The tone of the question revealed its perfunctory character.
"Oh--Beatrice--she's of no importance," the father replied.
"She goes in for writing, and all that--she's not a beauty, you know--she lives with an old lady in Scotland.
The oldest daughter--Blanche--she has some good looks of her own, but she's a cat. And so you met Edith! May I ask where it was?""At Hadlow House--Lord Plowden's place, you know."The General's surprise at the announcement was undoubted.
"At Plowden's!" he repeated, and added, as if half to himself, "I thought that was all over with, long ago.""I wish you'd tell me about it," said Thorpe, daringly.
"I've made it plain to you, haven't I? I'm going to look out for you. And I want you to post me up, here, on some of the things that I don't understand.
You remember that it was Plowden who introduced you to me, don't you? It was through him that you got on the Board.
Well, certain things that I've seen lead me to suppose that he did that in order to please your daughter.
Did you understand it that way?"
"It's quite likely, in one sense," returned the General.
He spoke with much deliberation now, weighing all his words.
"He may have thought it would please her; he may not have known how little my poor affairs concerned her.""Well, then," pursued Thorpe, argumentatively, "he had an object in pleasing her. Let me ask the question--did he want to marry her?"
"Most men want to marry her," was the father's non-committal response. His moustache lifted itself in the semblance of a smile, but the blue eyes above remained coldly vigilant.
"Well--I guess that's so too," Thorpe remarked.
He made a fleeting mental note that there was something about the General which impelled him to think and talk more like an American than ever. "But was HE specially affected that way?""I think," said Kervick, judicially, "I think it was understood that if he had been free to marry a penniless wife, he would have wished to marry her.""Do you know," Thorpe began again, with a kind of diffident hesitation--"do you happen to have formed an idea--supposing that had been the case--would she have accepted him?""Ah, there you have me," replied the other. "Who can tell what women will accept, and what they will refuse? My daughter refused Lord Lingfield--and he is an Under-Secretary, and will be Earl Chobham, and a Cabinet Minister, and a rich man. After that, what are you to say?""You speak of her as penniless," Thorpe remarked, with a casual air.
"Six hundred a year," the father answered.
"We could have rubbed along after a fashion on it, if she had had any notions at all of taking my advice.
I'm a man of the world, and I could have managed her affairs for her to her advantage, but she insisted upon going off by herself. She showed not the slightest consideration for me--but then I am accustomed to that."Thorpe smiled reflectively, and the old gentleman read in this an encouragement to expand his grievances.
"In my position," he continued, helping himself to still another tiny glass, "I naturally say very little.
It is not my form to make complaints and advertise my misfortunes. I daresay it's a fault. I know it kept me back in India--while ever so many whipper-snappers were promoted over my head--because I was of the proud and silent sort. It was a mistake, but it was my nature.
I might have put by a comfortable provision for my old age, in those days, if I had been willing to push my claims, and worry the Staff into giving me what was my due.
But that I declined to do--and when I was retired, there was nothing for me but the ration of bread and salt which they serve out to the old soldier who has been too modest.
I served my Queen, sir, for forty years--and I should be ashamed to tell you the allowance she makes me in my old age. But I do not complain. My mouth is closed.
I am an English gentleman and one of Her Majesty's soldiers.
That's enough said, eh? Do you follow me? And about my family affairs, I'm not likely to talk to the first comer, eh? But to you I say it frankly--they've behaved badly, damned badly, sir.
"Mrs. Kervick lives in Italy, at the cost of HERson-in-law. He has large estates in one of the healthiest and most beautiful parts; he has a palace, and more money than he knows what to do with--but it seems that he's not my son-in-law. I could do with Italy very well--but that doesn't enter into anyone's calculations. No! let the worn-out old soldier sell boot-laces on the kerb!
That's the spirit of woman-kind. And my daughter Edith--does she care what becomes of me? Listen to me--Isecured for her the very greatest marriage in England.
She would have been Duchess of Glastonbury today if her husband had not played the fool and drowned himself.""What's that you say?" put in Thorpe, swiftly.
"It was as good as suicide," insisted the General, with doggedness. His face had become a deeper red.
"They didn't hit it off together, and he left in a huff, and went yachting with his father, who was his own sailing-master--and, as might be expected, they were both drowned.
The title would have gone to her son--but no, of course, she had no son--and so it passed to a stranger--an outsider that had been an usher in a school, or something of that sort. You can fancy what a blow this was to me.
Instead of being the grandfather of a Duke, I have a childless widow thrust back upon my hands! Fine luck, eh? And then, to cap all, she takes her six hundred a year and goes off by herself, and gives me the cold shoulder completely.
What is it Shakespeare says? 'How sharper than a serpent's teeth'----"Thorpe brought his fist down upon the table with an emphasis which abruptly broke the quotation in half.
He had been frowning moodily at his guest for some minutes, relighting his cigar more than once meanwhile. He had made a mental calculation of what the old man had had to drink, and had reassured himself as to his condition.
His garrulity might have an alcoholic basis, but his wits were clear enough. It was time to take a new line with him.
