“Does he?” Mr. Vanderpoel inquired.
“He’s straight,” said G. Selden sympathetically. “He’s all right. But only money can help him, and he’s got none, so he has to stand and stare at things falling to pieces. And—well, I tell you, Mr. Vanderpoel, he LOVES that place —he’s crazy about it. And he’s proud—I don’t mean he’s got the swell-head, because he hasn’t—but he’s just proud. Now, for instance, he hasn’t any use for men like himself that marry just for money. He’s seen a lot of it, and it’s made him sick. He’s not that kind.”
He had been asked and had answered a good many questions before he went away, but each had dropped into the talk so incidentally that he had not recognised them as queries. He did not know that Lord Mount Dunstan stood out a clearly defined figure in Mr. Vanderpoel’s mind, a figure to be reflected upon, and one not without its attraction.
“Miss Vanderpoel tells me,” Mr. Vanderpoel said, when the interview was drawing to a close, “that you are an agent for the Delkoff typewriter.”
G. Selden flushed slightly.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, “but I didn’t–-“
“I hear that three machines are in use on the Stornham estate, and that they have proved satisfactory.”
“It’s a good machine,” said G. Selden, his flush a little deeper.
Mr. Vanderpoel smiled.
“You are a businesslike young man,” he said, “and I have no doubt you have a catalogue in your pocket.”
G. Selden was a businesslike young man. He gave Mr. Vanderpoel one serious look, and the catalogue was drawn forth.
“It wouldn’t be business, sir, for me to be caught out without it,” he said. “I shouldn’t leave it behind if I went to a funeral. A man’s got to run no risks.”
“I should like to look at it.”
The thing had happened. It was not a dream. Reuben S. Vanderpoel, clothed and in his right mind, had, without pressure being exerted upon him, expressed his desire to look at the catalogue—to examine it—to have it explained to him at length.
He listened attentively, while G. Selden did his best. He asked a question now and then, or made a comment. His manner was that of a thoroughly composed man of business, but he was remembering what Betty had told him of the “ten per,” and a number of other things. He saw the flush come and go under the still boyish skin, he observed that G. Selden’s hand was not wholly steady, though he was making an effort not to seem excited. But he was excited. This actually meant—this thing so unimportant to multimillionaires —that he was having his “chance,” and his young fortunes were, perhaps, in the balance.
“Yes,” said Reuben S., when he had finished, “it seems a good, up-to-date machine.”
“It’s the best on the market,” said G. Selden, “out and out, the best.”
“I understand you are only junior salesman?”
“Yes, sir. Ten per and five dollars on every machine I sell. If I had a territory, I should get ten.”
“Then,” reflectively, “the first thing is to get a territory.”
“Perhaps I shall get one in time, if I keep at it,” said Selden courageously.
“It is a good machine. I like it,” said Mr. Vanderpoel. “I can see a good many places where it could be used. Perhaps, if you make it known at your office that when you are given a good territory, I shall give preference to the Delkoff over other typewriting machines, it might—eh?”
A light broke out upon G. Selden’s countenance—a light radiant and magnificent. He caught his breath. A desire to shout—to yell—to whoop, as when in the society of “the boys,” was barely conquered in time.
“Mr. Vanderpoel,” he said, standing up, “I—Mr. Vanderpoel—sir—I feel as if I was having a pipe dream. I’m not, am I?”
“No,” answered Mr. Vanderpoel, “you are not. I like you, Mr. Selden. My daughter liked you. I do not mean to lose sight of you. We will begin, however, with the territory, and the Delkoff. I don’t think there will be any difficulty about it.”
… . .
Ten minutes later G. Selden was walking down Fifth Avenue, wondering if there was any chance of his being arrested by a policeman upon the charge that he was reeling, instead of walking steadily. He hoped he should get back to the hall bedroom safely. Nick Baumgarten and Jem Bolter both “roomed” in the house with him. He could tell them both. It was Jem who had made up the yarn about one of them saving Reuben S. Vanderpoel’s life. There had been no life-saving, but the thing had come true.
“But, if it hadn’t been for Lord Mount Dunstan,” he said, thinking it over excitedly, “I should never have seen Miss Vanderpoel, and, if it hadn’t been for Miss Vanderpoel, I should never have got next to Reuben S. in my life. Both sides of the Atlantic Ocean got busy to do a good turn to Little Willie. Hully gee!”
In his study Mr. Vanderpoel was rereading Betty’s letters. He felt that he had gained a certain knowledge of Lord Mount Dunstan.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ON THE MARSHES
THE marshes stretched mellow in the autumn sun, sheep wandered about, nibbling contentedly, or lay down to rest in groups, the sky reflecting itself in the narrow dykes gave a blue colour to the water, a scent of the sea was in the air as one breathed it, flocks of plover rose, now and then, crying softly. Betty, walking with her dog, had passed a heron standing at the edge of a pool.
From her first discovery of them, she had been attracted by the marshes with their English suggestion of the Roman Campagna, their broad expanse of level land spread out to the sun and wind, the thousands of white sheep dotted or clustered as far as eye could reach, the hues of the marsh grass and the plants growing thick at the borders of the strips of water. Its beauty was all its own and curiously aloof from the softly-wooded, undulating world about it. Driving or walking along the high road—the road the Romans had built to London town long
