General Siddall asks me to present his compliments and to say that he
will be pleased if you and your wife and the young lady will dine with
him at his house next Thursday the seventeenth at half-past seven sharp.
ROBERT CHANDLESS, Secretary.
The only words in longhand were the two forming the name of the
secretary. Presbury laughed and tossed the note across the breakfast
table to his wife. "You see what an ignorant creature he is," said he.
"He imagines he has done the thing up in grand style. He's the sort of
man that can't be taught manners because he thinks manners, the
ordinary civilities, are for the lower orders of people. Oh, he's a
joke, is Bill Siddall--a horrible joke."
Mrs. Presbury read and passed the letter to Mildred. She simply glanced
at it and returned it to her step-father.
"I'm just about over that last dinner," pursued Presbury. "I'll eat
little Thursday and drink less. And I'd advise you to do the same, Mrs.
Presbury."
He always addressed her as "Mrs. Presbury" because he had discovered
that when so addressed she always winced, and, if he put a certain tone
into his voice, she quivered.
"That dinner aged you five years," he went on. "Besides, you drank so
much that it went to your head and made you slather him with flatteries
that irritated him. He thought you were a fool, and no one is stupid
enough to like to be flattered by a fool."
Mrs. Presbury bridled, swallowed hard, said mildly: "We'll have to
spend the night in town again, I suppose."
"You and your daughter may do as you like," said Presbury. "I shall
return here that night. I always catch cold in strange beds."
"We might as well all return here," said Mildred. "I shall not wear
evening dress; that is, I'll wear a high-neck dress and a hat."
She had just got a new hat that was peculiarly becoming to her. She
had shown Siddall herself at the best in evening attire; another sort
of costume would give him a different view of her looks, one which she
flattered herself was not less attractive. But Presbury interposed an
emphatic veto.
"You'll wear full evening dress," said he. "Bare neck and arms for men
like Bill Siddall. They want to see what they're getting."
Mildred flushed scarlet and her lips trembled as though she were about
to cry. In fact, her emotion was altogether shame--a shame so poignant
that even Presbury was abashed, and mumbled something apologetic.
Nevertheless she wore a low-neck dress on Thursday evening, one as
daring as the extremely daring fashions of that year permitted an
unmarried woman to wear. It seemed to her that Siddall was still more
costly and elegant-looking than before, though this may have been due
to the fact that he always created an impression that in the retrospect
of memory seemed exaggerated. It seemed impossible that anyone could
be so clean, so polished and scoured, so groomed and tailored, so
bedecked, so high-heeled and loftily coiffed. His mean little
countenance with its grotesquely waxed mustache and imperial wore an
expression of gracious benignity that assured his guests they need
anticipate no disagreeable news.
"I owe you an apology for keeping you in suspense so long," said he.
"I'm a very busy man, with interests in all parts of the world. I keep
house--some of 'em bigger than this--open and going in six different
places. I always like to be at home wherever my business takes me."
Mrs. Presbury rolled her eyes. "Isn't that WONDERFUL!" she exclaimed.
"What an interesting life you must lead!"
"Oh, so--so," replied the general. "But I get awful lonesome. I'm
naturally a domestic man. I don't care for friends. They're expensive
and dangerous. A man in my position is like a king. He can't have
friends. So, if he hasn't got a family, he hasn't got noth--anything."
"Nothing like home life," said Presbury.
"Yes, indeed," cried Mrs. Presbury.
The little general smiled upon Mildred, sitting pale and silent, with
eyes downcast. "Well, I don't intend to be alone much longer, if I can
help it," said he. "And I may say that I can make a woman happy if
she's the right sort--if she has sense enough to appreciate a good
husband." This last he said sternly, with more than a hint of his past
matrimonial misfortunes in his frown and in his voice. "The trouble
with a great many women is that they're fools--flighty, ungrateful
fools. If I married a woman like that, I'd make short work of her."
"And she'd deserve it, General," said Mildred's mother earnestly. "But
you'll have no trouble if you select a lady--a girl who's been well
brought up and has respect for herself."
"That's my opinion, ma'am," said the general. "I'm convinced that while
a man can become a gentleman, a woman's got to be born a lady or she
never is one."
"Very true, General," cried Mrs. Presbury. "I never thought of it
before, but it's the truest thing I ever heard."
Presbury grinned at his plate. He stole a glance at Mildred. Their
eyes met. She flushed faintly.
"I've had a great deal of experience of women," pursued the general.
"In my boyhood days I was a ladies' man. And of course since I've had
money they've swarmed round me like bees in a clover-patch."
"Oh, General, you're far too modest," cried Mrs. Presbury. "A man like
you wouldn't need to be afraid, if he hadn't a cent."
"But not the kind of women I want," replied he, firmly if complacently.
"A lady needs money to keep up her position. She has to have it. On
the other hand, a man of wealth and station needs a lady to assist him
in the proper kind of life for men of his sort. So they need each
other. They've got to have each other. That's the practical, sensible
way to look at it."
