she should attend the next rehearsal of _Faust_ at the Opera in Paris,
where _Faust_ is almost a perpetual performance and yet seems to need
rehearsing from time to time.
She showed the letter to Mrs. Rushmore, who sighed wearily after
reading it, and said nothing. But there was a little more colour in
Margaret's cheek, and her eyes sparkled at the prospect of making a
beginning at last. Mrs. Rushmore took up her newspaper again with an
air of sorrowful disapproval, but presently she started uncomfortably
and looked at Margaret.
'Oh!' she exclaimed, and sighed once more.
'What is it?' asked the young girl.
'It must be true, for it's in the _Herald_.'
'What?'
Mrs. Rushmore read the following paragraph:--
We hear on the best authority that a new star is about to dazzle
the operatic stage. Monsieur Schreiermeyer has announced to a
select circle of friends that it will be visible in the theatrical
heaven on the night of June 21, in the character of Marguerite and
in the person of a surprisingly beautiful young Spanish soprano,
the Senorita Margarita da Cordova, whose romantic story as daughter
to a contrabandista of Andalusia and granddaughter to the
celebrated bullfighter Ramon and----
'Oh, my dear! This is too shameful! I told you so!'
Mrs. Rushmore's elderly cheeks were positively scarlet as she stared at
the print. Margaret observed the unwonted phenomenon with surprise.
'I don't see anything so appallingly improper in that,' she observed.
'You don't see! No, my child, you don't! I trust you never may. Indeed
if I can prevent it, you never shall. Disgusting! Vile!'
And the good lady read the rest of the paragraph to herself, holding up
the paper so as to hide her modest blushes.
'My dear, what a story!' she cried at last. 'It positively makes me
creep!'
'This is very tantalising,' said Margaret. 'I suppose it has to do with
my imaginary ancestry in Andalusia.'
'I should think it had! Where do they get such things, I wonder? A
bishop, my dear--oh no, really! it would make a pirate blush! Can you
tell me what good this kind of thing can do?'
'Advertisement,' Margaret answered coolly. 'It's intended to excite
interest in me before I appear, you know. Don't they do it in America?'
'Never!' cried Mrs. Rushmore with solemn emphasis. 'Apart from its
being all a perfectly gratuitous falsehood.'
'Gratuitous? Perhaps Schreiermeyer paid to have it put in.'
'Then I never wish to see him, Margaret, never! Do you understand! I
think I shall bring an action against him. At all events I shall take
legal advice. This cannot be allowed to go uncontradicted. If I were
you, I would sit down and write to the paper this very minute, and tell
the editor that you are a respectable English girl. You are, I'm sure!'
'I hope so! But what has respectability to do with art?'
'A great deal, my dear,' answered Mrs. Rushmore wisely. 'You may say
what you like, there is a vast difference between being respectable and
disreputable--perfectly vast! It's of no use to deny it, because you
can't.'
'Nobody can.'
'There now, I told you so! I must say, child, you are getting some very
strange ideas from your new acquaintances. If these are the principles
you mean to adopt, I am sorry for you, very sorry!'
Margaret did not seem very sorry for herself, however, for she went off
at this point, singing the 'jewel song' in _Faust_ at the top of her
voice, and wishing with all her heart that she were already behind the
footlights with the orchestra at her feet.
Two days later, Mrs. Rushmore received a cable message from New York
which surprised her almost as much as the paragraph about Margaret had.
Alvah Moon has sold invention for cash to anonymous New York
syndicate who offer to compromise suit. Cable instructions naming
sum you will accept, if disposed to deal.
Now Mrs. Rushmore was a wise woman, as well as a good one, though her
ability to express her thoughts in concise language was insignificant.
She had long known that the issue of the suit she had brought was
doubtful, and that as it was one which could be appealed to the Supreme
Court of the United States, it might drag on for a long time; so that
the possibility of a compromise was very welcome, and she at once
remembered that half a loaf is better than no bread, especially when
the loaf is of hearty dimensions and easily divided. What she could not
understand was that any one should have been willing to pay Alvah Moon
the sum he must have asked, while his interest was still in litigation,
and that, after buying that interest, the purchasers should propose a
compromise when they might have prolonged the suit for some time, with
a fair chance of winning it in the end. But that did not matter. More
than once since Mrs. Rushmore had taken up the case her lawyers had
advised her to drop it and submit to losing what she had already spent
on the suit, and of late her own misgivings had increased. The prospect
of obtaining a considerable sum for Margaret, at the very moment when
the girl had made up her mind to support herself as a singer, was in
itself very tempting; and as it presented itself just when the horrors
of an artistic career had been brought clearly before Mrs. Rushmore's
mind by the newspaper paragraph, she did not hesitate a moment.
