THE SECOND GENERATION
Marguerite Sinclair did not write. Perhaps, tucked away in a corner of
Power's heart, a tender little shoot of hope that she might be moved to
disobedience and revolt blossomed for awhile. But it soon withered. She
did not break the silence he had imposed on her. The quiet weeks passed.
The vessel in which the girl and her father had traveled to London had
already returned to South America; but never a word came from
Marguerite. So far as externals went, Power seemed to have settled down
again to the life of the student and the recluse from which he had been
so rudely withdrawn. Beyond a rearrangement with Jake, whereby that
pillar of the community was given the stock-raising business, while
Power retained only the ranch, together with the paddocks and orchards
in its immediate vicinity, there was no change in affairs at Bison.
MacGonigal was offered a controlling interest in the mine; but he
scoffed at the proposal. The proceeds of his third share would amount to
nearly quarter of a million dollars for the current year, and his
personal expenditure did not exceed a fifth of that sum.
"It's the Scot blood in me," he explained, when people rallied him as to
his saving habits. "My great-grandfather lost a sixpence one day in
Belfast, an' the family has been makin' good ever sence. Thar ain't no
sixpences here; so I run a dime bank. Another thing," and his bulging
eyes challenged dispute, "it's a bully fine notion ter let well enough
alone. This yer proposition is goin' along O. K. Let her rip!"
Power, of course, was accumulating wealth with every turn of the rolls
in the reduction mills. The name of the mine became a standing joke in
Colorado. "What price the El Preço outfit?" men would say, and spoke
with bated breath of the millions it would bring in the open market. Not
only were there almost unlimited supplies of rich ore in sight, but the
very granite containing the main vein itself yielded handsomely under
low-grade treatment. It seemed impossible that the undertaking should go
wrong at any stage. If water was tapped, it went to irrigate new lands
which MacGonigal had added to the ranch. If a new shaft was sunk,
sufficient pay-ore was taken out of the excavation to meet the cost;
whereas, in ninety-nine mines among a hundred, the charge would have
fallen on capital.
For three months Power lay fallow at Dolores. His bodily vigor was
unimpaired; but his mind demanded the restorative tonic of peace. A
Chicago bookstore sent him the hundred most important books which had
been published during his absence from civilization, and, with their
aid, he supplemented Marguerite's lessons, and soon brought himself
abreast of contemporary thought. Beyond establishing a maternity
hospital in Bison, and renewing the grant to Dr. Stearn's poor, he did
not embark in philanthropic schemes to any great extent. Still, he found
pressing need of a secretary, and secured an excellent assistant in a
Harvard undergraduate, a young man whose brilliant career in the
university was brought to a dramatic close by an automobile accident
which crippled him for life. He was one of the first victims of the new
force. Power had never seen a motor-car until he reached New York. The
industry had sprung into being when he was immured in the Andes. Even
yet it was in the experimental stage, and his secretary, Wilmot Richard
Howard, was testing an improved steering-gear when he was smashed up by
a hostile lumber wagon.
The post Power offered him was a veritable godsend, and he, in his way,
became infinitely useful to his employer. A curious sympathy soon
existed between them. The limitations of Howard's maimed body caused him
to understand something of the cramped outlook before Power's maimed
soul. Moreover, within a month, his wide reading and thorough
acquaintance with the world's current topics filled gaps in Power's
knowledge which books alone could not repair. When Power quitted Bison
in the spring of the year none who did not know his history would ever
have suspected that he had dwelt so long apart from his fellow-men.
The two traveled together. Halting in New York for a few hours only,
they crossed the Atlantic in the _Lucania_. They remained in London a
week, living in one of those small and most exclusive West End hotels
whose patrons come and go without the blare of trumpets in the press
which is the penalty, or reward, of residence in the more noteworthy
caravansaries. London, it is true, is the one city in the world where a
millionaire can mingle unnoticed with the crowd; but Power took no risk
of undue publicity. Once, in later years, a newspaper discovered him,
and blazoned forth to all and sundry the status he occupied in Colorado;
thenceforth, Howard arranged matters in his own name, and hotel managers
and hall-porters bowed to him as the holder of the purse.
From London, reinforced by a first-rate valet, the pair went to Devon.
There, in a wooded comb looking out over the Atlantic, they found Dacre,
the one man living in whose ears Power could to some extent unburden his
heart. From him were forthcoming certain details as to Nancy's end; for
he had happened to dine one evening with the physician who attended her
constantly after her arrival in England, and the doctor, little guessing
how well informed his neighbor was as to Mrs. Marten's antecedents, had
entered into particulars of what he described as "a case that presented
unusual and baffling features."