"Exactly," said Presbury.
"And I've made up my mind to marry, and marry right away. But we'll
come back to this later on. Presbury, you're neglecting that wine."
"I'm drinking it slowly to enjoy it better," said Presbury.
The dinner was the same unending and expensive function that had
wearied them and upset their digestions on Thanksgiving Day. There was
too much of everything, and it was all just wrong. The general was not
quite so voluble as he had been before; his gaze was fixed most of the
time on Mildred--roving from her lovely face to her smooth, slender
shoulders and back again. As he drank and ate his gesture of slightly
smacking his thin lips seemed to include an enjoyment of the girl's
charms. And a sensitive observer might have suspected that she was not
unconscious of this and was suffering some such pain as if abhorrent
and cruel lips and teeth were actually mouthing and mumbling her. She
said not a word from sitting down at table until they rose to go into
the library for coffee.
"Do tell me about your early life, General," Mrs. Presbury said. "Only
the other day Millie was saying she wished she could read a biography
of your romantic career."
"Yes, it has been rather--unusual," conceded the general with swelling
chest and gently waving dollar-and-a-half-apiece cigar.
"I do so ADMIRE a man who carves out his own fortune," Mrs. Presbury
went on--she had not obeyed her husband's injunction as to the
champagne. "It seems so wonderful to me that a man could with his own
hands just dig a fortune out of the ground."
"He couldn't, ma'am," said the general, with gracious tolerance. "It
wasn't till I stopped the fool digging and hunting around for gold that
I began to get ahead. I threw away the pick and shovel and opened a
hotel." (There were two or three sleeping-rooms of a kind in that
"hotel," but it was rather a saloon of the species known as "doggery.")
"Yes, it was in the hotel that I got my start. The fellows that make
the money in mining countries ain't the prospectors and diggers, ma'am."
"Really!" cried Mrs. Presbury breathlessly. "How interesting!"
"They're fools, they are," proceeded the general. "No, the money's made
by the fellows that grub-stake the fools--give 'em supplies and send
'em out to nose around in the mountains. Then them that find anything
have to give half to the fellow that did the grub-staking. And he
looks into the claim, and if there's anything in it, why, he buys the
fool out. In mines, like everywhere else, ma'am, it ain't work, it's
brains that makes the money. No miner ever made a mining fortune--not
one. It's the brainy, foxy fellows that stay back in the camps. I
used to send out fifty and a hundred men a year. Maybe only two or
three'd turn up anything worth while. No, ma'am, I never got a dollar
ahead on my digging. All the gold I ever dug went right off for
grub--or a good time."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Mrs. Presbury. "I never heard of such a thing."
"But we're not here to talk about mines," said the general, his eyes
upon Mildred. "I've been looking into matters--to get down to
business--and I've asked you here to let you know that I'm willing to
go ahead."
Profound silence. Mildred suddenly drew in her breath with a sound so
sharp that the three others started and glanced hastily at her. But
she made no further sign. She sat still and cold and pale.
The general, perfectly at ease, broke the silence. "I think Miss Gower
and I would get on faster alone."
Presbury at once stood up; his wife hesitated, her eyes uneasily upon
her daughter. Presbury said: "Come on, Alice." She rose and preceded
him into the adjoining conservatory. The little general posed himself
before the huge open fire, one hand behind him, the other at the level
of his waistcoat, the big cigar between his first and second fingers.
"Well, my dear?" said he.
Mildred somewhat hesitatingly lifted her eyes; but, once she had them
up, their gaze held steadily enough upon his--too steadily for his
comfort. He addressed himself to his cigar:
"I'm not quite ready to say I'm willing to go the limit," said he. "We
don't exactly know each other sufficiently well as yet, do we?"
"No," said Mildred.
"I've been making inquiries," he went on; "that is, I had my chief
secretary make them--and he's a very thorough man, thanks to my
training. He reports everything entirely all right. I admire dignity
and reserve in a woman, and you have been very particular. Were you
engaged to Stanley Baird?"
Mildred flushed, veiled her eyes to hide their resentful flash at this
impertinence. She debated with herself, decided that any rebuke short
of one that would anger him would be wasted upon him. "No," said she.
"That agrees with Harding's report," said the general. "It was a mere
girlish flirtation--very dignified and proper," he hastened to add. "I
don't mean to suggest that you were at all flighty."
"Thank you," said Mildred sweetly.
"Are there any questions you would like to ask about me?" inquired he.
"No," said Mildred.
"As I understand it--from my talk with Presbury--you are willing to go
on?"
"Yes," said Mildred.
The general smiled genially. "I think I may say without conceit that
you will like me as you know me better. I have no bad habits--I've too
much regard for my health to over-indulge or run loose. In my boyhood
days I may have put in rather a heavy sowing of wild oats"--the general
laughed; Mildred conjured up the wintriest and faintest of echoing
smiles--"but that's all past," he went on, "and there's nothing that
could rise up to interfere with our happiness. You are fond of
children?"