So Tod and Millicent Hornblower became engaged, and Tod bought a diamond
and ruby ring at Gildersleeve’s in King William Street. It was a very
handsome ring, and it absorbed all the money that he had saved for a
summer holiday; but since Shaston had become a place of delicious
enchantment Tod thought no more of holidays.
He had become absurdly and delightfully old of a sudden, a little,
solemn John Bull carrying new and pleasant responsibilities. Life had
undreamt-of problems and interests, and finance ceased to be a matter of
no importance. Tod took a survey of his finances, and he began to wonder
how much he would be worth to Mr. Rathbone Cragg at the end of another
year. In a month or two he would be the master of a thousand
pounds—those two mortgages that Uncle Remus had guarded so tenaciously.
“I’ve got to see about it,” said Tod.
He went solemnly into Mr. Rathbone Cragg’s inner room, and announced his
engagement.
“Thought I ought to tell you, sir. You have been very kind to me.”
Mr. Cragg looked embarrassed.
“Quite so, Western. And who is——”
“Her name is Miss Hornblower. She is one of the ladies in Horrox’s. I
knew her when I was a boy.”
“An old romance,” said Mr. Cragg, smiling as though he had a pain, and
wondering what Mr. Burgetrode would say about it. “And how old is the
lady, Western?”
“About my age, sir. I’m just on twenty-one. And I wanted to ask you
about the future.”
“Quite so, Western. Prospects, eh?”
“I have new responsibilities, sir.”
“Let me see, you are getting twenty-one shillings a week?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Rathbone Cragg found himself in a subtle situation. Mr. Julian
Burgetrode was the man who mattered, and Mr. Burgetrode was the god
behind the gods. He was not on the stage, and Mr. Cragg had no right to
call upon him, or to betray to Tod how much depended upon the great
man’s pleasure. Therefore he temporised, and decided to write a letter.
“I should like to consider your future, Western, if you will give me a
day or two.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I have nothing but praise for your work here.”
Mr. Cragg wrote to Mr. Julian Burgetrode and explained the situation.
When he went home to lunch he told his wife much that he had said to Mr.
Burgetrode, but he said it in a different and more domesticated way.
“That young fool has got engaged to a shop-girl. Of course it’s no
business of mine, but with his prospects it’s a disaster.”
“And B. was so fond of him,” said the wife resentfully; “you know that,
Edward?”
“She had better forget all about it—at once.”
“She has. I shan’t have the boy up here again.”
“Don’t be hasty, my dear; it never pays to be hasty.”
Mr. Julian Burgetrode replied by return to Mr. Cragg’s letter.
“Please carry on in exactly the same way,” he wrote, “and consider the
boy as your clerk and nothing else. Offer him his market value. I shall
be in Shaston very shortly.”
Mr. Cragg carried out these instructions, and his “market value” was a
shock to Tod. It suggested an addition of five shillings to his weekly
wage at the end of the present year, an income of sixty-seven pounds
twelve shillings.
Tod began to consider economies. The moment had arrived when he found
time to dawdle in front of furniture shops, and to understand Arthur
Mossup’s preoccupation over the quest of a house. He decided that he
would buy no more new clothes, that he was eating too much, and that his
room at Miss Truebody’s was needlessly expensive.
Meanwhile Miss Millicent Hornblower was very much engaged, and enjoying
the sensation. Nearly everybody in the establishment of Messrs. Horrox &
Horrox became aware of that ruby and diamond ring, and it was flashed in
the eyes of lady customers who made boring demands for reels of cotton
and hanks of silk. It was shown to Miss Harbord, and that grim woman’s
congratulations were characteristically frank.
“It’s the best thing that could have happened to you, my dear. And a bit
of plain gold will be worth more than all those pretty stones.”
Millie warned her friends and gossips that her sojourn would be short in
the house of Horrox and Horrox.
