Fordham's Feud Part 23

"Good again," said Fordham. "Now, are there any other daughters?"

"Three."

"Sons?"

"Three."

"Seven in the family. Right. Now, Phil, your line is this. You must put a prohibitive price upon yourself. Tell him straight that you are not going to wreck all your prospects in life for a girl you don't really care two straws about, and never will, and bring yourself down to beggary into the bargain. You can defeat him on the question of settlements--if you are only firm enough."

"But isn't that rather a shady standpoint to take up--eh, Fordham?" said Phil, dubiously. "Not quite one's form--eh?"

Fordham's dark brows came nearer together, and there was a sneer in the black, piercing eyes which were fixed on the younger man's face.

"My dear Phil," he replied, "if there is a phase of humanity in this latter-day world which invariably lays itself out to be kicked, hustled, jumped upon, bested all round, it is represented by the man whose 'form'

rises up to bar him fighting the devil with fire. 'Poor Satan!' say such fellows as yourself. 'It really isn't fair!' So, by way of equalising the chances, you surrender at discretion, and the enemy of mankind dances upon you _ad lib_. Here you have got to fight the devil with fire, and you won't do it, because, forsooth, it is 'not quite one's form.' You are simply the victim of a 'plant'--a not very cunningly baited trap--and yet you are going to let the devil--who for present purposes may be taken to mean the paternal Glover--bind you hand and foot for all time. Could ever lunacy be more complete--more hopeless?"

"Well, what shall I tell him?" said Philip, desperately.

"Tell him, in unequivocal terms, to go hang."

For a few moments Philip said nothing. He sat watching the smoke wreaths from his pipe curling up in blue circles upon the clear mountain air, a puzzled and helpless expression clouding his features. Then at last:

"I say, Fordham."

"Well?"

"I wish--er--I wish, old chap, you'd pull me through this affair. I mean--er--I wish you'd interview old Glover for me. You're so cool-headed, and I--well, I get in a rage and lose my nut. Why, this morning the old sinner and I were as nearly as possible coming to fisticuffs. We shouted at and d.a.m.ned each other, but what we said I haven't the faintest recollection."

"I don't care to undertake anything of the kind, Phil, and so I tell you candidly," answered Fordham.

"Why not, old chap?" was the doleful rejoinder.

"Because it is dead in the teeth of every ruling principle of my life to poke my nose into what doesn't concern me. You may say I have already done so in advising you at all. So I have, and to that extent I plead guilty to having been inconsistent. But two wrongs don't make a right, which we may take to mean that I don't see why I should violate my principles still further. Were I to undertake what you want me to, old Glover would begin by asking what the devil business it was of mine, anyhow. And the worst of it is, he would be right--quite right."

"Not of necessity," rejoined Philip, eagerly. "Surely you have a right to act for a friend; and for all he knows you may be my legal adviser.

I believe you must have been a lawyer once, you're so devilish coldblooded and logical. Now, say you'll do it."

Fordham's dark brows met, and he smoked silently for a few minutes.

"Coldblooded--logical," had said this careless youngster, who was merely paltering with the very outskirts of the grim web of circ.u.mstances which go to make up the tragedies--and travesties--of the serious side of life. "Coldblooded" was he now p.r.o.nounced; yet could he remember when his blood ran hot, surging and seething like the boiling and bubbling pitch. Now it lay still within his veins, cool and acrid as vinegar.

"And if I don't bring it off all right, or as you think all right, you'll turn round and abuse me," he said at last.

"You needn't be in the least afraid of that," answered Phil. "I'll give you a free hand to act as you think right."

"You will?"

"Of course."

"Now you're talking, as they say in the States. Well, Phil, I'll do what I can for you. But mind, you must leave everything in my hands unreservedly. None of your insane scruples about 'form,' or anything of that kind. Do you agree to this?"

"I do, unreservedly."

"Well, it's dead contrary to my principles, as I told you before; but for this once I'll throw judgment overboard, especially as it is to turn the flank of an infernal scheming, crafty female creature," added this misogynist, an acrid ring coming into his tone. "And now, Phil, you had better not go back to the hotel. Start off from here and walk somewhere till lunch-time--if you could make it till dinner-time, all the better.

