Lord Galorey had long been used to seeing things go the way they would
and should not, and his greatest effort had been attained on the day he
gave his languid body the trouble to go in and see Ruggles.
"My God," he muttered as he watched Dan and the duchess on the terrace
together--they were nevertheless undeniably a handsome pair--"to think
that this is the way I am returning old Blair's hospitality!" And he was
ashamed to recall his western experiences, when in a shack in the
mountains he had watched the big stars come out in the heavens and sat
late with old Dan Blair, delighted with the simple philosophies and the
man's high ideals.
"What the devil does it all mean?" he wondered. "She has simply seduced
him, that's all."
He got Dan finally to himself and without any preparation began, pushing
Dan back into a big leather chair, and standing up like a judge over
him:
"Now, you really must listen to me, my dear chap. I shan't rest in my
grave unless I get a word with you. Your father sent you here to me and
I'm damned if I know what for. I've been wondering every day about it
for two months. He didn't know what this set was like or how rotten it
is."
"What set?" The boy looked appallingly young as Gordon stared down at
him. There wasn't a line or wrinkle on his smooth brow or on his lips
and forehead finely cut and well molded--but there were the very seals of
what his father would have been glad to see. The boy had the same clear
look and unspoiled frankness that had charmed Galorey at the first. He
had been a lazy coward to delay so long.
"Why, the rottenness of this set right here in my house." And as the
host began to see that he should have to approach a woman's name in
speaking, he stopped short, his mouth wide open, and Dan thought he had
been drinking.
"You are talking of marrying Lily," Gordon got out.
"I am _going_ to marry her."
"You mustn't."
Blair got up out of his chair. It didn't need this attack of Galorey's
to bring to his mind hints that had been dropped that Galorey was in
love with the Duchess of Breakwater. It illuminated what Galorey was
saying fast and incoherently.
"I mean to say, my dear chap, that you mustn't marry the Duchess of
Breakwater. Look at most of these European marriages. They all go to
smash. She is older than you are and she has lived her life. You are
much too young."
"Hold up, Galorey; you mustn't go on, you know. You know I am engaged;
that's all there is about it. Now, let's go and have a game of pool."
Galorey had not worked himself up to this pitch to break off now at a
fatal point.
"I'm responsible for this, and by gad, Dan, I'm going to put you on your
guard."
"You are responsible for nothing, Galorey, and I warn you to drop it."
"You would listen to your father if he were here, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know," said the boy slowly. Then followed up with an honest,
"Yes, I would."
Gordon caught eagerly, "Well, he sent you to me. Your friend Ruggles has
gone off and washed his hands of you, but I can't."
Lord Galorey walked across the room briskly and came back to Dan. "First
of all, you are not in love with Lily--not a bit of it. You couldn't
be--and what's more she is not in love with you."
Blair laughed coolly. "You certainly have got things down to a fine
point, Gordon. I'll be hanged if I understand your game."
Galorey went bravely on: "Therefore, if neither of you are in love, you
understand that there is nothing between you but your money."
The Englishman got his point out brutally, relieved that the impersonal
thing money opened a way for him. He didn't want to be the bounder and
the cad that the mention of the woman would have made him.
The boy drew in an angry breath. "Gosh," he said, "that cursed money
will make me crazy yet! You are not very flattering to me, Gordon, I
swear, and Lily wouldn't thank you for the motives you impute to her."
"Oh, rot!" returned Gordon more tranquilly. "She hasn't got a human
sentiment in her. She's a rock with a woman's face."
Dan turned his back on his host and walked off into the billiard-room.
Galorey promptly followed him, took down a cue and chalked it, and said:
"Well, come now; let's put it to the test." Blair began stacking the
balls.
"How do you mean?"
"Well, when you have had time to get your first news over from Ruggles,
tell her you have gone to smash and that you are a pauper."
"I don't play tricks like that," said the Westerner quietly.
"No," responded Galorey bitterly, "you let others play tricks on you."
The young man threw his cue smartly down, his youth looked
contemptuously at the worldly man, and he turned pale, but he said in a
low voice:
"Now, you've got to let up on this, Gordon; I thought at first you had
been drinking. I won't listen. Let's get on another subject, or I'll
clear out."
Galorey, however, cool and pitiful of the tangle in the boy's affairs,
wouldn't let himself be angry. "You are my old chum's boy, Dan," he went
on, "and I'm not going to stand by and see you spoil your life in
silence. You are of age. You can go to the devil if you like, but you
can't go there under my roof, without a word from me."
"Then I'll get out from under your roof, to-night."