“He’s such a dear boy, and hates the idea of my being in a shop. He
thinks it isn’t naice. Yet, he’s got money, you know. I don’t see him
staying with the Craggs. Someone’s interested in him, a gentleman who is
supposed to be a millionaire.”
Her gossips listened, and agreed that Millie was becoming a snob.
As for economy, it was not part of the landscape. She had spacious ideas
and a brilliant sense of chiaroscuro, and little sumptuous ambitions as
to houses and clothes. Tod was going up in the world. He had capital and
influence, and Millie did not see herself making beds and sweeping
floors or washing up dishes in some little back kitchen. She was going
to be a lady and give tea parties, walk into Horrox and Horrox’s and
issue orders across the counter, and take her morning cup of coffee at
Judson’s café. Tod was a dear boy. She was sure that he would make a
lovely husband.
Various people congratulated Tod. He met Bob Twine one Wednesday
afternoon, and the swarthy man lounged in front of Tod and offered him
sheepish and glum felicitations.
“Fancy a kid like you getting married! Suppose you’re as pleased as
Punch?”
“She’s such a dear girl,” said Tod; “we are going to be very happy.”
Twine looked at him queerly and seemed to be struggling with some inward
pain.
“A long time yet, I suppose?”
“I want to get married this year.”
“Oh, cheese it! What’s the hurry?”
“I don’t like Millie being in a shop.”
Twine went for a long prowl, the savage prowl of a man who was at war
with the world.
“Damn! I ought to tell the kid, but somehow I can’t. Perhaps she’ll run
straight with him. God knows!”
Someone came out of Miss Truebody’s sitting-room one evening as Tod was
running down the stairs, and stood in the dusk-filled passage waiting.
It was Bertha Cragg.
“I want to congratulate you, Tod,” she said; “I’m so glad.”
Her voice was very steady and quiet, but she did not look at him, and
her eyes were set between bitterness and tears. Tod took her good wishes
as he would have taken an “Oh, well played!” at tennis. He was quite
unsubtle towards Bertha Cragg, and he never knew that he had lost the
greatest thing in the world.
“I’m awfully happy,” he told her ingenuously.
“I hope you will always be happy, Tod. I should like to have met your
fiancée, but I am going away.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. An aunt of mine is going abroad for a year, and she has asked me
to go with her.”
“I hope you’ll have a jolly time,” said Tod; “you deserve it.”
And Bertha Cragg passed out of his life.
Tod made several pilgrimages to Arthur Mossup’s green and white cottage
in the Old Town, and sat at the feet of those authorities on domestic
science. Mossup was rather worried about the little shop; business was
not as brisk as it might be, but he forgot all his worries in prompting
Tod. He had a great love of detail, kept most elaborate accounts, and
was ready to tell Tod the cost of anything, from a second-hand mangle to
a stair-rod.
“It’s all here, Western, every tintack in the house. Nothing like
knowing where sixpence goes. Olive can tell you all about the food.”
“How many tons of coal do you burn a year?” asked Tod.
“Here you are—five tons, three hundredweight. And you get a Peerless
oil-stove. Saves pounds. Ask Olive.”
Olive, a pleasant, dark little woman, agreed.
Tod made a note of the Peerless oil-stove. He made notes of everything
that Mossup told him. Never did a man have a more earnest and attentive
disciple.
“Bring your fiancée up here, old man; she and Olive can have a talk. My
wife’s a marvel, Western; there never was such a woman; I’m the luckiest
man that ever was. She does the hats and the house, and she’s prettier
to look at than ever she was.”
“I think she’s very happy,” said Tod.
Mossup blinked his short-sighted blue eyes.
“Do you, Western? I’m glad. I’m such a quiet sort of chap, and do you
know, I never thought she’d marry me. Amazing, wasn’t it?”
“You’re a brick, old man. May I bring Millicent up on Sunday?”
“Come up to tea; we have tea in the garden on Sundays. Come up about
four o’clock.”
