The Happiest Time of Their Lives Part 38

"I saw your friend Pete Wayne this morning."

"You saw--" Surprise, excitement, alarm flooded her face with crimson.

"Oh, why did _you_ see him?"

"I saw him by appointment. He asked me to tell you--only, I'm afraid, other things put it out of my head--that he has accepted a job I offered him."

"O Mr. Farron, what kind of job?"

"Well, the kind of job that would enable two self-denying young people to marry, I think."

Not knowing how clearly all that she felt was written on her face Mathilde tried to put it all into words.

"How wonderful! how kind! But my mother--"

"I will arrange it with your mother."

"Have you known all along? Oh, why did you do this wonderful thing?"

"Because--perhaps you won't agree with me--I have taken rather a fancy to this young man. And I had other reasons."

Mathilde took her stepfather's hand as it lay upon the table.

"I've only just begun to understand you, Mr. Farron. To understand, I mean, what Mama means when she says you are the strongest, wisest person--"

He pretended to smile.

"When did your mother say that?"

"Oh, ages ago." She stopped, aware of a faint motion to withdraw on the part of the hand she held. "I suppose you want to go to her."

"No. The sort of headache she has is better left alone, I think, though you might stop as you go up."

"I will. When do you think I can see Pete?"

"I'd wait a day or two; but you might telephone him at once, if you like, and say--or do you know what to say?"

She laughed.

"It used to frighten me when you made fun of me like that; but now--It must be simply delirious to be able to make people as happy as you've just made us."

He smiled at her word.

"Other people's happiness is not exactly delirious," he said.

She was moving in the direction of the nearest telephone, but she said over her shoulder:

"Oh, well, I think you did pretty well for yourself when you chose Mama."

She left him sipping his black coffee; he took every drop of that.

When he had finished he did not go back to his study, but to the drawing-room, where he sat down in a large chair by the fire. He lit a cigar. It was a quiet hour in the house, and he might have been supposed to be a man entirely at peace.

Mr. Lanley, coming in about an hour later, certainly imagined he was rousing an invalid from a refreshing rest. He tried to retreat, but found Vincent's black eyes were on him.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said. "Just wanted to see Adelaide."

"Adelaide has a headache."

Life was taking so many wrong turnings that Mr. Lanley had grown apprehensive. He suddenly remembered how many headaches Adelaide had had just before he knew of her troubles with Severance.

"A headache?" he said nervously.

"Nothing serious." Vincent looked more closely at his father-in-law. "You yourself don't look just the thing, sir."

Mr. Lanley sat down more limply than was his custom.

"I'm getting to an age," he said, "when I can't stand scenes. We had something of a scene here yesterday afternoon. G.o.d bless my soul! though, I believe Adelaide told me not to mention it to you."

"Adelaide is very considerate," replied her husband. His extreme susceptibility to sorrow made Mr. Lanley notice a tone which ordinarily would have escaped him, and he looked up so sharply that Farron was forced to add quickly: "But you haven't made a break. I know about what took place."

The egotism of suffering, the distorted vision of a sleepless night, made Mr. Lanley blurt out suddenly:

"I want to ask you, Vincent, do you think I could have done anything different?"

Now, none of the accounts which Farron had received had made any mention of Mr. Lanley's part in the proceedings at all, and so he paused a moment, and in that pause Mr. Lanley went on:

"It's a difficult position--before a boy's mother. There isn't anything against him, of course. One's reasons for not wanting the marriage do sound a little sn.o.bbish when one says them--right out. In fact, I suppose they are sn.o.bbish. Do you find it hard to get away from early prejudices, Vincent? I do. I think Adelaide is quite right; and yet the boy is a nice boy. What do you think of him?"

"I have taken him into my office."

Mr. Lanley was startled by a courage so far beyond his own.

"But," he asked, "did you consult Adelaide?"

Farron shook his head.

"But, Vincent, was that quite loyal?"

A change in Farron's expression made Mr. Lanley turn his head, and he saw that Adelaide had come into the room. Her appearance bore out the legend of her headache: she looked like a garden after an early frost. But perhaps the most terrifying thing about her aspect was her complete indifference to it. A recollection suddenly came to Mr. Lanley of a railway accident that he and Adelaide had been in. He had seen her stepping toward him through the debris, b.u.t.toning her gloves. She was far beyond such considerations now.

She had come to put her very life to the test. There was one hope, there was one way in which Vincent could rehabilitate himself, and that was by showing himself victor in the hardest of all struggles, the personal struggle with her. That would be hard, because she would make it so, if she perished in the attempt.

The crisis came in the first meeting of their eyes. If his glance had said: "My poor dear, you're tired. Rest. All will be well," his cause would have been lost. But his glance said nothing, only studied her coolly, and she began to speak.

"Oh, Papa, Vincent does not consider such minor points as loyalty to me."

Her voice and manner left Mr. Lanley in no doubt that if he stayed an instant he would witness a domestic quarrel. The idea shocked him unspeakably. That these two reserved and dignified people should quarrel at all was bad enough, but that they should have reached a point where they were indifferent to the presence of a third person was terrible. He got himself out of the room without ceremony, but not before he saw Vincent rise and heard the first words of his sentence:

"And what right have you to speak of loyalty?" Here, fortunately, Lanley shut the door behind him, for Vincent's next words would have shocked him still more: "A prost.i.tute would have stuck better to a man when he was ill."