The High Heart Part 23

I tried to bring out my small store of personal facts, but she paid them no attention. When I said that my father had been a judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia I might have been calling him a voivode of Montenegro or the president of a zemstvo. It was too remote from herself for her mind to take in. I could see her, however, examining my features, my hands, my dress, with the shrewd, sharp eyes of a connoisseur in feminine appearance.

She broke into the midst of my recital with the words:

"You can't be in love with Hugh Brokenshire."

Fearing attack from an unexpected quarter, I clasped my hands with some emotion.

"Oh, but, madam, why not?"

The reply nearly knocked me down.

"Because you're too sensible a girl. He's as stupid as an owl."

"He's very good and kind," was all I could find to say.

"Yes; but what's that? A girl like you needs more than a man who's only good and kind. Heavens above, you'll want some spice in your life!"

I maintained my meek air as I said:

"I could do without the spice if I could be sure of bread and b.u.t.ter."

"Oh, if you're marrying for a home let me tell you you won't get it.

Hugh'll never be able to offer you one, and his father wouldn't let him if he was."

I decided to be bold.

"But you heard what I said the other day, madam. I expect his father to come round."

She uttered the queer cackle that was like a hen when it crows.

"Oh, you do, do you? You don't know Howard Brokenshire. You could break him more easily than you could bend him--and you can't break him. Good Lord, girl, I've tried!"

"But I haven't," I returned, quietly. "Now I'm going to."

"How? What with? You can't try if you've nothing to try on."

"I have."

"For Heaven's sake--what?"

I was going to say, "Right"; but I knew it would sound sententious. I had been sententious enough in talking about my country. Now I only smiled.

"You must let me keep that as a secret," I answered, mildly.

She gave herself what I can only call a hitch in her chair.

"Then may I be there to see."

"I hope you may be, madam."

"Oh, I'll come," she cackled. "Don't worry about that. Just let me know.

You'll have to fight like the devil. I suppose you know that."

I replied that I did.

"And when it's all over you'll have got nothing for your pains."

"I shall have had the fight."

She looked hard at me before speaking.

"Good girl!" The tone was that of a spectator who calls out, "Good hit!"

or, "Good shot!" at a game. "If that's all you want--"

"No; I want Hugh."

"Then I hope you won't get him. He's as big a dolt as his father, and that's saying a great deal." Terrified, I glanced over my shoulder at the house, but she went on imperturbably: "Oh, I know he's in there; but what do I care? I'm not saying anything behind his back that I haven't said to his face. He doesn't bear me any malice, either, I'll say that for him."

"n.o.body could--" I began, deferentially.

"n.o.body had better. But that's neither here nor there. All I'm telling you is to have nothing to do with Hugh Brokenshire. Never mind the money; what you need is a husband with brains. Don't I know? Haven't I been through it? My husband was kind and good, just like Hugh Brokenshire--and, O Lord! The sins of the father are visited on the children, too. Look at my daughter--pretty as a picture and not the brains of a white mouse." She nodded at me fiercely, "You're my kind. I can see that. Mind what I say--and be off."

She turned abruptly to her book, hitching her chair a little away from me. Accepting my dismissal, I said in the third person, as though I was speaking to a royalty:

"Madam flatters me too much; but I'm glad I intruded, for the minute, just to hear her say that."

I had made my courtesy and reached the door leading inward when she called after me:

"You're a puss. Do you know it?"

Not feeling it necessary to respond in words, I merely smiled over my shoulder and entered the house.

In one of the big chairs I waited a half-hour before J. Howard came out of the library with his grandchild. He had given her a doll which she hugged in her left arm, while her right hand was in his. The farewell scene was pretty, and took place in the middle of the hall.

"Now run away," he said, genially, after much kissing and petting, "and give my love to mamma."

He might have been shooing the sweet thing off into the air. There was no reference whatever to any one to take care of her. His eyes rested on me, but only as they rested on the wall behind me. I must say it was well done--if one has to do that sort of thing at all. Feeling myself, as his regard swept me, no more than a part of the carved ecclesiastical chair to which I stood clinging, I wondered how I was ever to bring this man to seeing me.

I debated the question inwardly while I chatted with Gladys on the way homeward. I was obliged, in fact, to brace myself, to reason it out again that right was self-propagating and wrong necessarily sterile.

Right I figured as a way which seemed to finish in a blind alley or cul-de-sac, but which, as one neared what seemed to be its end, led off in a new direction. Nearing the end of that there would be still a new lead, and so one would go on.

And, sure enough, the new lead came within the next half-hour, though I didn't recognize it for what it was till afterward.

CHAPTER X