her third year had succeeded in curing Bingley of his habit of beginning his remarks with the words 'Say, lemme tell ya something.' Her progress, in short, was beginning to assume the aspect of a walk-over.
Against her complete contentment and satisfaction only one thing militated. That was the behaviour of her step-son, Jimmy.
It was of Jimmy that she spoke when, having hung the receiver on its hook, she returned to the breakfast- room. Bayliss had silently withdrawn, and Mr. Crocker was sitting in sombre silence at the table.
'A most fortunate thing has happened, Bingley,' she said. 'It was most kind of dear Lady Corstorphine to ring me up. It seems that her nephew, Lord Percy Whipple, is back in England. He has been in Ireland for the past three years, on the staff of the Lord Lieutenant, and only arrived in London yesterday afternoon. Lady Corstorphine has promised to arrange a meeting between him and James. I particularly want them to be friends.'
'Eugenia,' said Mr. Crocker in a hollow voice, 'do you know they call baseball Rounders over here, and children play it with a soft ball?'
'James is becoming a serious problem. It is absolutely necessary that he should make friends with the right kind of young men.'
'And a racquet,' said Mr. Crocker.
'Please listen to what I am saying, Bingley. I am talking about James. There is a crude American strain in him which seems to grow worse instead of better. I was lunching with the Delafields at the Carlton yesterday, and there, only a few tables away, was James with an impossible young man in appalling clothes. It was outrageous that James should have been seen in public at all with such a person. The man had a broken nose and talked through it. He was saying in a loud voice that made everybody turn round something about his left-scissors hook-- whatever that may have been. I discovered later that he was a low professional pugilist from New York--a man named Spike Dillon, I think Captain Wroxton said. And Jimmy was giving him lunch--at the -Carlton!-'
Mr. Crocker said nothing. Constant practice had made him an adept at saying nothing when his wife was talking.
'James must be made to realise his responsibilities. I shall have to speak to him. I was hearing only the other day of a most deserving man, extremely rich and lavishly generous in his contributions to the party funds, who was only given a knighthood, simply because he had a son who had behaved in a manner that could not possibly be overlooked. The present Court is extraordinarily strict in its views. James cannot be too careful. A certain amount of wildness in a young man is quite proper in the best set, provided that he is wild in the right company. Every one knows that young Lord Datchet was ejected from the Empire Music-Hall on Boat-Race night every year during his residence at Oxford University, but nobody minds. The family treats it as a joke. But James has such low tastes. Professional pugilists! I believe that many years ago it was not unfashionable for young men in Society to be seen about with such persons, but those days are over. I shall certainly speak to James. He cannot afford to call attention to himself in any way. That breach-of-promise case of his three years ago, is, I hope and trust, forgotten, but the slightest slip on his part might start the papers talking about it again, and that would be fatal. The eventual successor to a title must be quite as careful as--'
It was not, as has been hinted above, the usual practice of Mr. Crocker to interrupt his wife when she was speaking, but he did it now.
'Say!'
Mrs. Crocker frowned.
'I wish, Bingley--and I have told you so often--that you would not begin your sentences with the word 'Say'! It is such a revolting Americanism. Suppose some day when you are addressing the House of Lords you should make a slip like that! The papers would never let you hear the end of it.'
Mr. Crocker was swallowing convulsively, as if testing his larynx with a view to speech. Like Saul of Tarsus, he had been stricken dumb by the sudden bright light which his wife's words had caused to flash upon him. Frequently during his sojourn in London he had wondered just why Eugenia had settled there in preference to her own country. It was not her wont to do things without an object, yet until this moment he had been unable to fathom her motives. Even now it seemed almost incredible. And yet what meaning would her words have other than the monstrous one which had smitten him as a blackjack?
'Say--I mean, Eugenia--you don't want--you aren't trying--you aren't working to--you haven't any idea of trying to get them to make me a Lord, have you?'
'It is what I have been working for all these years!'
'But--but why? Why? That's what I want to know. Why?'
Mrs. Crocker's fine eyes glittered.
'I will tell you why, Bingley. Just before we were married I had a talk with my sister Nesta. She was insufferably offensive. She referred to you in terms which I shall never forgive. She affected to look down on you, to think that I was marrying beneath me. So I am going to make you an English peer and send Nesta a newspaper clipping of the Birthday Honours with your name in it, if I have to keep working till I die! Now you know!'
Silence fell. Mr. Crocker drank cold coffee. His wife stared with gleaming eyes into the glorious future.
'Do you mean that I shall have to stop on here till they make me a lord?' said Mr. Crocker limply.
'Yes.'
'Never go back to America?'
'Not till we have succeeded.'
'Oh Gee! Oh Gosh! Oh Hell!' said Mr. Crocker, bursting the bonds of years.
Mrs. Crocker though resolute, was not unkindly. She made allowances for her husband's state of mind. She was willing to permit even American expletives during the sinking-in process of her great idea, much as a broad-minded cowboy might listen indulgently to the squealing of a mustang during the branding process. Docility and obedience would he demanded of him later, but not till the first agony had abated. She spoke soothingly to him.
'I am glad we have had this talk, Bingley. It is best that you should know. It will help you to realise your responsibilities. And that brings me back to James. Thank goodness Lord Percy Whipple is in town. He is about James' age, and from what Lady Corstorphine tells me will be an ideal friend for him. You understand who he is, of course? The second son of the Duke of Devizes, the Premier's closest friend, the man who can practically dictate