But Miss Hornblower was not interested in the Mossups or in their way of
doing things. Tod took her down to tea, with ingenuous praise of Olive
and her cleverness, but Millie did not sit and listen. She led the
conversation, and led it to a level above the careful economies of a
Mossup’s day, touching upon such luxuries as parlour-maids, late dinner,
Turkey carpets, at-home days, and whether you should have a double bed
in your spare bedroom. She depressed the Mossups and impressed Tod.
Millicent had ideas; she knew how things ought to be done in a
successful household, and Tod felt challenged by her optimism.
She referred to the Mossups’ cottage as a “stuffy little place,” and in
such a horrid neighbourhood, too.
“And did you see her poor hands?”
“What was the matter with them?” Tod asked.
“They don’t keep a servant!”
To judge by her tone there was something mysteriously shocking in such
social degradation.
“Perhaps they can’t afford it.”
“Fancy a man letting his wife slave like that. I think it’s
disgraceful.”
And Tod—the lover—was too much in love to disagree.
Mr. Julian Burgetrode arrived in Shaston towards the end of the same
week. He did not come by train, but in a car which he drove himself, a
great grey car that slid along noiselessly, but could say “perr-rump” if
challenged, and go streaking up a hill like a huge grey lizard up a
wall. This car swung into Caroline Crescent and stopped in front of the
Craggs’ office. Mr. Burgetrode sent in a message by his chauffeur, and
Tod came out.
“Get in,” said Mr. Burgetrode, “in here.”
Tod got in.
“Shall I want a coat, sir?”
“No. I don’t need you, Griggs. Get back to the hotel.”
“Right, sir!”
Mr. Burgetrode swung the car into Church Road, went up the steep hill at
thirty miles an hour, squeezed through between a tram and a railway van,
scraped past a fool of a wagon that was crawling all over the road, cut
round Post Corner, and drove a group of loafers hurriedly on to the
pavement. Going up the steep hill from Post Corner to the Ridge they
overtook another car that was piqued at being hooted at and tried to
show its pace. Mr. Burgetrode’s car went by it with a rude snort from
the exhaust, crowded in front, and smothered its defeated rival with
dust.
Tod had spent a rather breathless five minutes. They had seemed on the
edge of hitting things, but had never quite hit them, and Mr. Burgetrode
sat there as imperturbable as sin, looking straight ahead and not
bothering about anything. He had not spoken a word, and he ignored Tod
until they were on the straight and swinging road that lept through the
woods along the ridge towards Bidhurst.
“What do you think of that bit of driving, young Ajax?”
“You made things move, sir,” said Tod.
“Beastliness, sheer beastliness. But Power can be beastly.”
“People have to get out of the way?”
“The sleepy fools. Power, young man, Power’s like this car; it can glide
along and leave everything behind, and so softly that the sleepy fools
hardly feel the power. Or it can drive them into the ditch, kick dust in
their faces. It depends how you use it. But—Power!”
Tod felt those blue eyes on him, and he was puzzled.
“Rather fine—to have Power, sir.”
“What for?”
“To keep bullies from bullying; to put wrong things right.”
“That’s the ideal, is it?”
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Tod.
“Nothing, so long as you keep fierce and fit. No sentimental slosh, mind
you. And don’t let any woman cut your hair.”
Tod gave a quick glance at Mr. Burgetrode.
“Like Samson?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
Tod cogitated.
“You mean—any woman?”
“There is only one woman in a thousand fit to be a comrade and use
Power. They make props and prigs; get round a man like ivy. So you’re
engaged?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tod.
“Young fool!” reflected Mr. Burgetrode.
Then he smiled at Tod.
“Dreams, eh? I had ’em myself, but the only one that was worth while
died. I married Power after that, Tod, and I have been married to her
ever since. You will come and dine with me to-morrow night?”
“Thank you, sir.”