"From what he told me, I gathered that she must have pined away from the
moment she left you in the Adirondacks," said Dacre. "I realize now that
she not only fretted herself into a low state of health, but practically
gave her life to her child. No wonder the doctor was puzzled! He could
not diagnose her ailment; for who would have suspected that a young,
beautiful, and rich woman was resolved to die? Now, knowing what we do
know, we can see that it was better so. She would never again have lived
with Marten as his wife, and there was bound to be trouble sooner or
later. Dear lady! I have often thought of her, and of you. Sometimes,
when that most misleading faculty called common sense urged that you,
too, must be dead, I have pictured your meeting in the great beyond.
Indeed, it is the hope of such reunions that accounts for mortal belief
in immortality. Remember, I also have paced the Via Dolorosa, and I
prize those hours, above all others, in which I dream of a kingdom where
wrongs are adjusted by an all-wise Intelligence, and the wretched
failures of earthly life are dislodged from memory by some divine
anodyne."
There was silence for awhile. The two men were talking in a restful,
old-fashioned room which commanded a far-flung view of the Atlantic.
Howard, whose acute sensibility might always be trusted in such moments,
had betaken himself to the garden with an amiable collie, and the
friends were free to talk without restraint.
Then Dacre essayed a cheerier note. "We can't help dwelling on these
things," he said; "but I would remind you that you are still a young
man, and it is a nice question, whether, when all is said and done, you
are justified in binding yourself forever to a pale ghost. It is a
poetic conceit; but the eugenist would tell you that you ought to
marry."
"I shall never marry," said Power.
Nancy's secret would be buried with him, and that fact alone burked any
reference to Marguerite Sinclair. Dacre was exceedingly shrewd, and
could hardly fail to reach the correct conclusion if he heard that "the
other woman" did actually exist, and that circumstances of recent
discovery alone prevented the contemplated marriage.
"Ah, well!" sighed the older man, relapsing into Power's mood. "This is
a genuine instance of the pot advising the kettle not to be black. How
do you purpose spending your time?"
"I'll tell you. I mean to do some good in the world. But I have not come
here to bore you with humane projects. I've not forgotten that you are a
yachtsman. Say you agree, and I'll hire a yacht to take us up the west
coast of Scotland and across the North Sea to the fiords."
"Spoken like a prince! It is the very thing I'm longing for; but my
purse won't run to it, and I'm rather too old to fraternize with Cockney
excursionists on David MacBrayne's steamers or Cook's tourists in
Norway."
So the friends passed an enjoyable summer, and liked the yacht so well
that they cruised south by way of Holland, Belgium, and France, and
wintered in the Mediterranean. Then Power and his secretary hied them to
Bison again; whence their next journey headed east. They visited
flower-laden Honolulu, panting Japan, gray China, and golden India.
Pitching his tent where he listed, Power saw mankind in the mass.
Everywhere, even in climes where Nature is prodigal of her gifts, there
was misery to be softened, suffering to be alleviated, men and women in
want and worthy of help. His methods were simple in the extreme.
Attracting little or no attention by display of wealth, he and Howard
studied every problem that seemed to call for solution by money wisely
applied. At the last moment--often when he had departed to some far
distant place--Power would send the needed sum to the right quarter.
Thus, remaining almost unknown, he left a trail of well-doing behind him
in the four corners of the globe. Sometimes, when the written or printed
word insisted on making him famous, if Bison was too remote a sanctuary,
he would disappear for many months on end, either hobnobbing with Dacre
in Devonshire or elsewhere, or taking protracted tours in out-of-the-way
countries like East Africa, Siberia, or the Balkans.
Naturally, he had adventures and misadventures. No man can scour the
earth, year in and year out--be he rich as Croesus or kindly as
Francis d'Assisi--without enduring vicissitudes, whether they arise from
the haphazard casualties of travel or are the outcome of sheer human
perversity.
