Jacob's Ladder Part 15

"Mother," Sybil protested, "Mr. Pratt has nothing to do with these matters."

"On the contrary," Jacob replied mildly, "I am just the person who has to do with them. You are paying a very good rent, Mrs. Bultiwell, and any little thing the Estate can do to make you more comfortable--"

"Come this way, Mr. Pratt," Mrs. Bultiwell interrupted firmly....

Sybil was still watering the garden when he came out. She waited until he had exchanged cordial farewells with Mrs. Bultiwell, and then summoned him to her. Mrs. Bultiwell was still standing on the threshold, smiling at them, so she was compelled to moderate her anger.

"What have you been doing in there with mother?" she demanded.

"There were one or two little things my clerk of the works has neglected," he answered. "I promised to see to them, that's all."

"You know perfectly well that we arranged for the house as it was."

"I don't look upon it in that way," he said. "There are certain omissions--"

"Oh, be quiet!" she interrupted angrily. "And the garden, I suppose, should all have been prepared for us?"

"Certainly it should have been all dug up," he declared, "and not only that little bit where you have your roses."

"Of course," she answered sarcastically, "and asparagus beds made, I suppose, and standard roses planted!"

"I think, Miss Bultiwell," he ventured, "that you might allow me the privilege of having the place made as attractive as possible for you."

She glanced back towards the house. Mrs. Bultiwell, well pleased with herself, was still lingering. Sybil conducted their visitor firmly towards the gate.

"Mr. Pratt," she said, "I will try and not visit these things upon you; but answer me this question. Have you given my mother any indication whatever of your--your ridiculous feelings towards me?"

"Your mother gave me no opportunity," he replied. "She was too busy talking about the house."

"Thank goodness for that, anyhow! Please understand, Mr. Pratt, that so far as I am concerned you are not a welcome visitor here at any time, but if ever you should see my mother, and you should give her the least idea of what you are always trying to tell me, you will make life a perfect purgatory for me. I dislike you now more than any one I know. I should simply hate you then. You understand?"

"I understand," he answered. "You want me, in short, to join in a sort of alliance against myself?"

"Put it any way you like," she said coldly.

"I am a perfectly harmless person," he declared, "who has never wronged you in thought or deed. It is my misfortune that I have a certain feeling for you which I honestly don't think you deserve."

She dropped the watering can and her eyes blazed at him.

"Not deserve?" she repeated.

"No!" he replied, trembling but standing his ground firmly. "Every nice girl has a feeling of some sort for the man who is idiot enough to be in love with her. I am just telling you this to let you know that I can see your faults just as much as the things in you which--which I worship. And good night!"...

Jacob sat out on the hillside until late, smoking stolidly and dreaming. Inside the little white-plastered house below, from which the lights were beginning to steal out, Sybil was busy preparing supper and waiting upon her highly-pleased and triumphant parent.

Later, she too sat in the garden and watched the moon come up from behind the dark belt of woodland which sheltered the reservoir.

Perhaps she dreamed of her prince to come, as the lonely man on the hillside was dreaming of the things which she typified to him.

CHAPTER XI

Jacob sought distraction in the golfing resorts of England and the Continent, tried mountaineering in Switzerland, at which he had some success, and finally, with the entire Dauncey menage, took a small moor near the sea in Scotland, and in the extreme well-being of physical content found a species of happiness which sufficed well enough for the time. It was early winter before he settled down in London again, with the firm determination of neither writing to nor making any enquiries concerning Sybil. Chance, however, brought him in touch with her before many days were pa.s.sed.

"Who is the smartly dressed, sunburnt little Johnny who is staring at you so, Miss Bultiwell?" asked her _vis-a-vis_ at a luncheon party at the Savoy one day. "His face seems familiar to me, but I can't place him. I'm sure I've been told something interesting about him, somewhere or other."

"That," Sybil replied coldly, glancing across the room towards a small table against the wall, at which Jacob and Dauncey were seated, "is Mr. Jacob Pratt."

Mason, one of the mysteries of smarter Bohemian life, a young man of irreproachable appearance, a frequenter of the best restaurants, with a large acquaintance amongst the racing and theatrical world but with no known means of subsistence, showed marked interest in the announcement.

"Not Jacob Pratt, the oil millionaire?" he exclaimed.

She nodded.

"His money comes to him, I believe, from some oil springs in the western States of America," she acquiesced. "His brother is a successful prospector."

The young man leaned across the table.

"Did you hear that, Joe?" he enquired.

Joe Hartwell, a smooth-shaven, stalwart young American, with fleshy cheeks and unusually small eyes, a.s.sented vigorously.

"Mighty interesting," was his thoughtful comment. "A millionaire, Lady Powers."

Grace Powers, an attractive looking young lady, who had made meteoric appearances upon the musical comedy stage and in the divorce court, and was now lamenting the decease of her last husband--a youthful baronet whom she had married while yet a minor--gazed across at Jacob with frank interest.

"What a dear person!" she exclaimed. "He looks as though he had come out of a bandbox. I think he is perfectly sweet. What a lucky girl you are to know him, Sybil!"

"You all seem to have taken such a fancy to him that you had better divide him up amongst you," Sybil suggested coldly. "I detest him."

"Please introduce me," Grace Powers begged,--"that is, if you are sure you don't want him yourself."

"And me," Mason echoed.

"Can't I be in this?" the third man, young Lord Felixstowe, suggested, leaning forward and dropping the eyegla.s.s through which he had been staring at Jacob. "Seems to me I am as likely to land the fish as any of you."

Sybil thoroughly disliked the conversation and did not hesitate to disclose her feelings.

"Mr. Pratt is only an acquaintance of mine," she declared, "and I do not wish to speak to him. If he has the temerity to accost me, I will introduce you all--not unless. It will serve him right then."

Mason looked at her reprovingly.

"My dear Miss Bultiwell," he said, "in the tortuous course of life, our daily life, an unpleasant action must sometimes be faced. If you remember, barely an hour ago, over our c.o.c.ktails, we declared for a life of adventure. We paid tribute to the principle that the unworthy wealthy must support the worthy pauper. We are all worthy paupers."

Grace Powers laughed softly.

"I don't know about the worthiness," she murmured, "but you should see my dressmaker's bill!"