“With your fiancée. Horrible word! Seven-thirty at the Majestic. Give
the lady my compliments and say I shall be charmed and honoured to meet
her. What’s her name?”
“Millicent Hornblower,” said Tod.
“A good self-advertising name! Don’t be a young fool and think yourself
offended. Only the little people strut on dunghills.”
Mr. Burgetrode turned the car at the Bidhurst crossroads and drove back
to Shaston with extraordinary mildness.
There is no more blind and obstinate creature than a young man in love,
and Tod did not foresee the coming crisis in his career. He failed to
appreciate Mr. Burgetrode’s power or his point of view, and his
infatuation was so serene and utter that it did not occur to him that
Mr. Burgetrode might not like Miss Millicent Hornblower. The possibility
of it never entered Tod’s head. He was so much in love with Millie.
It was a rather excited and confident Tod who met her that evening on
the Parade.
“Mr. Burgetrode’s here. I’ve been out in his car.”
The girl’s eyes were on the alert.
“What’s he want?”
“He asked us to dinner at the Majestic to-morrow evening.”
“Asked me?”
“Why, of course.”
Tod’s dear lady went very pink.
“How naice of him!”
And then she added breathlessly:
“I must get back at once, Tod—at once.”
“What for, dear?”
“My dress. I’ve got a dress, but it wants touching up for the Majestic.
You’ll be in your dress-suit.”
“Shall I?” Tod asked. “Mr. Burgetrode doesn’t bother.”
“Of course, we must dress. It would be rude to him if we didn’t.”
“Hang it!” said Tod. “Have I got to wear white gloves?”
“No, you dear silly. A dinner jacket and a black tie. Have you got a
dinner jacket?”
“A thing without tails? Yes.”
“And we must have a taxi.”
“I’ll see about the taxi,” said Tod.
Tod called at Horrox’s with his taxi at about twenty minutes past seven,
and waited at the side door that was used by the shop assistants. He
became aware of three merry and fluffy heads at an open window above,
the heads of three irresponsible young women who were interested in
life.
“Hallo, Tod!” said one of them.
Tod took off his hat and began to blush, being very conscious of his
white shirt front and black tie.
“Doesn’t he look sweet!”
“Hallo, here’s Majestic Millie!”
Miss Hornblower appeared, wearing a black velvet cloak, and a length of
white filmy stuff over her head. Her shoes were of yellow satin, and Tod
had a glimpse of a yellow silk stocking. The three young ladies at the
window sent up a cheer, but Miss Hornblower’s dignity refused to be
disturbed. Tod opened the door of the taxi for her, and they drove off.
“Teases, those girls,” he said.
“They are jealous, that’s all.”
Tod thought he had never seen anything more beautiful than the girl at
his side, and most certainly she was very lovely. She let her black
cloak float open, and showed a gleam of white shoulders and arms shining
out from a mass of black lace. She had pinned a yellow rose over her
bosom, a little point of glowing colour between her shiny hair and her
yellow shoes. Tod contemplated the complete and utter conquest of Mr.
Burgetrode, an immediate surrender to this most charming and seductive
young woman. It was fate.
“Do I look naice?”
“Lovely,” said Tod; “just perfect.”
She patted his knee and, looking critically at his tie, told herself
that Tod Western was quite a gentlemanly youngster. His dinner jacket
fitted him well, and his head looked sleek and wet.
“It’s rather jolly, isn’t it?” she said.
“What?”
“Being engaged. I hope your Mr. Burgetrode will like me.”
“Could he help it?” quoth the lover.
Mr. Julian Burgetrode was sitting in the white loggia of the Hotel
Majestic, sinfully comfortable in an old Norfolk jacket and a pair of
grey flannel trousers. He saw the taxi drive up, and Tod giving his
gallant hand to a very handsome, golden-haired young woman in black. And
Mr. Burgetrode was annoyed with himself.
“A lapse on your part, my friend,” he thought; “only a cad makes
children feel uncomfortable.”
