Oh, yes, you will find that wealth makes a great difference, Billy. But not with Adele and me—no, dear boy, despise us if you will, but my child and I are not mercenary. Money makes no difference with us; we shall be the same to you that we always were—sincerely interested in your true welfare, overjoyed at your present good fortune, prayerful as to your brilliant future, and delighted to have you drop in any evening to dinner. We do not consider money the chief blessing of life; no, don't tell me that most people are different, Billy, for I know it very well, and many is the tear that thought has cost me. We live in a very mercenary world, my dear boy; but
Thus in the shadow of the Eagle babbled the woman whom—for all her absurdities—Margaret had loved as a mother.
Billy thanked her with an angry heart.
'And this'—I give you the gist of his meditations—'this is Peggy's dearest friend! Oh, Philanthropy, are thy protestations, then, all void and empty, and are thy noblest sentiments—every one of 'em—so full of sound and rhetoric, so specious, so delectable—are these, then, but dicers' oaths!'
Aloud, 'I'm rather surprised, you know,' he said, slowly, 'that you take it just this way, Mrs. Haggage. I should have thought you'd have been sorry on—on Miss Hugonin's account. It's awfully jolly of you, of course—oh, awfully jolly, and I appreciate it at its true worth, I assure you. But it's a bit awkward, isn't it, that the poor girl will be practically penniless? I really don't know whom she'll turn to now.'
Then Billy, the diplomatist, received a surprise.
'She'll come with me, of course,' said Mrs. Haggage.
Mr. Woods made an—unfortunately—inaudible observation.
'I beg your pardon?' she queried. Then, obtaining no response, she continued, with perfect simplicity: 'Margaret's quite like a daughter to me, you know. Of course, she and the Colonel will come with us—at least, until affairs are a bit more settled. Even afterward—well, we have a large house, Billy, and I don't see that they'd be any better off anywhere else.'
Billy's emotions were complex.
'You big-hearted old parasite,' his own heart was singing. 'If you could only keep that ring of truth that's in your voice for your platform utterances—why, in less than no time you could afford to feed your Afro-Americans on nightingales' tongues and clothe every working-girl in the land in cloth of gold! You've been pilfering from Peggy for years—pilfering right and left with both hands! But you've loved her all the time, God bless you; and now the moment she's in trouble you're ready to take both her and the Colonel—whom, by the way, you must very cordially detest—and share your pitiful, pilfered little crusts with 'em and—having two more mouths to feed—probably pilfer a little more outrageously in the future! You're a sanctimonious old hypocrite, you are, and a pious fraud, and a delusion, and a snare, and you and Adele have nefarious designs on me at this very moment, but I think I'd like to kiss you!'
Indeed, I believe Mr. Woods came very near doing so. She loved Peggy, you see; and he loved every one who loved her.
But he compromised by shaking hands energetically, for a matter of five minutes, and entreating to be allowed to subscribe to some of her deserving charitable enterprises—any one she might mention—and so left the old lady a little bewildered, but very much pleased.
She decided that for the future Adele must not see so much of Mr. Van Orden. She began to fear that gentleman's views of life were not sufficiently serious.
XIX
Billy went into the gardens in pursuit of Margaret. He was almost happy now and felt vaguely ashamed of himself. Then he came upon Kathleen Saumarez, who, indeed, was waiting for him there; and his heart went down into his boots.
He realised on a sudden that he was one of the richest men in America.
It was a staggering thought. Also, Mr. Woods's views, at this moment, as to the advantages of wealth, might have been interesting.
Kathleen stood silent for an instant, eyes downcast, face flushed. She was trembling.
Then, 'Billy,' she asked, almost inaudibly, 'do—do you still want—your answer?'
The birds sang about them. Spring triumphed in the gardens. She looked very womanly and very pretty.
To all appearances, it might easily have been a lover and his lass met in the springtide, shamefaced after last night's kissing. But Billy, somehow, lacked much of the elation and the perfect content and the disposition to burst into melody that is currently supposed to seize upon rustic swains at such moments. He merely wanted to know if at any time in the remote future his heart would be likely to resume the discharge of its proper functions. It was standing still now.
However, 'Can you ask—dear?' His words, at least, lied gallantly.
The poor woman looked up into Billy's face. After years of battling with the world, here for the asking was peace and luxury and wealth incalculable, and—as Kathleen thought—a love that had endured since they were boy and girl together. Yet she shrunk from him a little and clinched her hands before she spoke.
'Yes,' Kathleen faltered, and afterward she shuddered.
And here, if for the moment I may prefigure the Eagle as a sentient being, I can imagine his chuckle.
'Please God,' thought poor Billy, 'I will make her happy. Yes, please God, I can at least do that, since she cares for me.'
Then he kissed her.
'My dear,' said he, aloud, 'I'll try to make you happy. And—and you don't mind, do you, if I leave you now?' queried this ardent lover.
'You see, it's absolutely necessary I should see—see Miss Hugonin about this will business. You don't mind very much, do you—darling?'
Mr. Woods inquired of her, the last word being rather obviously an afterthought.
'No,' said she. 'Not if you must—dear.'
Billy went away, lugging a heart of lead in his breast.
Kathleen stared after him and gave a hard, wringing motion of her hands. She had done what many women do daily; the thing is common and sensible and universally commended; but in her own eyes, the draggled trollop of the pavements was neither better nor worse than she.
At the entrance of the next walkway Billy encountered Felix Kennaston—alone and in the most ebulliently mirthful of humours.
XX
But we had left Mr. Kennaston, I think, in company with Miss Hugonin, at the precise moment she inquired of him whether it were not the strangest thing in the world—referring thereby to the sudden manner in which she had been disinherited.
The poet laughed and assented. Afterward, turning north from the front court, they descended past the shield-bearing griffins—and you may depend upon it that each shield is adorned with a bas-relief of the Eagle—that guard the broad stairway leading to the formal gardens of Selwoode. The gardens stretch northward to the confines of Peter Blagden's estate of Gridlington; and for my part—unless it were that primitive garden that Adam lost—I can imagine no goodlier place.
On this particular forenoon, however, neither Miss Hugonin nor Felix Kennaston had eyes for its comeliness; silently they braved the griffins, and in silence they skirted the fish-pond—silver-crinkling in the May morning—and passed through cloistral ilex-shadowed walks, and amphitheatres of green velvet, and terraces ample and mellow in
