III
“Oh, Jimmy, it was sweet of you to come,” said Molly.
Hamilton Beamish patted her hand absently. He was too preoccupied to notice the hateful name by which she had addressed him.
“I have had a wonderful experience,” he said.
“So have I. I think I’m in love.”
“I have given the matter as close attention as has been possible, in the limited time at my disposal,” said Hamilton Beamish, “and I have reached the conclusion that I, too, am in love.”
“I think I am in love with your friend, George Finch.”
“I am in love with …” Hamilton Beamish paused. “I don’t know her name. She is a most charming girl. I met her coming up here on the bus, and we talked for awhile on the front doorsteps. I took something out of her eye.”
Molly stared incredulously.
“You have fallen in love with a girl and you don’t know who she is? But I thought you always said that love was a reasoned emotion and all that.”
“One’s views alter,” said Hamilton Beamish. “A man’s intellectual perceptions do not stand still. One develops.”
“I was never so surprised in my life.”
“It came as a complete surprise to me,” said Hamilton Beamish. “It is excessively aggravating that I do not know her name nor where she lives nor anything about her except that she appears to be a friend—or at least an acquaintance—of your stepmother.”
“Oh, she knows mother, does she?”
“Apparently. She was calling here by appointment.”
“All sorts of weird people call on mother. She is honorary secretary to about a hundred societies.”
“This girl was of medium height, with an extremely graceful figure and bright brown hair. She wore a two-piece suit with a coat of fine quality repp over a long-sleeved frock of figured Marocain pleated at the sides and finished at the neck with a small collar and kilted frill. Her hat was of Yedda Visca straw, trimmed and bound with silk petersham ribbon. She had patent-leather shoes, silk stockings, and eyes of tender grey like the mists of sunrise floating over some magic pool of Fairyland. Does the description suggest anybody to you?”
“No, I don’t think so—She sounds nice.”
“She is nice. I gazed into those eyes only for a moment, but I shall never forget them. They were deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even.”
“I could ask mother who she is.”
“I should be greatly obliged if you would do so,” said Hamilton Beamish. “Mention that it is someone upon whom she is to call at five o’clock tomorrow, and telephone me the name and address. Oh, to seize her and hold her close to me and kiss her again and again and again! And now, child, tell me of yourself. I think you mentioned that you also were in love.”
“Yes. With George Finch.”
“A capital fellow.”
“He’s a lambkin,” emended Molly warmly.
“A lambkin, if you prefer it.”
“And I asked you to come here today to tell me what I ought to do. You see, mother doesn’t like him.”
“So I gathered.”
“She has forbidden him the house.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it’s because he has no money.”
Hamilton Beamish was on the point of mentioning that George had an almost indecent amount of money, but he checked himself. Who was he that he should destroy a young girl’s dreams? It was as a romantic and penniless artist that George Finch had won this girl’s heart. It would be cruel to reveal the fact that he was rich and the worst artist in New York.
“Your stepmother,” he agreed, “is apt to see eye to eye with Bradstreet in her estimation of her fellows.”
“I don’t care if he hasn’t any money,” said Molly. “You know that, when I marry, I get that pearl necklace that father bought for mother. It’s being held in trust for me. I can sell it and get thousands of dollars, so that we shall be as right as anything.”
“Quite.”
“But, of course, I don’t want to make a runaway marriage if I can help it. I want to be married with bridesmaids and cake and presents and photographs in the rotogravure section and everything.”
“Naturally.”
“So the point is, mother must learn to love George. Now listen, Jimmy dear. Mother will be going to see her palmist, very soon—she’s always going to palmists, you know.”
Hamilton Beamish nodded. He had not been aware of this trait in Mrs. Waddington’s character, but he could believe anything of her. Now that he came to consider the matter, he recognised that Mrs. Waddington was precisely the sort of woman who, in the intervals of sitting in the salons of beauty specialists with green mud on her face, would go to palmists.
“And what you must do is to go to this palmist before mother gets there and bribe her to say that my only happiness is bound up with a brown-haired artist whose name begins with a G.”
“I scarcely think that even a palmist would make Mrs. Waddington believe that.”
“She believes everything Madame Eulalie sees in the crystal.”
“But hardly that.”
“No, perhaps you’re right. Well, then, you must get Madame Eulalie at least to steer mother off Lord Hunstanton. Last night, she told me in so many words that she wanted me to marry him. He’s always here, and it’s awful.”
“I could do that, of course.”
“And you will?”
“Certainly.”
“You’re a darling. I should think she would do it for ten dollars.”
“Twenty at the outside.”
“Then that’s settled. I knew I could rely on you. By the way, will you tell George something quite casually?”
“Anything you wish.”
“Just mention to him that, if he happens to be strolling in Central Park tomorrow afternoon near the Zoo, we might run into each other.”
“Very well.”
“And now,” said Molly, “tell me all about George and how you came to know one another and what you thought of him when you first saw him and what he likes for breakfast and what he talks about and what he said about me.”
IV
It might have been expected that the passage of time, giving opportunity for quiet
