Meditatively, Mr. Farquhar patted his mouth with a napkin, moved his plate aside, and considered his nephew.
“You will have to tell her,” he at last remarked. “That will be a bit awkward.”
Manfully, Harry exclaimed: “I’ll write her.”
Mr. Farquhar flicked a crumb from his sleeve.
“Suppose I take a hand. Suppose I go and break it gently. That would be better than writing—unless you used a pencil. Writing with a pencil is like talking in a whisper. Ink, don’t you think, is so emphatic?”
“But,” objected Harry, “I’d have to give you a line to her.”
“There, there!” Mr. Farquhar soothingly replied. “Don’t run into excesses. Besides, while I have received any number of letters of introduction, never yet have I presented one.” With an uplift of the chin he resumed: “My name is sufficient.”
As he spoke, he arose.
“You will go to her now?” Harry, rising also, heroically inquired.
“Yes.”
Mr. Farquhar was as good as his word. Presently, in a hansom, he was sailing along toward the residence of this girl, who, on alighting, he learned was at home.
Telling the servant the sesame of that name of his, he looked about the room into which the servant then showed him. It was furnished with plenty of taste, and, to his surprise, none of it bad. But his surprise heightened when the girl herself appeared. Instead of the vulgar young person whom he had imagined, here, a hand extended to this uncle of her betrothed, was a superselect beauty speaking in a voice that was silken:
“I am so glad to see you. Harry has so often—But won’t you be seated?” Mr. Farquhar heard, but did not heed. He was thinking how could he tell this loveliness that his nephew would not marry her, and would not, moreover, because of distasteful things of which she was innocent, and doubtless unaware. He simply could not. All the innate gentility in him rebelled. It was impossible. He would lie first. And at once, in an unhallowed inspiration, the lie hopped out:
“Harry is no more!”
The girl started.
“Dead?”
“Worse!”
At this questions and exclamation marks shot from the beauty’s eyes.
“Yes,” Mr. Farquhar resumed. “Not an hour ago the young scoundrel eloped with an old harridan, hang him!”
Bewilderment lifted the girl visibly, like a lash.
“What?”
“And hanging is too good for him; he ought to have his ghost kicked.”
“But—”
“An old harridan! A hunchback dwarf! With a harelip at that!”
“But—”
“I know. When he could have had you! How, you wonder, can such a thing be. Believe me, in your wonderment I collaborate.”
“But—”
“I know. I appreciate. Yet now, as you may see, it is but a case of good riddance to bad rubbish. I came to condole, I remain to congratulate.”
The girl turned, crossed the room, recrossed it, sat down.
Mr. Farquhar eyed her, and, eying, divined the effort she was making to readjust herself. In looking at her he saw she was looking at the floor, and saw, too, that she looked infernally pretty. Beauty in distress is very appealing. Yet was she, Mr. Farquhar asked himself, really distressed? Concerning Harry, he had no illusions. He was a nice boy, but, otherwise, from the avuncular standpoint, an imbecile, whereas this girl was charming—so charming that he realized, as never before, what a confounded fool Harry was.
Through what miracle charm of any kind had been evolved in this young woman, whose antecedents were so clearly precarious, Harry’s uncle, accustomed as he was to the multiple surprises of metropolitan life, no more thought of attempting to determine than he would have thought of dissecting a rose. Instead of anything so futile he moved to where she sat.
There, impelled by sudden sympathy, by a sympathy which was new to him, he spoke:
“My dear child, you think you have lost something. Believe me, you have gained.”
The girl, who had been looking down, looked up. Her eyes—diamonds on purple velvet—were tearless. In their deep depths grief had either sunk away or else been throttled.
“You are undoubtedly right,” she answered, in that silken voice of hers. “Besides, it is at least consoling to know that—”
“That love returns to the heart as the leaf returns to the tree,” Mr. Farquhar swiftly and sagaciously interjected.
But the feminine in her was not to be denied.
“It is at least consoling to know that the lady is—er—well—what you tell me.”
Subtly, with tender calm, Mr. Farquhar retouched the picture: “A monster!”
The girl smiled.
“I wish them both joy.” As she spoke she stood up. “Will you have some tea?”
Mr. Farquhar would, and did. He had tea with her that day, and on the next, and on the day after, and the day succeeding. He had tea with her so often that he found time to tell her certain things, and to learn certain others.
He told her that he was not as young as he might be—which perhaps was evident. He told her that in point of worldly goods, he classed himself among the newly poor—which, it may be, she suspected.
Then novelties were produced. He told her that he had loved her at first sight—which, he told her also is often second sight—and that phenomenon sufficiently explained, he told her that he was lonely, and learned that so was she; learned, too, and rather to his surprise, that this loneliness she attributed to her father.
“I did not know you knew,” said Mr. Farquhar, who, at the moment, found but that.
The girl nodded. “I have for years.” She brushed a tear. “But how shall it matter? The doctors say he cannot live.”
Nor did he. Afterward, after a decent interval, that is, Mr. Farquhar told her something else. He told the rhyme and reason of his lie.
“But!” the girl exclaimed.
Her hand had been in his, her head on his shoulder. At once she moved a little away. A perspective had suddenly unfolded. In it she saw a nephew’s cowardice, an uncle’s bravery. The one amused, the other appealed. But of these inward emotions she gave no outward
