"I'll break his damned neck if he does," said H. R., with patrician
calmness. "Don't you ever again dare to listen while I am here,
Frederick. You may go."
H. R. looked so much as if he meant what he said that Grace was
pleasantly thrilled by his masterfulness. But not for worlds would she
show it facially. When a woman can't lie to the man who loves her she
lies to herself by looking as she does not feel.
"Do you wish me to go? For the sake of peace?" he asked Grace,
anxiously.
There was nothing he would not do, no torture too great to endure, for
her sake--not even the exquisite agony of absence. That there might be
no misunderstanding, he added, softly, "Do you?"
"Don't you talk to my daughter!" said Mrs. Goodchild, furious at being
excluded from the supreme command. Hearing no assent, she was compelled
by the law of nature to repeat herself: "Don't you talk to my daughter!"
H. R. looked at her in grieved perplexity. "Do you mean that you are
deliberately going to be a comic-weekly mother-in-law and make me the
laughing-stock of my set?"
Feeling the inadequacy of mere words to express the thought she had not
tried to express, Mrs. Goodchild called on her right hand for aid; she
pointed. Being concerned with gesture rather than intent on direction,
she, alas! pointed to a window.
He shook his head at her and then at the window, and told her: "To jump
out of that one would be as bad as having me arrested. Do you want the
infernal reporters to make you ridiculous? Do you realize that I am the
most-talked-about man in all New York? Don't you know what newspaper
ridicule is? Don't you? Say no!"
To make sure of her own grasp of the situation Mrs. Goodchild, who was
dying to shriek at the top of her voice, compressed her lips. H. R.
instantly perceived the state of affairs and double-turned the key by
fiendishly placing his right forefinger to his own lips. This would
give to his mother-in-law the two excellent habits of obedience and
silence.
He turned to the girl and said: "Grace, don't hide behind your mother.
Let me look my fill. It's got to last me a whole week!"
Grace saw in his face and knew from his voice that he was neither acting
nor raving. His words were as the gospel, the oldest of all gospels,
which, unlike all others, is particularly persuasive in the springtime.
He was a fine-looking chap, and the newspapers were full of him, and he
was in love with her. He interested her. But of course he was
impossible. But also she was New York, and, to prove it, she must be
epigrammatic. All her life she had listened to high-class vaudeville.
She said, icily, yet with a subtle consciousness of her own humor, "If
you wish to worship, why don't you try a church?"
"Which?" he retorted so promptly and meaningly that she almost felt the
wedding-ring on her finger. He pursued: "And when? I have the license
all ready. See?"
He pulled out of his pocket a long envelope containing a communication
from Valiquet's lawyer. "Here it is!" and he held it toward her.
Being young and healthy, she laughed approvingly.
"Has it come to this, in my own house?" exclaimed Mrs. Goodchild in
dismay. Being rich and living in New York, she did not know her
daughter's affairs.
"Why not?" asked H. R., with rebuking coldness. "In whose house should
our marriage be discussed?" Then he spoke to Grace with a fervor that
impressed both women: "I love you as men used to love when they were
willing to murder for the sake of their love. Look at me!"
He spoke so commandingly that Grace looked, wonder and doubt in her
eyes.
In some women incertitude expresses itself in silence. Her mother was of
a different larynx. She wailed: "What shall I do? What shall I do?" And
sank back in her arm-chair. After one second's hesitation Mrs. Goodchild
decided to clasp her own hands with a gesture of helplessness such as
Pilate would have used had he been Mrs. Pontius. She did so, turning the
big emerald _en cabochon_, so that she could plaintively gaze at it.
Eight thousand dollars. Then she turned the gem accusingly in the
direction of this man who might, for all she knew, be penniless. He was
good-looking. Hendrik was Dutch. So was Rutgers. Could he belong?
"I beg your pardon, moth--Mrs. Goodchild," said H. R. so very
courteously and contritely that he looked old-fashioned. "You must
forgive me. But she _is_ beautiful! She will grow, God willing, to look
more like you every day. By making me regard the future with pleasurable
anticipation, you yourself give me one more reason why I must marry
Grace."
Grace looked at her mother and smiled--at the effect. Mrs. Goodchild
confessed to forty-six.
"I am making Grace Goodchild famous," H. R. pursued, briskly, and paused
that they might listen attentively to what was to follow.
Mother and daughter looked at him with irrepressible curiosity. Their
own lives had so few red-blooded thrills for them that they enjoyed
theatricals as being "real life." This man was an Experience!
He shook his head and explained, mournfully: "It is very strange, this
thing of not belonging to yourself but to the world. It is a sacrifice
Grace must make!"
His voice rang with a subtle regret. But suddenly he raised his head
proudly and looked straight at her.
"It is a sacrifice worth making--for the sake of the downtrodden whom
you will uplift with your beauty. _Au revoir_, Grace. _I am needed!_"
He approached her. She tried to draw back. He halted before her, took
her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it.
"I am the dirt under your feet," he murmured, and left the room.
His was the gait of the Invincibles. He had cast a bewitching spell of
unreality over the entire drawing-room that made Grace feel like both
actress and audience.
She heard him in the hall calling, "Frederick!" And, after a brief
pause, "My hat and cane!"
There was another pause. Then she heard Frederick say, infinitely more
respectfully than Frederick had ever spoken to Mr. Goodchild, "Thank
_you_ very much, sir."
Mrs. Goodchild paid Frederick by the month for working. H. R. had given
Frederick twenty dollars for being an utterly useless menial. Hence
Frederick's logical gratitude and respect.