Margaret was in Paris that morning, at her first rehearsal, and could
not come back till the afternoon; but after all it would be of no use
to consult her, as she was so infatuated with the idea of singing in
public that she would very probably be almost disappointed by her good
fortune. Mrs. Rushmore read the message three times, and then went out
under the trees to consider her answer, carrying the bit of paper in
her hand as if she did not know by heart the words written on it. For
once, she had no guests, and for the first time she was glad of it. She
walked slowly up and down, and as it was a warm morning, still and
overcast, she fanned herself with the telegram in a very futile way,
and watched the flies skimming over the water of the little pond, and
repeated her inward question to herself many times.
Mrs. Rushmore never thought anything out. When she was in doubt, she
asked herself the same question, 'What had I better do?' or, 'What will
he or she do next?' over and over again, with a frantic determination
to be logical. And suddenly, sooner or later, the answer flashed upon
her in a sort of accidental way as if it were not looking for her, and
so completely outran all power of expression that she could not put it
into words at all, though she could act upon it well enough. The odd
part of it all was that these accidental revelations rarely misled her.
They were like fragments of a former world of excellent common-sense
that had gone to pieces, which she now and then encountered like
meteors in her own orbit.
When she had walked up and down for a quarter of an hour one of these
aeroliths of reason shot across the field of her mental sight, and she
understood that one of two things must have occurred. Either Alvah Moon
had lost confidence in his chances and had sold the invention to some
greenhorn for anything he could get; or else some one else had been so
deeply interested in the affair as to risk a great deal of money in it.
Mrs. Rushmore's gleam of intelligence was a comet; but her comet had
two tails, which was very confusing.
Her meditations were disturbed by the noise of a big motor car,
approaching the house from a distance, and heralding its advance with a
steadily rising whizz and a series of most unearthly toots. Motor cars
often passed the house and ran down the Boulevard St. Antoine at
frightful speed, for the beautiful road is generally clear; but
something, perhaps a small meteor again, warned her that this one was
going to stop at the gate and demand admittance for itself.
Thereupon Mrs. Rushmore looked at her fingers; for she kept up an
extensive correspondence, in the course of which she often inked them.
For forty years she had asked herself why she, who prided herself on
her fastidious neatness, should have been predestined and condemned to
have inky fingers like an untidy school-girl, and she had spent time
and money in search of an ink that would wash off easily and
completely, without the necessity of flaying her hands with pumice
stone and chemicals. When suddenly aware of the approach of an
unexpected visitor, she always looked at her fingers.
The thing came nearer, roared, sputtered, tooted and was silent. In the
silence Mrs. Rushmore heard the tinkle of the gate bell and in a few
moments she saw Logotheti coming towards her across the lawn. She was
not particularly pleased to see him.
'I am afraid,' she said rather stiffly, 'that Miss Donne is out.'
In a not altogether well-spent life Logotheti had seen many things; but
he was not accustomed to American chaperons, whose amazing humility
always takes it for granted that no man under forty can possibly call
upon them except for the sake of seeing the young woman in their
charge. Logotheti looked vaguely surprised.
'Indeed?' he answered, with a little interrogation as though he found
it hard to be astonished, but wished to be obliging. 'That is rather
fortunate,' he continued, 'for I was hoping to find you alone.'
'Me?' Mrs. Rushmore unbent a little and smiled rather grimly.
'Yes. If I had not been so anxious to see you at once, I should have
written or telegraphed to ask for a few minutes alone with you. But I
could not afford to waste time.'
He spoke so gravely that she immediately suspected him of dark designs.
Perhaps he was going to propose to her, since Margaret had refused him.
She remembered instances of adventurers who had actually married widows
of sixty for their money. She compressed her lips. She would be firm
with him; he should have a piece of her mind.
