"I don't doubt she is well rid of Balaguine. I've run into a baker's
dozen of Russian princes. All canaille. What she wanted to marry him
for, God only knows, and in saying that I exaggerate. Nice mess they
have made of things there. Are you going? Oblige me by touching the
bell."
The young man touched it and, while he was at it, something else.
"Couldn't you oblige me by shipping Benny to Newport?"
The old man motioned. It was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments
to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally.
Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted?
You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't
stand on one foot, you make me nervous."
The son, putting on a white glove, got back at it. "I was asking you
about Benny."
Again the old man shifted. "Hum! Well! Since you make a point of it.
Yes. I'll send him to Newport."
"You won't forget?"
"I never forget," replied the old man, who, from that moment, forgot it
utterly--until the following night when throttlingly it leaped at him.
Even if he had remembered, it could only have delayed the course of
events. Benny went the next day and, in going, merely accelerated a
drama which perhaps was preordered.
But now, from behind the recesses of the malachite stairway, a rascal
appeared and approached and opened a bronze door, from which a young
gentleman passed out and entered his car.
It was dark then, darker than convenient. There are ways that are
obscure. The martyr who discovered that virtue is its own reward, died
unwept, unhonoured, unsung. History does not know him. Perhaps he was an
editor. But he bequeathed a valid idea.
As the car swam on, Monty Paliser was conscious of it. It would, he
reflected, simplify matters very much if his father died immediately. He
had no ill-feeling toward him, no good-feeling, no feeling whatever. For
the property conveyed to him and otherwise bestowed, he had no
gratitude. These gifts were in the nature of things. Gifts similar or
cognate his father had received, as also had his grandfather, his
great-grandfather and so on ab initio. They were possessions handed down
and handed over for the greater glory of the House. He had therefore no
gratitude for them. When the time came he would repeat the process and
expect no gratitude either. Meanwhile though the gifts were adequate,
there were more en route, so many that they would lift him within
hailing distance of the richest men in the world. Though whether that
were worth five minutes of perplexity, ten minutes of tears, a row and,
possibly, your name in the papers, depended on the point of view.
In considering it, he found himself--and very much to his
disgust--rememorating a moral axiom: Great wealth is a great burden. The
axiom was a favourite with his father, who had sickened him with it. But
on its heels always there had trod a variant. "By Gad, sir, you can say
what you like, it puts you in a position to tell anybody to go to hell."
The variant had a lilt, a go, a flourish. To employ a vulgarism of the
hour, it had the punch. It landed you and between the eyes. It required
neither commentaries nor explanation. It was all there. It was tangible
as a brickbat, self-evident as the sun.
In admiring it, the young man philosophised stoically. Did he not have
enough for that already?
Yes, but later? Later might he not want to philosophise less stoically
and more luxuriously? It was a problem. Meanwhile there was Cassy. He
had no wish to lose her. Yet about him already was the shadow of the
inevitable draft act. That was not a problem merely, it was a pit.
Meanwhile there was Cassy whom he did not wish to lose. She was
delightful, delectable, delicious. Not divine though, thank heaven! The
gleam in her eyes could be quite infernal. The gleam heightened a charm
which in itself was fugitive. He recognised that. However delicious a
dish may be, no man can feed on it always. Not he at any rate. But, for
the time being, it was very appetising. For the present, it did very
well. On the other hand, Margaret Austen represented a succession of
courses which, in addition to being appetising, would lift him to a
parity with the super-rich.
It was certainly perplexing. But it is a long turning that has no lane.
He was a decent whip and a string made up of Margaret and Cassy was one
that, let him alone for it, he could handle.
But now the car had stopped. Abandoning perplexity, he went on and up.