“Can I see Mr. Waddington?” asked George, accepting the second-best.
“Mr. Waddington is not at home.”
George hesitated a moment before he spoke again. But love conquers all.
“Can I see Mrs. Waddington?”
“Mrs. Waddington is not at home.”
As the butler spoke, there proceeded from the upper regions of the house a commanding female voice that inquired of an unseen Sigsbee how many times the speaker had told him not to smoke in the drawing-room.
“But I can hear her,” George pointed out.
The butler shrugged his shoulders with an aloof gesture, as if disclaiming all desire to go into these mysteries. His look suggested that he thought George might possibly be psychic.
“Mrs. Waddington is not at home,” he said once more.
There was a pause.
“Nice morning,” said George.
“The weather appears to be clement,” agreed Ferris.
George then tumbled backwards down the steps, and the interview concluded.
IV
I
“Tell me all,” said Hamilton Beamish.
George told him all. The unfortunate young man was still looking licked to a splinter. For several hours he had been wandering distractedly through the streets of New York, and now he had crawled into Hamilton Beamish’s apartment in the hope that a keener mind than his own might be able to detect in the encompassing clouds a silver lining which he himself had missed altogether.
“Let me get this clear,” said Hamilton Beamish. “You called at the house?”
“Yes.”
“And the butler refused to admit you?”
“Yes.”
Hamilton Beamish regarded his stricken friend compassionately.
“My poor cloth-headed George,” he said, “you appear to have made a complete mess of things. By being impetuous you have ruined everything. Why could you not have waited and let me introduce you into this house in a normal and straightforward fashion, in my capacity of an old friend of the family? I would have started you right. As things are, you have allowed yourself to take on the semblance of an outcast.”
“But when old Waddington invited me to dinner—actually invited me to dinner. …”
“You should have kicked him in the eye and made good your escape,” said Hamilton Beamish firmly. “Surely, after all that I said to you about Sigsbee H. Waddington, you were under no illusion that his patronage would make you popular in the home? Sigsbee H. Waddington is one of those men who have only to express a liking for anybody to cause their wives to look on him as something out of the Underworld. Sigsbee H. Waddington could not bring the Prince of Wales home to dinner and get away with it. And when he drags in and lays on the mat a specimen—I use the word in the kindliest spirit—like you, and does so, moreover, five minutes before the start of a formal dinner-party, thus upsetting the seating arrangements and leading to black thoughts in the kitchen, can you blame his wife for not fawning on you? And on top of that you pretend to be an artist.”
“I am an artist,” said George, with a flicker of spirit. It was a subject on which he held strong views.
“The point is a debatable one. And, anyhow, you should have concealed it from Mrs. Waddington. A woman of her type looks on artists as blots on the social scheme. I told you she judged her fellow-creatures entirely by their balance at the bank.”
“I have plenty of money.”
“How was she to know that? You tell her you are an artist, and she naturally imagines you. …”
The telephone rang shrilly, interrupting Mr. Beamish’s flow of thought. There was an impatient frown on his face as he unhooked the receiver, but a moment later this had passed away and, when he spoke, it was in a kindly and indulgent tone.
“Ah, Molly, my child!”
“Molly!” cried George.
Hamilton Beamish ignored the exclamation.
“Yes,” he said. “He is a great friend of mine.”
“Me?” said George.
Hamilton Beamish continued to accord him that complete lack of attention characteristic of the efficient telephoner when addressed while at the instrument.
“Yes, he has been telling me about it. He’s here now.”
“Does she want me to speak to her?” quavered George.
“Certainly, I’ll come at once.”
Hamilton Beamish replaced the receiver, and stood for awhile in thought.
“What did she say?” asked George, deeply moved.
“This is interesting,” said Hamilton Beamish.
“What did she say?”
“This causes me to revise my views to some extent.”
“What did she say?”
“And yet I might have foreseen it.”
“What did she say?”
Hamilton Beamish rubbed his chin meditatively.
“The mind of a girl works oddly.”
“What did she say?”
“That was Molly Waddington,” said Hamilton Beamish.
“What did she say?”
“I am by no means sure,” said Mr. Beamish regarding George owlishly through his spectacles, “that, after all, everything has not happened for the best. I omitted to take into my calculations the fact that what has occurred would naturally give you in the eyes of a warmhearted girl, surrounded normally by men with incomes in six figures, a certain romantic glamour. Any girl with nice instincts must inevitably be attracted to a penniless artist whom her mother forbids her to see.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked me if you were a friend of mine.”
“And then what did she say?”
“She told me that her stepmother had forbidden you the house and that she had been expressly ordered never to see you again.”
“And what did she say after that?”
“She asked me to come up to the house and have a talk.”
“About me?”
“So I imagine.”
“You’re going?”
“At once.”
“Hamilton,” said George in a quivering voice, “Hamilton, old man, pitch it strong!”
“You mean, speak enthusiastically on your behalf?”
“I mean just that. How well you put these things, Hamilton!”
Hamilton Beamish took up his hat and placed it on his head.
“It is strange,” he said meditatively, “that I should be assisting you in this matter.”
“It’s your good heart,” said George. “You have a heart of gold.”
“You have fallen in love at first sight, and my views on love at first sight are well known.”
“They’re all wrong.”
“My views are never wrong.”
“I don’t mean wrong exactly,” said George with sycophantic haste. “I mean that in certain cases love at first