In Nairobi, he had the narrowest escape from being mauled by a lion; his
boat was wrecked in a rapid of the Yang-tse-Kiang, and a Chinese coolie
saved him from death by diving after him when he sank, stunned by
collision with a rock; in the town of Omsk, in Eastern Siberia, he was
lodged in a fever-stricken prison for interfering between a brutal
Cossack officer and a female political prisoner whom the man was
flogging mercilessly with a knout. On this occasion Howard rescued him
by bribing every official in sight. His worst experience came in a
Rumelian Christian village. Howard found that certain saline mud baths
on the coast of the Adriatic exercised a highly beneficial effect on his
injured spine; so Power left him there, to undergo a complete course of
treatment, and traveled alone in the interior. By ill luck, he was
benighted in a miserable hamlet near Adrianople. During the night the
Turkish authorities learned that smallpox was rife among the
inhabitants. They established a cordon, and drove back at the point of
the bayonet all who attempted to leave the place. For six weeks Power
lived in a pesthouse; but the Andean sap rose again in his bones, and he
reorganized the habits of the community so thoroughly that its survivors
regarded him as a man sent by God for their deliverance.
Thus, doing good by stealth, and ever widening his knowledge of mankind,
he passed thirteen busy years. It would serve no useful purpose to go
more fully into the records of that long and fruitful period of his
life. Though crammed with incident and rich in the vivid tints of travel
in many lands, it calls for none other than the briefest summary in a
narrative which, at the best, can deal only with the chief phases of a
remarkable career.
He was in his forty-eighth year, and was paying a deferred visit to
Dacre, when he entered upon the last, and in some respects the greatest,
of his trials. Howard was in London, showing the sights to some
relations, and Power had elected to motor to Devonshire. His chauffeur,
a tall, well-built youngster who answered to the name of Maguire--being,
in fact, Rafferty's grandson--was eager to test a car which was supposed
to possess every mechanical virtue, and Power was not disinclined for
the run through a June England. Nothing daunted by the prospect of
twelve hours' continuous excess of the speed limit, master and man
determined to reach Devonshire in the day. But the machine decided
differently. Two burst tires cost them a couple of hours on the road,
and a speck of grit in a valve caused such trouble that it became
necessary to stop for the night in a town where careful overhauling of
the engine was practicable; so they ran slowly into Bournemouth, and
there, in one of the big hotels on the cliff, Power met his own
daughter.
He thought, and not without reason, that he was the victim of
hallucination. He had halted for a moment in a soft-carpeted corridor
to look at a spirited painting of wild ponies in the New Forest, when
a door opened close at hand. He heard no footstep; but the rustle
of a dress caught his ear, and he moved aside to permit the passing
of some lady of whose presence he was only half conscious. But a
sudden impulse--perhaps due to the action of the magnetic waves
which link certain kindred individualities without their personal
cognizance--caused him to turn and look at the stranger, and he
saw--Nancy!
The light in the corridor was dim--for instance, he had been obliged to
peer closely at the picture before he could decipher the artist's
signature--but there was no mistaking the extraordinary resemblance
which this girl bore to the Nancy Willard of the Dolores Ranch days, the
Nancy with whom he used to gallop along prairie tracks where now ran the
steel ribbons of electrically propelled street-cars, Nancy as he knew
her before he had won and lost her twice.
The shock of recognition was so unexpected that he reeled under it.
Then, seeing that the girl was evidently wondering why he was looking at
her so strangely, he forced himself to walk on toward his own
apartment.
There, when calmer thought became possible, he realized that he had seen
Nancy's child, a girl now in her twentieth year. She was so like her
mother at the same age that there was no possibility of error on his
part. The same glory of golden-brown hair, the same changeful eyes of
blende Kagoul blue, the same winsome features, the same graceful
carriage--he could not be mistaken. And, to make more fierce the fire
that was consuming him, he had again found a subtle hint of Marguerite
Sinclair in the sprightly maid who had passed him so silently and
swiftly. He smiled with a sort of bitter weariness when it dawned on him
that this vision would probably control the future course of his life.
He was face to face with Destiny again. There was less chance of escape
for him now than for the sailor swept from the gale-submerged deck of a
tramp steamer in mid-Atlantic, because miracles did sometimes happen at
sea; but, where he was concerned, Fate planted her snares so cunningly
that he was always fast pinioned before he even suspected their
existence.
"I am fey today. I peer into a dim future. Some day, somehow, you will
understand that which is hidden from my ken."
He could not comprehend the full meaning of those words yet; but the day
of reckoning was at hand. Well, it was better so. Surely the settlement
would be final this time!