'I am alone,' she said severely, a little as if warning him not to take
liberties.
'My errand concerns a matter in which we have common interests at
stake,' he said.
Mrs. Rushmore sat down on a garden chair, and pointed to the bench, on
which he took his seat.
'I cannot imagine what interests you mean,' she said, with dignity.
'Pray explain. If you refer to Miss Donne, I may as well inform you
with perfect frankness that it is of no use.'
Logotheti smiled and shook his head gently, keeping his eyes on Mrs.
Rushmore's face, all of which she took to mean incredulity on his part.
'You may say what you like,' she said. 'It's of no use.'
When Mrs. Rushmore declared that you might say what you liked, she was
in earnest, but her visitor was not familiar with the expression.
'Nevertheless,' he said, in a soothing way, 'my errand concerns Miss
Donne.'
'Well then,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'don't! That's all I have to say, and
it's my last word. She doesn't care for you. I don't want to be unkind,
but I daresay you have made yourself think all sorts of things.'
She felt that this was a great concession, to a Greek and an
adventurer.
'Excuse me,' said Logotheti quietly, 'but we are talking at cross
purposes. What I have to say concerns Miss Donne's financial
interests--her fortune, if you like to call it so.'
Mrs. Rushmore's suspicions were immediately confirmed.
'She has none,' said she, with a snap as if she were shutting up a safe
with a spring lock.
'That depends on what you call a fortune,' answered the Greek coolly.
'In Paris most people would think it quite enough. It is true that it
is in litigation.'
'I really cannot see how that can interest you,' said Mrs. Rushmore in
an offended tone.
'It interests me a good deal. I have come to see you in order to
propose that you should compromise the suit about that invention.'
Mrs. Rushmore drew herself up against the straight back of the garden
chair and glared at him in polite wrath.
'You will pardon my saying that I consider your interferences very much
out of place, sir,' she said.
'But you will forgive me, dear madam, for differing with you,' said
Logotheti with the utmost blandness. 'This business concerns me quite
as much as Miss Donne.'
'You?' Mrs. Rushmore was amazed.
'I fancy you have heard that Mr. Alvah Moon has sold the invention to a
New York syndicate.'
'Yes--but----'
'I am the syndicate.'
'You!' The good lady was breathless with astonishment. 'I cannot
believe it,' she gasped.
Logotheti's hand went to his inner breast pocket.
'Should you like to see the telegrams?' he asked quietly. 'Here they
are. My agent's cable to me, my instructions to him, his
acknowledgment, his cable saying that the affair is closed and the
money paid. They are all here. Pray look at them.'
Mrs. Rushmore looked at the papers, for she was cautious, even when
surprised. There was no denying the evidence he showed her. Her hands
fell upon her knees and she stared at him.
'So you have got control of all that Margaret can ever hope to have of
her own,' she said blankly, at last. 'Why have you done it?'
Logotheti smiled as he put the flimsy bits of paper into his pocket
again.
'Purely as a matter of business,' he answered. 'I shall make money by
it, though I have paid Mr. Moon a large sum, and expect to make a heavy
payment to you if we agree to compromise the old suit, which, as you
have seen by the telegrams, I have assumed with my eyes open. Now, my
dear Mrs. Rushmore, shall we talk business? I am very anxious to oblige
you, and I am not fond of bargaining. I propose to pay a lump sum on
condition that you withdraw the suit at once. You pay your lawyers and
I pay those employed by Mr. Moon. Now, what sum do you think would be
fair? That is the question. Please understand that it is you who will
be doing me a favour, not I who offer to do you a service. As I
understand it, you never claimed of Mr. Moon the whole value of the
invention. It was a suit in equity brought on the ground that Mr. Moon
had paid a derisory price for what he got, in other words--but is Mr.
Moon a personal friend of yours, apart from his business?'
'A friend!' cried Mrs. Rushmore in horror. 'Goodness gracious, no!'
'Very well,' continued Logotheti. 'Then we will say that he cheated
Miss Donne's maternal grandfather--is that the relationship? Yes. Very
good. I propose to hand over to you the sum out of which Miss Donne's
maternal grandfather was cheated. If you will tell me just how much it
was, allowing a fair interest, I will write you a cheque. I think I
have a blank one here.'
