The Debtor Part 30

Carroll was fond of remarking in those days. "I really don't know what we should do if it were not for him."

After dinner was over it was nearly nine o'clock; Carroll and Major Arms walked up and down the road before the house, smoking, leaving the ladies on the porch. The ex-army officer had something which he wished to discuss with his prospective father-in-law. He opened upon the subject when they had gone a piece down the flagged sidewalk and turned towards the house.

"What kind of arrangements have the ladies planned with regard to"--he hesitated and stammered a bit boyishly, for this was his first matrimonial venture, and he felt embarra.s.sed, veteran in other respects as he was--"to the--ceremony?" he finished up. Ceremony did not have the personal sound that marriage did.

Carroll looked at him, smiling. "It is quite a venture for you, old fellow, isn't it?" he said, laughingly, and yet his voice sounded exceedingly kind and touched.

"Not with that child, Arthur," replied the other man, simply.

"Well, Ina is a good girl," a.s.sented Carroll. "Both of them are good girls. She will make you a good wife."

"n.o.body knows how sure I am of it, and n.o.body knows how I have looked forward to this for years," said the other, fervently.

"I could not wish anything better for my girl," said Carroll, gently and soberly.

"What about the matter of the--ceremony?" asked Arms, returning to the first subject.

"I think they have decided that they would prefer the wedding in the church, and a little reception at the house afterwards. Of course we are comparatively strangers in Banbridge, but there are people one can always ask to a function of the sort, and I think Ina--"

"Arthur, there is something I would like to propose."

"What, old fellow?"

Major Arms hesitated. Carroll waited, smoking as he sauntered along.

The other man held his cigar, which had gone out, in his mouth; evidently he was nervous about his proposition. Finally he blurted it out with the sharpness of a pistol-shot. "Arthur, I want to defray the expenses of the wedding," he said.

Carroll removed his cigar. "See you d.a.m.ned first," said he, coolly, but with emphasis, and then replaced it.

Major Arms turned furiously towards him, but he restrained himself.

"Why?" he said, with forced calm.

"Because if I cannot pay my daughter's bridal expenses she never marries you nor any other man," said Carroll.

Then the Major blazed out. He stopped short and moved before Carroll on the sidewalk. "If," said he--"if--you think I marry your daughter if her father goes in debt for the wedding expenses, you are mistaken."

Carroll said nothing. He stood as if stunned. The other went on with a burst of furious truth: "See here, Arthur Carroll," said he, "I like you, and you know how I feel about your girl. She is the one thing I have wanted for my happiness all my life, and I know I can take care of her and make her happy; and I like you in spite of--in spite of your outs. I'm ashamed of myself for liking you, but I do; but you needn't think I don't see you, that I don't know you, because I do. I knew when you went to the dogs after you failed in your mine, just as well as you did yourself. You went to the dogs, and you've been at the dogs' ever since; you're there now, and you've dragged your family with you so far as they're the sort to be dragged. They aren't, altogether, lucky for them; the girls especially aren't, at least not so far. Lord knows when it would come to them. But I'm going to take Ina away from the dogs, out of sound of a yelp even of 'em; and, as for me, I'll be hanged if you get me there! I know you for just what you are. I know you've prowled and preyed like a coyote ever since you were preyed on yourself. I know you, but I love Ina.

But I tell you one thing, Arthur Carroll, now you can take your choice. Either you let me pay the wedding expenses or you give up the wedding."

"Ina," began Carroll, in a curious, helpless fashion, "she has set her heart on the wedding--her--dress and everything."

"I can't help that," said Arms, sternly. "This is of more importance even than her pleasure. Take your choice. Let me pay or let us be married in the quietest manner possible."

"I consent to the latter," Carroll said, still in that beaten tone.

He seemed to shrink in stature, standing before the other man's uprear of imperious will.

"All right," said Major Arms.

The two walked on in silence for a moment. Arms relit his cigar.

Suddenly Carroll spoke.

"No, I will not, either," he said, abruptly.

"Will not what?"

"I will not consent to the quiet wedding. Ina shall not be disappointed. This means too much to a girl. Good G.o.d! it is the one occasion of a woman's life, and women are children always. It is cruelty to children."

"Then I pay," Arms said.

"No, I pay," said Carroll.

"You pay?"

"I pay," Carroll repeated, doggedly.

"How?"

"Never mind how. I tell you I give you my word of honor I pay every dollar of those expenses the day after the wedding."

"You will rob Peter to pay Paul, then," declared Major Arms, incredulously and wrathfully.

Carroll laughed in a hard fashion. "I would kill Peter, besides robbing him, if it was necessary," he said.

"If you think I'll have that way out of it--"

"I tell you I will pay those expenses, every dollar, the next day, and Ina shall have her little festival. What more do you want?"

demanded Carroll. "See here, Arms, you will take care of the girl better than I can. I am at the dogs fast enough, and the dogs' is not a desirable locality in which to see one's family. You can take care of Ina, and G.o.d knows I want you to have her, but have her you shall not unless you can show some lingering confidence in her father. Even at the dogs' a man may have a little pride left. Either we have the wedding as it is planned, and you trust me to settle the bills for it, or you can give up my daughter."

Arms stood silent, looking at Carroll. "Very well," he said, finally.

"All right, then," said Carroll.

Arms remained staring at Carroll with a curious, puzzled expression.

"Good G.o.d! Arthur, how do you ever stand it living this sort of life?" he cried, suddenly.

"I have to stand it," replied Carroll. "As well ask a shot fired from a cannon how it likes being hurled through the air. I was fired into this."

"You ought to have had some power of resistance, some will of your own."

"There are forces for every living man for which he has no power of resistance. Mine hit me."

"If ever there was a d.a.m.ned, smooth-tongued scoundrel--" said Arms, retrospectively.

"Where is he?" Carroll asked, and his voice sounded strange.

"There."

"How is he?"