He was minded to dine in privacy; but he was no coward, and the
inclination was dismissed as unworthy. So he dressed with care, reached
the crowded dining-room rather late, and was allotted to a small table
near a window. In that particular window was a party of six, and among
them were Marten and the girl. She raised her eyes when Power entered,
and a look of recognition came into them. On her right sat a small,
polished, olive-skinned man, who seemed to be more engrossed in her
company than she in his. The faces of these three were clearly visible
from Power's place; the others, two women and a man, were not so much in
evidence.
He strove to catch some of the girl's accents; but she spoke but little,
and that in a low tone. She gave him the impression of being among
people whom she disliked, but whose presence had to be endured. Once or
twice she addressed Marten, and then her manner reminded him more than
ever of her mother. To all appearance, father and daughter were wrapped
up in each other, and Power knew not whether to rejoice or be sad
because of it. Martin looked old and worn. He showed every one of his
sixty years. The burden of finance may be even weightier than that of
empire.
Power's mind ran back to the night, just twenty years before, when he
sat at a table in another hotel and found Nancy Marten gazing at him.
Skies and times may change, but not manners. He had met mother and
daughter under precisely similar conditions, save that he was alone now,
and a complete stranger to the girl. Marten was so taken up with his
friends that he gave no attention to others in the room. Perhaps he had
trained himself to that useful habit. At any rate, he glanced Power's
way only once, and obviously regarded him as one among the well-dressed
throng.
Later, in a lounge where people smoked, chatted, drank coffee, or
played bridge to the accompaniment of an excellent band, Power contrived
to pass close behind the girl's chair. She was with one of the women
now, and talking animatedly. Yes, she had her mother's voice! What long
dormant chords of memory it touched! How it vibrated through heart and
brain! Nancy--dead and yet speaking!
Next morning the car, in chastened mood, bore him smoothly and quickly
away through the Hampshire pines and the blossom-laden hedges of
Somerset. He reached Dacre's house early in the afternoon, and was
somewhat surprised when his friend suggested that they should start
forthwith on a rambling tour up the Wye Valley and thus to the lakes by
way of North Wales.
This spirit of unrest was so unlike Dacre's wonted air of repose that it
evoked a question.
"I have just come here to escape from the ceaseless rush of things,"
said Power. "Why do you want to bustle me off so promptly?"
"I thought a change of scene might be good for both of us," was the
offhand answer.
"Yet it is only a week since you wrote and reproached me for neglecting
the Devon moors. I can slay you with your own quotation. You bade me
join you in--
'This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself'--
and now you would have us cavort along dusty highways to other joys. Why
is it?"
"My quotation applied to the whole of this sceptered isle."
"You are quibbling, Dacre, and I think I guess the reason. Have you
heard anything of Marten recently?"
His companion did not try to conceal the surprise that leaped to his
eyes.
"Your Indians made you a bit of wizard," he said. "I'll tell you now
what I meant to hide from you. Marten has rented Lord Valescure's place
on the hill yonder, and is due here tomorrow or next day. I heard the
name of the new tenant only this morning, and decided that we ought to
quit if we want to be happy."
"No. If you'll let me, I'll remain."
"Is it wise?"
"I endured the major wrench last night. Marten and--and his daughter
were staying in the same hotel as myself."
"So you have seen her--at last?"
"Yes, and I'll confess my weakness. Having seen her, I wish to speak to
her. I admit my folly; but I cannot help it. Somehow--I think--that her
mother--would wish it. I'll placate Marten, grovel to him, if I may be
allowed to meet her."
"My dear Derry, I've said my say. You ought to have lived two thousand
years ago, and Euripides would have immortalized you in a tragedy."
The eyes of the two men clashed; but Power repressed the imminent
request for an explanation of that cryptic remark. He dared not ask what
Dacre had in mind. His comment might have been a chance shaft; but it
fell dangerously near the forbidden territory of Nancy's close-veiled
secret. When next he spoke, it was to give a motorist's account of the
mishaps of the road.
A week passed. Dacre's house lay halfway up a wooded comb, or valley,
and the Valescure castle stood on a bold tor that thrust itself bluntly
into the sea. Unless the occupants of each place were on friendly terms,
they might dwell in the same district and not meet once in a year. By
taking a rough path they were barely three-quarters of a mile apart; but
the only practicable carriage-road covered three miles or more. Dacre's
interests lay with the fisher-folk at the foot of the comb or among the
woods and heather of Dartmoor Forest, rolling up into the clouds behind
his abode, while the great folk of the castle seldom came his way,
unless Lord Valescure happened to be in residence, when the two
forgathered often.