He produced a miniature card-case of pale blue morocco, which exactly
matched his tie, and drew from it a blank cheque carefully folded to
about the size of two postage stamps.
'Dear me!' exclaimed Mrs. Rushmore. 'Dear me! This is very sudden!'
'You must have made up your mind a long time ago as to what Miss
Donne's share should be worth,' suggested Logotheti, smoothing the
cheque on his knee.
Mrs. Rushmore hesitated.
'But you have already paid much more to Senator Moon,' she said.
'That is my affair,' answered the Greek. 'I have my own views about the
value of the invention, and I have no time to lose. What shall we say,
Mrs. Rushmore.'
'I wish Margaret were here,' said the good lady vaguely.
'I'm very glad she is not. Now, tell me what I am to write, please.'
He produced a fountain pen and was already writing the date. The pen
was evidently one specially made to suit his tastes, for it was of
gold, the elaborate chasing was picked out with small rubies and a
large brilliant was set in the end of the cap. Mrs. Rushmore could not
help looking at it, and in her prim way she wondered how any man who
was not an adventurer or a sort of glorified commercial traveller could
carry such a thing. There was an unpleasant fascination in the mere
look of it, and she watched it move instead of answering.
'Yes?' said Logotheti, looking up interrogatively. 'What shall we say?'
'I--I honestly don't know what to say,' Mrs. Rushmore answered, really
confused by the suddenness of the man's proposal. I suppose--no--you
must let me consult my lawyer.'
'I am sorry,' said Logotheti, 'but I cannot afford to waste so much
time. Allow me to be your man of business. How much were you suing Mr.
Moon for?'
'Half a million dollars,' answered Mrs. Rushmore.
'Have you been paying your lawyer, or was he to get a percentage on the
sum recovered?'
'I have paid him about seventeen thousand, so far.'
'For doing nothing. I should like to be your lawyer! I suppose three
thousand more will satisfy him? Yes, that will make it a round twenty
thousand. That leaves your claim worth four hundred and eighty thousand
dollars, does it not?'
'Yes, certainly.'
'Which at four-eighty-four is--' he looked at the ceiling for ten
seconds--'ninety-nine thousand one hundred and eleven pounds, two
shillings and twopence halfpenny--within a fraction. Is that it? My
mental arithmetic is generally pretty fair.'
'I've no doubt that the calculation is correct,' said Mrs. Rushmore,
'only it seems to me--let me see--I'm a little confused--but it seems
to me that if I had won the suit for half a million, the lawyer's
expenses would have come out of that.'
'They do come out of it,' answered Logotheti blandly. 'That is why you
don't get half a million.'
'Yes,' insisted Mrs. Rushmore, who was not easily misled about money,
'certainly. But as it is, after I have received the four hundred and
eighty thousand, I shall still have to deduct the twenty thousand for
the lawyers before handing it over to Margaret, who would only get four
hundred and sixty. Excuse me, perhaps you don't understand.'
'Yes, yes! I do.' Logotheti smiled pleasantly. 'It was very stupid of
me, wasn't it? I'm always doing things like that!'
As indeed financiers are, for arithmetical obliquity about money is
caused by having too much or too little of it, and the people who lose
to both sides are generally the comparatively honest ones who have
enough. It certainly did not occur to Logotheti that he had tried to do
Margaret Donne out of four thousand pounds; he would have been only too
delighted to give her ten times the sum if she would have accepted it,
and so far as profit went the whole transaction was for her benefit,
and he might lose heavily by it. But in actual dealing he was
constitutionally unable to resist the impulse to get the better of the
person with whom he dealt. And on her side, Mrs. Rushmore, though
generous to a fault, was by nature incapable of allowing money to slip
through her fingers without reason. So the two were well matched, being
both born financiers, and Logotheti respected Mrs. Rushmore for
detecting his little 'mistake,' and she recognised in him a real 'man
of business' because he had made it.
'Let us call it a half million dollars, then,' he said, with a smile.
'At four-eighty-four, that is'--again he looked at the ceiling for ten
seconds--'that is one hundred and three thousand three hundred and five
pounds fifteen shillings fivepence halfpenny, nearly. Is that it? Shall
we say that, Mrs. Rushmore.'
