Galusha the Magnificent Part 79

"Humph! Say, Loosh, may I ask you a purely personal question? Will you promise not to be offended if I do?"

"Eh? Why, of course, Cousin Gussie. Of course. Dear me, ask anything you like."

"All right. Loosh, are you in love with Miss Phipps?"

Galusha started so violently as to throw him off his balance upon the fence rail. He slid forward until his feet touched the ground. His coat-tails, however, caught upon a projecting knot and the garment remained aloft, a crumpled bundle, between his shoulder blades and the back of his neck. He was not aware of it. His face expressed only one emotion, great astonishment. And as his cousin watched, that expression slowly changed to bewilderment and dawning doubt.

"Well, how about it?" queried Cabot. "Are you in love with her, Loosh?"

Galusha's mouth opened. "Why--good gracious!" he gasped. "Dear me--ah--Why--why, I don't know."

The banker had expected almost any sort of reply, except that.

"You don't KNOW!" he repeated.

"No, I--I don't. I--I never thought of such a thing."

Cousin Gussie slowly shook his head.

"Loosh," he declared, "you are superb; do you realize it? So you don't know whether you are in love with her or not. Well, put it this way: Would you like to marry her, have her for your wife, live with her for the rest of your days?"

Galusha considered this astounding proposition, but only for the briefest possible moment. His gentle, dreamy, wistful countenance seemed almost to light up from within. His answer was given in one breath and as if entirely without conscious volition.

"Oh, very much," he said, in a low tone. "Oh, yes, very much."

The Boston banker had been on the point of laughing when he asked the question. But he did not laugh. He whistled instead. Then he smiled, but it was not a smile of ridicule.

Jumping from the fence rail, he laid a hand on his relative's shoulder.

"Well, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "Forgive me, old man, will you? I had no idea you were taking it so seriously. I... Well, by Jove!"

Galusha did not speak. The same queer ecstatic brightness was upon his face and he was looking now, not at the grinning cherub, but at the distant horizon line of gray-green ocean and slate-gray sky. Cabot's grip on his shoulder tightened.

"So you really want to marry her," he said.... "Humph!... Well, I'll be hanged! Loosh, you--you--well, you certainly can surprise a fellow when you really make a business of it."

The brightness was fading from Galusha's face. He sighed, removed his spectacles, and seemed to descend from the clouds. He sighed again, and then smiled his faint smile.

"Dear me," he said, "how ridiculous it was, wasn't it? You like a joke, don't you, Cousin Gussie?"

"Was it a joke, Loosh? You didn't look nor speak like a joker."

"Eh? Oh, yes, it was a joke, of course. Is it likely that a woman like that would marry ME?"

Again he astonished his relative into turning and staring at him. "Marry you?" he cried. "SHE marry YOU? For heaven's sake, you don't imagine there is any doubt that she would marry you if you asked her to, do you?"

"Why, of course. Why should she?"

"Why SHOULD she? Why shouldn't she jump at the chance, you mean!"

"Oh--oh, no, I don't. No, indeed. You are joking again, Cousin Gussie, of course you are. Women don't like me; they laugh at me, they always have, you know. I don't blame them. Very often I laugh at myself. I am eccentric. I'm 'queer'; that is what every one says I am--queer. I don't seem to think just as other people do, or--or to be able to dress as they do--or--ah--oh, dear, everything. It used to trouble me a good deal when I was young. I used to try, you know--ah--try very hard not to be queer. I hated being queer. But it wasn't any use, so at last I gave up trying. My kind of queerness is something one can't get over, apparently; it's a sort of incurable disease. Dear me, yes, quite incurable."

He had moved forward and his coat-tails had fallen into their normal position, so the "queerness" of his outward appearance was modified; but, as he stood there, with his puzzled, wistful expression, slowly and impersonally picking himself to pieces, so to speak, Cabot felt an overwhelming rush of pity for him, pity and a sort of indignant impatience.

"Oh, shut up, Galusha!" he snapped. "Don't be so confoundedly absurd.

You are one of the cleverest men in the world in your line. You are distinguished. You are brilliant. If you were as queer as d.i.c.k's hatband--whatever that is--it would make no difference; you have a right to be. And when you tell me that a woman--yes, almost any woman, to say nothing of one lost down here in these sand-hills--wouldn't marry you in a minute, you're worse than queer--you're crazy, absolutely crazy."

"But--but Cousin Gussie, you forget. If there were no other reasons, you forget what I have done. She could never believe in me again. No, nor forgive me."

"Oh, DON'T! You disturb my digestion. Do you suppose there is a woman on earth who wouldn't forgive a man who gave up thirteen thousand dollars just to help her out of a difficulty? Gave it up, as you did, without a whimper or even a whisper? And whose one worry has been that she might find out the truth about his weird generosity? Oh, Loosh, Loosh, you ARE crazy."

Galusha made no attempt to deny the charge of insanity. He was thinking rapidly now and his face expressed his thought.

"Do you--do you really think she might forgive me?" he asked, breathlessly.

"Think! Why, she and I had a long talk just before I came over here.

She thinks you are the best and most wonderful man on earth and all she feared was that you had taken your last cent, or even borrowed the money, to come to her rescue. When I told her you were worth a quarter of a million, she felt better, but it didn't lessen her grat.i.tude.

Forgive you! Oh, good Lord!"

Galusha had heard only the first part of this speech. The ecstatic expression was returning. He drew a long breath.

"I--I wonder if she really would consider such a thing?" he murmured.

"Consider what? Marriage? Well, I should say she wouldn't take much time for consideration. She'll jump at it, I tell you. You are the one to consider, old man. You are rich, and famous. Yes, and, although I have never pinned quite as much faith to the 'family' idea as most of our people do, still we have a sort of tradition to keep up, you know.

Now this--er--Miss Phipps is all right, no doubt; her people were good people, doubtless, but--well, some of our feminine second and third cousins will make remarks, Galusha. They surely will."

Galusha did not even trouble to answer this speech. His cousin continued.

"But that is your business, of course," he said. "And I honestly believe that in a good many ways she would make the ideal wife for you. She is not bad looking, in a wholesome sort of way, she is competent and very practical, has no end of common sense, and in all money matters she would make the sort of manager you need. She... Say, look here, have you heard one word of all I have been saying for the last three minutes ?"

"Eh?... Oh, yes, indeed. Of course, quite so."

"I know better; you haven't."

"Yes--yes. That is, I mean no.... Pardon me, Cousin Gussie, I fear I was not paying attention.... I shall ask her. Yes, if--if you are QUITE sure she has forgiven me, I shall ask her."

He started toward the cemetery gate as if he intended asking her at the first possible moment. His cousin followed him, his expression indicating a mixture of misgiving and amus.e.m.e.nt. Suddenly he laughed aloud. Galusha heard him and turned. His slight figure stiffened perceptibly.

"I beg pardon," he said, after a moment. "Doubtless it is--ah--very amusing, but I confess I do not quite see the joke."

Cabot laughed again.

"Is it--ah--so funny?" inquired Galusha. "It does not seem so to me."

The banker took him by the arm. "No offense, old chap," he said. "Funny?

Of course it's funny. It's wildly funny. Do you know what I was just thinking? I was thinking of Aunt Clarissa. What do you suppose she would have said to this?"

He shouted at the thought. Galusha joined him to the extent of a smile.

"She would have said it was just what she expected of me," he observed.