But Dacre was right when he hinted at the tragic inevitableness of his
friend's life. They had strolled into the rectory for tea, and were
chatting with their hostess about a forthcoming charity fête, when a
motor rumbled to the door, and Nancy Marten appeared, a radiant vision
in the muslin and flower-decked hat of summer.
"How kind of you to come!" said the rector's wife, rising to greet the
girl. "Lady Valescure said she was sure I might write and seek your help
for our village revel. She said all sorts of nice things about you, and
now I know they are true."
So Power was introduced to "Miss Marten," and the girl gave him one of
those shy yet delightfully candid glances which he remembered so well in
her mother's eyes.
"Didn't I meet you recently in the corridor of a hotel at Bournemouth?"
she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Then you will be surprised to hear that you rather startled me. I
thought you were about to fall, and was on the point of catching your
arm when you walked away. Then I saw you had a slight limp, and it was
that which had probably caused my stupid notion. Wouldn't you have been
tremendously astonished if a giddy young person had clutched you
suddenly and implored you not to drop at her feet?"
"Yet I can well imagine any man, especially a younger sprig than myself,
being moved to some such act of homage."
She laughed--Nancy again!
"There seems to be no end of men in England who can pay neat compliments
to a woman," she said. "But you're not an Englishman, Mr. Power. Aren't
you a fellow-countryman of mine?"
"Yes."
"How jolly! People never guess it, but I'm an American; though I can
never be President, even if we women get a vote, because I was born in
London. But my parents hail from the Silver State."
"Where more gold is produced than in any other state of the Union."
"Then you know Colorado?"
"Yes. Better than that, I knew your mother many years ago, before her
marriage."
"You knew my mother--in Colorado--on the ranch! Well!" She turned
rapidly to her hostess. "Thank you ever so much for inviting me here
today. I'll work like a slave for your bazaar. Here is the man I've
been aching to meet ever since I was able to talk. Please don't think me
rude if I monopolize him all the afternoon. I'm going to take him off to
that nice shady seat under the copper beech, and question him until he
cries for mercy.... Yes, please. Tea, with sugar and milk, and lots of
bread and butter, piled high with Devonshire cream and jam--all the good
things! Why, you're a veritable fairy princess. Mr. Power met my mother
when she was a girl!... Come along, Mr. Power! No wonder I was inclined
to grab you in that corridor. Oh, had I but guessed! I'll never, never
distrust intuition again."
"To begin with," said Power, as he walked with her across the springy
turf with a laden tray in his hands, "in what way did intuition prompt
you?"
"I don't mind telling you at once. I feel I can talk to you as though we
had known each other always. I said you rather startled me; but that was
just a polite way of saying what I didn't exactly mean. You were
examining a picture, and you turned unexpectedly and looked at me. There
was an expression in your eyes that gave me a sort of shock, one of
those emotional thrills which cannot be described in words. You might
have been gazing at the ghost of someone very dear to you. Ah, forgive
me if my tongue runs away with me, but I'm really excited. Of course, I
understand now. You took me for my mother. And I am like her, am I not?"
"So like that your first impression was right. I did nearly fall. The
least push would have toppled me over. It was only the iron law of
convention that enabled me to pass on as though nothing unusual had
happened."
"Then my mother and you were great friends?"
"Yes."
"You met her long before she was married?"
"Yes."
"Don't say yes, and leave it at that. Tell me things--everything you
think I would like to know."
"I may tell you this, without the slightest unfairness to--to your
father. I loved your mother; but I was poor in those days, and dared not
ask her to marry me. Then I was sent away to a distant mine--and--we
drifted apart. When next I saw her she was a wife. Now, suppose we
forget that bit of ancient history--because I hope to become friendly
with your father--for your sake."
The girl's eyes were glistening, and she had lost some of her exquisite
color.
She understood, or thought she understood; though she little dreamed
what fierce longings, what vain regrets, were surging through the man's
inmost core. Her quick intelligence noted certain slight hesitancies in
his speech, which the ever-present feminine sense of romance attributed
to tender recollections of the bygone days. With ready sympathy, she led
him to talk of the ranch, of Bison, even of her grandfather, whom she
remembered but vaguely.
Power kept a close guard on his words, and easily focused her interest
on topics which could not prove hurtful, even if she repeated the
conversation to Marten in its entirety. Once only did their chat veer
round to a dangerous quarter.
"You said you saw my mother again after her marriage--where was that?"
she asked.