By then I shall have knocked what change I can out of the exasperated but knowing British parent."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

FIGHTING THE DEVIL WITH FIRE.

Philip was only too ready to follow his friend's advice, and accordingly started away there and then--whither he did not care. His only thought was to get through the day somehow.

He had no wish to encounter old Glover again. In saying that he had had a considerable row with that worthy he had in no wise overstated matters. His marked abstention from the fair Edith's society the previous evening had been quite sufficient, and the old man had got up with the fixed determination of having it out with the defaulting swain, and withal giving the latter a very large piece of his mind. This was all very well. But old Glover, not being a gentleman himself, did not in the very least understand how to deal with gentlemen, and his method of handling his grievance was so much that of the triumphant trickster who has bested his neighbour over a bargain that it revolted Philip, unconsciously strengthening a resolve which was forming in his mind to avoid an alliance with connections of this sort at all costs and hazards.

Now, as he made his way up the mountain path with the quick elastic step of perfect physical condition, Philip began to feel more sanguine.

Fordham would get him out of the mess somehow. From where he was he could make out two figures strolling out from the hotel. He had no gla.s.ses with him, but felt sure they were Fordham and old Glover. They were at it already. Fordham was a wonderful fellow, and could do anything if he chose. It would not be surprising if he were to succeed in getting rid of the obnoxious Glovers altogether, and he--Philip--were to find the field clear again when he returned that evening. He felt quite hopeful.

Not for long, however. For he remembered there was another horn to the dilemma. He might free himself from the awkward position in which circ.u.mstances and his own thoughtlessness had combined to land him; but the new sweet relationship with Alma--ah! that was a thing of the past, and this he recognised with a keen unerring instinct hardly to be looked for in his easy-going nature. This he recognised with a despairing pang, and again his heart was heavy as lead within him.

The first person Fordham encountered on returning to the hotel was old Glover himself. The latter was seated on a pile of saw-planks stacked against a chalet, smoking the pipe of solitude and sweet and bitter fancies--probably the latter, if the expression of his countenance was aught to go by. So far from being prepared to resent his intervention, there was an eager look in the old man's eyes as he perceived Fordham, which was by no means lost upon that astute reader of human nature.

"Er--er--Mr Fordham?" he called out, the other having pa.s.sed him with a commonplace remark _in re_ the weather.

Fordham turned with just a gleam of well-feigned astonishment in his face.

"Ar--Mr Fordham," went on old Glover now more eagerly, "would you--ar-- mind accompanying me for a short stroll? I should--ar--like to have a few words with you."

"Certainly," was the reply, and an additional touch was thrown into the well-feigned astonishment. "I am quite at your disposal. Doing nothing this morning. We might stroll along the level towards the head of the valley."

The other a.s.sented with alacrity, and they started, Fordham keeping the conversation to strict commonplace until they had got clear of the cl.u.s.ters of chalets lining the path on either side. Then the valley opened out into wide, level meadows, and, crossing the log bridge over the swirling, rushing mountain torrent, Fordham led the way into one of these.

"Er--ar"--began old Glover, who had with difficulty restrained his eagerness up till now, "have you, may I ask, known young Orlebar for a considerable length of time?"

"A goodish while."

"Do you--ar--considar--that you know him well--er--I may say intimately?"

"Yes, I do."

"Er--now, Mr Fordham--you will--ar--excuse the question, I'm sure.

Have you always found him--ar--straightforward?"

"Invariably. Too much so, in fact, for his own interests."

"Ar--r!" The representative of British commerce drew himself up with a sidelong stare at his neighbour. This was a quality quite outside his comprehension. He began to suspect the other was making game of him.

The expanse of waistcoat swelled, and the folds of a truly magnificent pomposity deepened around its wearer as he went on. "Ar--I am sorry I cannot agree with you, Mr--ar--Fordham--very sorry indeed. In his dealings with me--with me and mine--young Orlebar has, I regret to say, shown the--ar--very reverse of straightforwardness. Are you aware, sir, that he is engaged to my daughter?"