"Right! I don't blame you there, but, before you go, tell Lily you have
lost your money, and see what she is made of. My dear chap"--he changed
his tone to one of affection--"don't be an ape; listen to me, for your
father's sake; remember your whole life's happiness is in this game.
Isn't it worth looking after?"
"Not at the risk of hurting a woman's feelings," said the boy.
"How can it hurt her, my dear man, to tell her you are poor?"
"It's a lie. I'm not up to lying to her; I don't care to. And you mean
to think that if I told her I was busted she would throw me over?"
"Like a shot, my green young friend--like a shot."
"You haven't a very good opinion of women," Blair threw out with as near
a sneer as his fine young face could express.
"No, not very," agreed the pool player, who had continued his shots with
more or less sangfroid. When Galorey had run off his string of balls he
said, looking up from the table: "But I've got a very good opinion of
that 'nice girl' you told me of when you first came, and I wish to
Heaven she had kept you in the States."
This caught the boy's attention as nothing else had. "There never was
any such girl," he said slowly; "there never has been anywhere; I rather
guess they don't grow. You have made me a cad in listening to you,
Gordon, but as to playing any of those comedy tricks you suggest, they
are not in my line. If she is marrying me for my money, why, she'll get
it."
"You're a coward," said Galorey, "like the rest of American husbands--all
ideal and no common sense. You want to make a mess of your life. You
haven't the grit to get out of a bad job."
He spurred himself on and his weak face grew strong as he felt he was
compelling the boy's attention. "If you only had half the character your
father had, you wouldn't make a mistake like this; you wouldn't run
blind into such a deal as this."
Blair was impressed by his host. Galorey was so deadly in earnest and so
honest, and, as Dan's face grew set and hardened, his companion prayed
for wisdom. "If I can only win through this without touching Lily hard,"
he thought, and as he waited, Blair said:
"You haven't hesitated to call me names, Gordon. You're not my build or
my age, and I can't thrash you."
And his host said cheerfully: "Oh, yes, you can; come on and try," and,
metaphorically speaking, Dan struck his first blow:
"They say--people have said to me--that you once cared for Lily yourself."
The Englishman's heavy eyelids did not flicker. "It's quite true."
Taken back by this frank response, Blair stammered: "Well, I guess that
explains everything. It's not surprising that you should feel as you do.
If you are jealous, I can forgive it a little bit, but it is low down to
call a woman a fortune hunter."
Now Gordon Galorey's face changed and grew slightly white. "Don't make
me angry, my dear chap," he said in a low tone; "I have said what I
wanted to say. Now, go to the devil if you like and as soon as you
like."
And the boy said hotly, stammering in his excitement:
"Not yet--not yet--not before I tell you what I think."
Gordon, with wonderful control of his own anger, met the boy's eyes, and
said with great patience:
"No, don't, Dan; don't go on. There are many things in this affair that
we can't touch upon. Let it drop. The right woman would make a ripping
man of you, but you oughtn't to marry for ten years."
Dan took the hand which Galorey put out to him, and the Englishman said
warmly: "My dear chap, I hope it will all come out right, from my
heart."
Dan, who had regained his balance, said to his friend:
"I've been very angry at what you said, but you're the chap my father
sent me to. There must be something back of this, and I'm going to find
out what it is, and I'm going to take my own way to find out. I wouldn't
give a rap for anything that came to me through a trick or a lie, and I
wouldn't know how to go to her with a cock-and-bull story. I shall act
as I feel and go ahead being just as I am, and perhaps she won't want me
after all, even if I have got the rocks!"
And Galorey said heartily: "I wish there was a chance of it."
When, later, Gordon thought of Dan it was with a glow. "What a chip of
the old block he is," he said; "what a good bit of character, even at
twenty-two years." He was divided between feeling that he had made a
mess of things between Dan and himself, and feeling sure that some of
his advice had gone home. After a moment's silence, Dan Blair's son
said: "I'm going up to London to-morrow."
"For long?"
"Don't know."
Then returning with boyish simplicity to their subject, which Galorey
thought had been dropped, Dan said:
"There may be something true in what you say, Gordon. Perhaps she does
want my money. I'm not a titled man and I'll never be known for anything
except my income. At any rate I was rich when I asked her to marry me,
and I'm going to fix up that old place of hers, and I'm glad I've got
the coin to do it."
When, later, for they had been interrupted in their conversation by the
entrance of the lady herself, Gordon, as Ruggles had done, mentally
thought of the flowing tide of life, and how it flowed over what he
himself had called "rotten ground." Perhaps old Blair was right, he
mused, after all. What does it matter if the source is pure at the head
water? It's awfully hard to force it at the start, at least.