"In Newport, Rhode Island. I went there to buy horses, and we met
unexpectedly in a hotel, just as you and I the other evening."
"Was she--was she happy?"
"Of course she was happy. She was one of the most beautiful women of her
day, and married to a rich man who was certainly devoted to her. She
moved in the best society, both in America and in Europe. By the way,
her closest friends were the Van Raltens in the States and the Duchesse
de Brasnes in Paris. Have you ever come across any members of those
families?"
"I know Mrs. Van Ralten very well. Her daughter was at school with me at
Brussels."
"Then Mr. Marten hardened his heart, and parted from you for a time?"
"Yes. I see now that it was bad for a girl to be always at home or in
hotels, with governesses. Fortunately, Father had to be away a good
deal, in Russia and elsewhere; so I was sent to school, where I was
taught what little I know."
Thus was an unforeseen shoal safely navigated, and Power took care that
Newport was lost sight of. As he and Dacre walked up the valley to their
abode, the latter broke a long silence by saying:
"Again I ask, Derry--is it wise?"
"And again I answer that years of suffering entitle one to the fleeting
pleasure of seeing and speaking to Nancy's daughter."
"But she is Marten's daughter, too, and he may prove difficult."
"Let him. I have fought stronger adversaries, and won through in the
end."
Secretary Howard joined them that night. After dinner he inquired if
Power had ever had any dealings with Mowlem & Son, a firm of lawyers in
New York.
"No," said Power. "The name is not familiar to me."
"Queer thing! A man who represented himself as their London agent called
at my hotel yesterday and inquired if it was correct that you were in
Devonshire. I said yes, and asked his business. He explained that Mowlem
& Son wanted to know, and that was all he could, or would, tell me. I
was inclined to believe him."
"Perhaps it is the usual hue and cry after a bloated capitalist."
"I rather fancy not. This fellow seemed to lay stress on your presence
here. Besides, the company-promoting crowd have learned long since that
you are unapproachable."
"At such a moment one might mention a peak in Darien," laughed Dacre,
and the incident lapsed into the limbo of insignificant happenings.
Thenceforth Power met Nancy day after day. The approaching fête supplied
the girl with a ready excuse for these regular visits to village and
rectory. Power believed, though he did not seek enlightenment, that she
had not spoken of him to her father. One day, when she was accompanied
by the sleek, olive-skinned man he had seen at Bournemouth, she rather
avoided him, and he ascertained from an awe-stricken rustic that the
stranger was a prince, but of what dynasty his informant could not say.
At their next meeting he rallied the girl on her aloofness. She withered
him with an indignant glance.
"Come!" she said imperiously, taking him from the schoolhouse in which a
committee was assembled, and making for the tiny stone pier which
sheltered a small estuary from southwesterly gales.
"I've got to tell you some day, and you may as well know now," she said,
with a curious hardness of tone which she had probably acquired from
Marten by the trick of association. "You loved my mother, and ought to
have married her. If all was nice and providential in the best of all
possible worlds, you would have been my father. Oh, you needn't flinch
because I say that! If you _were_ my father, I'm sure you wouldn't force
me to marry a man I detest. That person who came with me yesterday is
the high and mighty Principe del Montecastello. I have to marry him, and
I hate him!"
Power's face went very pale. His hour had struck. He looked out over a
smiling ocean; but the eyes of his soul saw a broken vista of barren
hills, snow-crowned and glacier-ribbed, while howling torrents rushed
through the depths of ravines choken with the débris of avalanches and
rotting pines. His own voice sounded hollow and forlorn in his ears.
"In these days no woman need marry a man she hates," he was saying,
aware of a dull effort to ward off a waking nightmare by the spoken
word.
"You know better than that," she retorted, with the bitter logic of
youth. "What am I to do? The man I love, and would marry if I could, is
poor. He is too honorable to--to---- Oh, I don't know what I mean--only
this, that a millionaire's daughter can be bought and sold like any
other girl, even a princess, when what men call 'important interests'
are at stake."
"You say you have chosen another man?" he said brokenly.
"Yes, the dearest boy. Oh, Mr. Power, I wish you knew him! I have faith
in you. Perhaps you could help--if only for my dear mother's safe."
She was crying now; but her streaming eyes sought his with wistful
confidence.
"Yes. I will help, for your dear mother's sake," he said. "Be brave, and
drive away those tears. They--they hurt. I--I saw your mother crying
once. Now tell me everything. If I would be of any real assistance, I
must know how to shape my efforts."