He went and met them on the steps, the old sahib, suppressing all that
was queer and discordant in that masterful soul of his. Tod, looking
flushed and happy, presented Miss Millicent Hornblower.
“I really must apologise to you young people,” said the great man; “I
was late—too late to change.”
“Please don’t mention it,” said the girl, thinking that Tod’s friend
looked very snuffy, and not the sort of figure she had expected.
Mr. Burgetrode gave her a sharp stare of his blue eyes. He saw the whole
of her in five seconds—red mouth, satin shoes, golden hair, engagement
ring. Here was a hard young pippin with a rosy skin and a deceptive
promise of much juice and sweetness. Mr. Burgetrode became very polite.
“Supposing we go in? Smith, take the lady’s cloak, will you? What a
pleasant day we have had.”
“Yes, the weather’s quite naice,” said the girl, “specially when you’ve
got an autocar. What’s yours, Mr. Burgetrode?”
“My little thing? A Graham Rolt. I like speed, you know.”
He shepherded them into the dining room, and to a far corner where a
table had been laid for three. There were roses on the table, red and
white roses in a big bowl. The head waiter, treading softly, wished Mr.
Burgetrode a “good evening, sir,” pulled back Miss Hornblower’s chair
for her, and waited discreetly; with the wine list.
“Veuve Cliquot,” said Mr. Burgetrode.
He felt that Tod’s young woman was dressed and scented for champagne.
A sudden and unexplainable shyness had fallen upon Tod. He was a little
awed by his fiancée’s talkative sangfroid and by the bold way she sat
there and attacked Mr. Burgetrode. Tod had expected her to be rather coy
and mute, and perhaps—in his heart of hearts—he was just a little
disappointed. He knew that Mr. Burgetrode did not like women, but Tod
had never been able to discover what sort of women the great man did
like. Perhaps the shy, gentle, rather silent type? And Tod had an
uncomfortable feeling that Mr. Burgetrode was being extraordinarily
polite, that he would have been much less polite and much more the Mr.
Burgetrode as Tod knew him, if Millie had seemed a little frightened and
in need of help. But she was a young woman armed, out to attack, her
head full of the impression she intended to make, unable to forget that
the great man had thought of her as a “shop-girl,” that it was her
business to show him that she was no fool. Her blue eyes looked hard and
alert, and she was very careful in the ordering of her hands. Yet Tod
had a horrid feeling that Mr. Burgetrode was not pleased.
“Quite a crowd here to-night,” she observed, staring round the room.
“Quite—a number—of people,” echoed Mr. Burgetrode. “Shaston is
getting—fashionable.”
“It’s very dowdy this year, don’t you think?”
“Is it?”
“One doesn’t see such naice people; so trippery, you know. We have got
quite a naice band this year, but it’s quite spoilt by all the common
girls and knuts. I’m so glad Tod isn’t a knut.”
“No, it’s a great blessing; I’m glad you realise that, Miss Hornblower.
Though I have seen him in mauve socks.”
“Oh, Tod!” said his fiancée.
Tod blushed.
“I like old clothes,” he began; “my dad always looked shabby.”
“Some men can afford to look shabby,” said the girl.
Mr. Burgetrode smiled.
“Two points of view,” he remarked meaningly; “and what sort of music do
you like?”
“I can’t bear ragtime.”
“No?”
“Mendelssohn is quite naice, don’t you think?”
“Well, Tod, what do you say?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Tod, “but I like marches, and
music that makes you feel all funny inside.”
“Stick to that,” quoth the great man. “Don’t try and train yourself to
look in a mirror.”
Tod was glad when the dinner came to an end, and they went and sat
outside in the loggia and drank coffee. Mr. Burgetrode sent for
Millicent’s cloak, and offered Tod a cigarette. They watched the people
walking up and down the Parade, and Tod tried to feel that he belonged
to the Majestic, and that he had no fear of the hall porter. He wished
Millie would not talk quite so much, and all about things of which she
knew nothing. Mr. Burgetrode had lit a pipe. He was bored.