'How quickly you do it!' exclaimed the lady in admiration. 'I wish I
could do that! Oh yes, I have no doubt it is quite correct. You
couldn't do it on paper, could you? You see it doesn't matter so much
about the halfpenny, but if there were a little slip in the thousands,
you know--it would make quite a difference----'
She paused significantly. Logotheti quietly pulled his cuff over his
hand, produced a pencil instead of his fountain pen, and proceeded to
divide five hundred thousand by four hundred and eighty-four to three
places of decimals.
'Fifteen and fivepence halfpenny,' he said, when he had turned the
fraction into shillings and pence, 'and the pounds are just what I
said.'
'Do you mean to say that you did all that in your head in ten seconds?'
asked Mrs. Rushmore, with renewed admiration.
'Oh no,' he answered. 'We have much shorter ways of reckoning money in
the East, but you could not understand that. You are quite satisfied
that this is right?'
'Oh, certainly!'
Mrs. Rushmore could no more have divided five hundred thousand by four
hundred and eighty-four to three places of decimals than she could have
composed _Parsifal_, but her doubts were satisfied by its having been
done 'on paper.'
Logotheti put away his jewelled pencil, took out his jewelled fountain
pen again, spread the cheque on the seat of the bench beside him and
filled it in for the amount, including the halfpenny. He handed it to
her, holding it by the corner.
'It's wet,' he observed. 'It's drawn on the Bank of England. It will be
necessary for you to sign a statement to the effect that you withdraw
the suit and that Miss Donne's claim is fully satisfied. She will have
to sign that too. I'll send you the paper. If you have any doubts,' he
smiled, 'you need not return it until the cheque has been cashed.'
That was precisely what Mrs. Rushmore intended to do, but she protested
politely that she had no doubt whatever on the score of the cheque,
looking all the time at the big figures written out in Logotheti's
remarkably clear handwriting. Only the signature was perfectly
illegible. He noticed her curiosity about it.
'I always sign my cheques in Greek,' he observed 'It is not so easy to
imitate.'
He rose and held out his hand.
'I suppose I ought to thank you on Margaret's behalf,' said Mrs.
Rushmore, as she took it. 'She will be so sorry not to have seen you.'
'It was much easier to do business without her. And as for that, there
is no reason for telling her anything about the transaction. You need
only say that a syndicate has bought out Alvah Moon and has compromised
the old suit by a cash payment. I am not at all anxious to have her
know that I have had a hand in the matter--in fact, I had rather that
she shouldn't, if you don't object.'
Mrs. Rushmore looked hard at him. She had not even thought of refusing
his offer, which would save Margaret a considerable fortune by a stroke
of a pen; but she had taken it for granted that what might easily be
made to pass for an act of magnificent liberality was intended to
produce a profound impression on Margaret's feelings. The elder woman
was shrewd enough to guess that the Greek would not lose money in the
end, but she went much too far in suspecting him of anything so vulgar
as playing on the girl's gratitude. She looked at him keenly.
'Do you mean that?' she asked, almost incredulously.
His quiet almond eyes gazed into hers with the trustful simplicity of a
child's.
'Yes,' he answered. 'This is purely a matter of business, in which I am
consulting nothing but my own interests. I should have acted precisely
in the same way if I had never had the pleasure of knowing either of
you. If it chances that I have been of service to Miss Donne, so much
the better, but there is no reason why she should ever know it, so far
as I am concerned. I would rather she should not. She might fancy that
I had acted from other motives.'
'Very well,' Mrs. Rushmore answered; 'then I shall not tell her.'
Nevertheless, when the motor car had tooted and puffed itself away to
Paris and Mrs. Rushmore still sat in her straight-backed garden chair
holding the cheque in her hand, she thought it all very strange and
unaccountable; and the only explanation that occurred to her was that
the invention must be worth far more than she had supposed. This was
not altogether a pleasant reflection either, as it made her inclined to
reproach herself for not having driven a hard bargain with Logotheti.
'But after all,' she said to herself, 'if half a million is not a
fortune, it's a competence, even nowadays, and I suppose the man isn't
an adventurer after all--at least, not if his cheque is good.'
In her complicated frame of mind she felt a distinct sense of
disappointment at the thought that her judgment had been at fault, and
that the Greek was not a blackleg, as she had decided that he ought to
be.