"Husband!" The old man stared at his daughter, his face distorted and
livid with rage. "If you--"
But whatever threat he may have intended to make, Thorold interrupted.
"He is married already," he cried; "he is no more your husband than I."
At this announcement Mr. Dunellen let an arm he had outstretched fall to
his side; he turned to Thorold, and Justine looked wonderingly in
Roland's face.
"What does he mean?" she asked.
Roland shrugged his shoulders, "God knows," he answered. "He must be
screwed."
"You _are_ married," Thorold called out. "You needn't attempt to deny it
here."
"I don't in the least: this lady has just done me the honor to become my
wife."
"But you have another--you told me so yourself."
Roland, who had been really perplexed, could not now conceal a smile.
He remembered that he had indeed told Thorold he was married, but he had
done so merely as an easy way of diverting the suspicions which that
gentleman displayed.
Justine, still looking at him, caught the smile.
"Why don't you speak?" she asked.
"What is there to say?" he answered. "It is false as an obituary."
"Then tell him so."
But for that there was no time. Mr. Dunellen, trained in procedure, had
already questioned Thorold, and found that save Mistrial's word he had
nothing to grapple on.
"Leave the house, sir," he shouted, and pointed to the door.
"When he goes, father, I go too."
"Then go." And raising his arms above his head as though to invoke the
testimony of heaven, he bawled at her, "I disown you."
"There's Christian forbearance," muttered Mistrial; and he might have
asserted as much, but Justine had lowered her veil.
"Come," she said.
And as she and her husband passed from the room the old man roared
impotently "I disinherit you--you are no longer my child."
"Didn't you tell me he had been used to having his own way?" Roland
asked, as he put Justine in the cab; and without waiting for an answer
he told the driver to go to the Brunswick, and took a seat at her side.
In certain crises the beauty of an old adage asserts itself even to the
stupidest. Roland had taken the bull by the horns and got tossed for his
pains; yet even while he was in the air he kept assuring himself that he
would land on his feet. The next morning the memory of the old man's
anger affected him not at all. Passion, he knew, burns itself out, and
its threats subside into ashes. The relentless parent was a spectacle
with which the stage had made him so familiar that he needed no
prompter's book to tell him that when the curtain fell it would be on a
tableau of awaited forgiveness. And even though Mr. Dunellen and the
traditional father might differ, yet on the subject of wills and
bequests he understood that the legislature had in its wisdom prevented
a testator from devising more than one-half his property to the
detriment of kith and of kin. If things came to the worst Justine would
get five million instead of ten; and five million, though not elastic
enough, as Jones had said, to entertain with, still represented an
income that sufficed for the necessaries of life. On that score his mind
was at rest. Moreover, it was manifestly impossible for Justine's father
to live forever: there was an odor of fresh earth about him which to his
own keen nostrils long since had betokened the grave; and if meanwhile
he chose to keep the purse-strings drawn, Justine had enough from her
mother's estate to last till the strings were loosed.
Rents are high in New York, and to those bred in certain of its manors
there is a choice between urban palaces and suburban flats. But Paris is
less fastidious. In that lovely city a thousand-franc note need not be
spent in a day; and in Italy the possibilities of the lira are great.
In view of these things, Roland and his wife one week later took ship
and sailed for France.