Tod had ordered the taxi at half-past nine. It was five minutes late,
and Tod had begun to fidget. Millie was talking politics to Mr.
Burgetrode—politics! It appeared that she was interested in the
Primrose League, that society cherished by old ladies in memory of a
brilliant and cynical Jew.
Tod got up.
“Here’s our taxi.”
Millie gathered herself, and did the “so charmed to have met you” to Mr.
Burgetrode. He glanced at Tod.
“I want to see you to-morrow, Western.”
“What time, sir?”
“Here, after dinner.”
Tod handed the amateur gentlewoman into the taxi, and had a glimpse of
Mr. Burgetrode knocking out his pipe irritably against one of the white
pillars. Mr. Burgetrode went up the steps and into the hotel, and did
not turn his head to look back. Tod felt that the great man was not
pleased.
“What a queer old stick! I did my best, Tod, didn’t I?”
Her warm hand snuggled into his, and Tod was swept by a gust of sudden
tenderness and chivalrous contrition. She had been making a brave show
for his sake, playing her best game, against that difficult old man!
Darn Mr. Burgetrode! This girl was worth twenty Mr. Burgetrodes.
Tod bent and kissed her hand.
“You were great,” he said. “I’m awfully proud of you, Millie.”
She smiled, for she was rather proud of herself.
Old Burgetrode had carried a chair on to the little balcony outside his
bedroom, and was refilling his pipe with the slow hands of a thinker. He
sat there for half an hour, straddling the chair, his arms crossed on
the chair-back, watching the sea. Once or twice he smiled, the smile of
a man who saw that the jest of life was against himself, and that his
power and his cleverness were as so much sand when the tide of Nature
came rolling in. You chose a boy, set him to work, planned all sorts of
great happenings for him, and one day some little yellow-haired chit
crooked a finger at him, and the boy ran wild, chasing a petticoat.
Mr. Burgetrode laughed.
“You old fool,” he said, “of course it was bound to happen. The child
has to pass through its mother’s womb, the man has to pass through the
womb of the world. We all start afresh, we all have to learn the same
old sorry things, we all make the same mistakes and have to pay for
them. Whoever listens, or takes advice from an old man? What chance has
Fate when a boy gets a glimpse of a girl’s bosom?”
Yet the inevitableness did not reconcile him to the particular fate that
had overtaken Tod. He had hoped that Tod might escape the sex lure, or
escape it until his sinews were set and his head involved in the great
adventure, when a woman might not matter. But this little shop-girl was
a tragedy. She was pulling Tod into a parlour, fastening him to the
grocer’s and to the draper’s bills, making a little middle-class
gentleman of him, a thing that lusted to live in a red villa, to grow
geraniums in the front garden, and to tottle out on a motor-bike with a
side-car on Sundays. She was clever, and she was cheap.
“Damn her!” said Mr. Burgetrode, “damn her—and her red mouth! The
succulent young hussy!”
And yet he was sorry for the shop-girl and sorry for Tod. He had a
shrewd glimpse of them making all the old sorry mistakes, floundering,
quarrelling, filling their lives with little sordid ambitions, envies,
pathetic make-believes. That girl was no mate for Tod. When he had grown
tired of her body——!
Mr. Burgetrode knocked out his pipe and went to bed.
Tod came to the Hotel Majestic about half-past eight next evening, a
square-headed and obstinate-eyed young man, vaguely aware of clouds on
the horizon. Mr. Burgetrode was waiting in the lounge. He took Tod up to
his sitting-room, made him sit down in the most comfortable chair,
offered him his cigarette-case, and lit his own pipe. The great man was
unusually reposeful and quiet, almost gentle. Youth does not react to a
scolding tongue, nor had Mr. Burgetrode any intention of trying to
coerce a thing that is stronger than any man’s philosophy. Tod should go
his way, but he should choose the path with his eyes open.
