The Intrusion of Jimmy Part 32

"I don't believe it," said Jimmy.

"I wish I didn't," said his lordship wistfully, ignoring the slight rudeness of the remark. "But, worse luck, it's true."

For the first time since the disclosure of the name, Jimmy's attention was directed to the remarkable demeanor of his successful rival.

"You don't seem over-pleased," he said.

"Pleased! Have a fiver each way on 'pleased'! No, I'm not exactly leaping with joy."

"Then, what the devil is it all about? What do you mean? What's the idea? If you don't want to marry Miss McEachern, why did you propose to her?"

Lord Dreever closed his eyes.

"Dear old boy, don't! It's my uncle."

"Your uncle?"

"Didn't I explain it all to you--about him wanting me to marry? You know! I told you the whole thing."

Jimmy stared in silence.

"Do you mean to say--?" he said, slowly.

He stopped. It was a profanation to put the thing into words.

"What, old man?"

Jimmy gulped.

"Do you mean to say you want to marry Miss McEachern simply because she has money?" he said.

It was not the first time that he had heard of a case of a British peer marrying for such a reason, but it was the first time that the thing had filled him with horror. In some circ.u.mstances, things come home more forcibly to us.

"It's not me, old man," murmured his lordship; "it's my uncle."

"Your uncle! Good G.o.d!" Jimmy clenched his hands, despairingly. "Do you mean to say that you let your uncle order you about in a thing like this? Do you mean to say you're such a--such a--such a gelatine--backboneless worm--"

"Old man! I say!" protested his lordship, wounded.

"I'd call you a wretched knock-kneed skunk, only I don't want to be fulsome. I hate flattering a man to his face."

Lord Dreever, deeply pained, half-rose from his seat.

"Don't get up," urged Jimmy, smoothly. "I couldn't trust myself."

His lordship subsided hastily. He was feeling alarmed. He had never seen this side of Jimmy's character. At first, he had been merely aggrieved and disappointed. He had expected sympathy. How, the matter had become more serious. Jimmy was pacing the room like a young and hungry tiger. At present, it was true, there was a billiard-table between them; but his lordship felt that he could have done with good, stout bars. He nestled in his seat with the earnest concentration of a limpet on a rock. It would be deuced bad form, of course, for Jimmy to a.s.sault his host, but could Jimmy be trusted to remember the niceties of etiquette?

"Why the devil she accepted you, I can't think," said Jimmy half to himself, stopping suddenly, and glaring across the table.

Lord Dreever felt relieved. This was not polite, perhaps, but at least it was not violent.

"That's what beats me, too, old man," he said.

"Between you and me, it's a jolly rum business. This afternoon--"

"What about this afternoon?"

"Why, she wouldn't have me at any price."

"You asked her this afternoon?"

"Yes, and it was all right then. She refused me like a bird.

Wouldn't hear of it. Came d.a.m.n near laughing in my face. And then, to-night," he went on, his voice squeaky at the thought of his wrongs, "my uncle sends for me, and says she's changed her mind and is waiting for me in the morning-room. I go there, and she tells me in about three words that she's been thinking it over and that the whole fearful thing is on again. I call it jolly rough on a chap. I felt such a frightful a.s.s, you know. I didn't know what to do, whether to kiss her, I mean--"

Jimmy snorted violently.

"Eh?" said his lordship, blankly.

"Go on," said Jimmy, between his teeth.

"I felt a fearful fool, you know. I just said 'Right ho!' or something--dashed if I know now what I did say--and legged it. It's a jolly rum business, the whole thing. It isn't as if she wanted me.

I could see that with half an eye. She doesn't care a hang for me.

It's my belief, old man," he said solemnly, "that she's been badgered into it, I believe my uncle's been at her."

Jimmy laughed shortly.

"My dear man, you seem to think your uncle's persuasive influence is universal. I guess it's confined to you."

"Well, anyhow, I believe that's what's happened. What do you say?"

"Why say anything? There doesn't seem to be much need."

He poured some brandy into a gla.s.s, and added a little soda.

"You take it pretty stiff," observed his lordship, with a touch of envy.

"On occasion," said Jimmy, emptying the gla.s.s.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LOCHINVAR METHOD

As Jimmy sat smoking a last cigarette in his bedroom before going to bed that night, Spike Mullins came in. Jimmy had been thinking things over. He was one of those men who are at their best in a losing game. Imminent disaster always had the effect of keying him up and putting an edge on his mind. The news he had heard that night had left him with undiminished determination, but conscious that a change of method would be needed. He must stake all on a single throw now. Young Lochinvar rather than Romeo must be his model. He declined to believe himself incapable of getting anything that he wanted as badly as he wanted Molly. He also declined to believe that she was really attached to Lord Dreever. He suspected the hand of McEachern in the affair, though the suspicion did not clear up the mystery by any means. Molly was a girl of character, not a feminine counterpart of his lordship, content meekly to do what she was told in a matter of this kind. The whole thing puzzled him.

"Well, Spike?" he said.