“So you are going to get married, Western?”
“I am, sir,” said Tod.
“Very well; that settles it.”
And then he told Tod all that he had planned for him, all that he
thought to make of him. He was more frank than any father to a son, and
his frankness was without prejudice or guile.
“That’s how matters were to shape, Western. I wanted you to have two
years at Cragg’s just to see how you shaped, and the rest would have
followed. I should have put you with an architect for a year, with a
firm of builders for two years, and then sent you on a tour through some
of the big industries to get an idea of the general scheme of things.
After that I should have sent you round the world. And what for? Because
you took my fancy—because I thought you had it in you to make a big man
of yourself. But I did not want to influence you in any way, tie you to
a stick, and warp your growth. As it is, your lady friend has
intervened.”
Tod sat there, very stubborn and grave.
“I couldn’t help it, sir. I didn’t know.”
“Boy, it was I who was the idiot to dream dreams for a young man.”
“But are—they—dead, sir?”
Mr. Burgetrode smiled queerly.
“Of course. My young superman was to spread his wings and fly. He had to
think of nothing but flying, climbing, getting to the peak, and of
getting there alone. A man can’t fly with a woman clinging to his
legs—a young woman who doesn’t want him to fly.”
“My fiancée——” Tod began.
“I am saying nothing, Western, against the girl. You are doing the most
natural thing in the world, both of you. I did it myself, once. But she
wants you to marry her and live in a little red villa, and go to the
pier concerts, and keep a cat and buy her a new hat every month. She
can’t help it, nor can you.”
“I asked her,” said Tod; “I’m in love with her. I suppose, sir, you’re
not interested in me any more?”
Mr. Burgetrode relit his pipe.
“There’s the old saying, that a young man married is a young man marred.
In this case, it seems to be applicable. You can’t do all that I had
planned for you. You can’t strap a knapsack on your back and go out to
conquer the world. A young man who is married has one hand tied behind
him, and cowardice trots at his elbow. He’s afraid of the big adventure,
the great risks, and that the dragon may devour his wife. It’s his
business to kill the dragon for the sake of his wife? Quite so. But it’s
so much easier to stay at home in a little house with thousands of
little people in thousands of other little houses, and not go out into
places where dragons rage. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
“So it’s all over?” said Tod, keeping a stiff lip.
“Exactly. You have to make your choice between a girl and a career, and
knowing what you are——”
“I can’t break a promise. I’m not a cad.”
“Boy, that was what I was going to say. You have promised to marry the
girl, and I know you will marry her. My young Ajax would marry her, if
it meant hunting for cabbage-stalks in dust-bins. There is nothing more
to be said. You have to live your life and to learn. No soldier is worth
his pay who hasn’t seen his own blood. I should like you to write to me
now and again.”
Tod got up, but his knees felt shaky.
“Am I to stay on with the Craggs, sir?”
“Of course. It’s a career, of sorts. I shall write to Mr. Cragg, and
arrange that for you. If ever you are a free man again, Western, you can
come to me.”
“Thank you, sir. I think I’ll be going now.”
“Good night. Don’t forget that most men and women cheat in the great
game.”
“I’ll never cheat, sir.”
“Give them a straight drive on the jaw, and good luck to you. Good-bye!”
Tod went down the great staircase of the Majestic, a very sober and
rather sorrowful Tod. He did not guess then that three years would pass
before he would see Mr. Julian Burgetrode again.
But he did not tell Millie that he had lost his great patron. He did not
think that it would be fair to tell her.
Mr. Burgetrode was walking up and down his bedroom.
“Damn!” he said, “the boy has grit. I knew it was hopeless. If that girl
only had a nose like Cyrano de Bergerac’s! Faces, faces, always faces! A
fine man sucked dry by a pair of red lips! Good lord, I think I’ll adopt
a eunuch!”