The Sorcery Club Part 26

"I suppose my services won't be required much longer?" Shiel said, speaking with rather an effort.

"Of course I can't answer for my father," Gladys replied, "but I should imagine he would be only too glad to employ you. The only thing is the salary. You can't live on air, you know, and with the poor attendances he gets now, I don't see how he can afford to pay much."

"I would work for very little," Shiel said. "I should be awfully sorry to give up now. I wonder if you would miss me at all?"

"Of course I should!" Gladys retorted. "You have behaved admirably, and I am most grateful to you."

"You needn't be grateful to me. I have never enjoyed anything half so much as I have trying to help you. I am poor, penniless in fact, since my uncle left me nothing, but supposing--supposing I were to get some lucrative post, do you think--do you think there would ever be any possibility of--"

"Of what?"

"Of your caring for me! I am terribly in love with you."

"I fear I must have given you encouragement," Gladys said. "I'm awfully sorry. You see I never thought of this, and I don't know what to say to you."

"Won't you give me a chance, just a chance?"

"But my father would never hear of it. Unfortunately he seems to be prejudiced against you. Won't you wait a while, and then, if you are still in the same mind, speak to me again in--say--a year. By that time you will, no doubt, have made some sort of a position for yourself."

"And in the meanwhile you will get engaged to some one else," Shiel exclaimed.

"I don't think I shall," Gladys said. "Of course, I meet crowds of men, but you see I am not the marrying sort."

"Do you think you would care for me just a bit?" Shiel asked eagerly.

"A tiny, tiny bit, perhaps," Gladys said, "but I'm not at all sure. I can think of no one now but my father, so that if you value my good opinion, or really want to prove your devotion to me, you must, for the time being, devote yourself to him. Who knows--it may lie in your power to do him some service."

"I don't see how," Shiel replied, somewhat despondingly. "But no matter--after you, your father and your father's affairs shall be my first consideration. You will let me see you sometimes, won't you?"

"Sometimes," Gladys laughed. "Good-bye! Don't make any mistakes to-morrow. Your performance to-night was not as good as usual." And, with this somewhat cruel remark, she stepped lightly into her motor, and drove off.

Shiel now gave way to despair. There are few conditions in life so utterly unenviable as penury and love--to be next door to starving, and at the same time in love. Day after day Shiel, who was thus afflicted, had revelled in Gladys's company, and had intoxicated himself with her beauty, fully aware that for each moment of pleasure there would, later on, be a corresponding moment of pain. It was only in romance, he told himself, that the penniless lover suddenly finds himself in a position to marry--in reality, his love suit is rejected with scorn; his adored one marries some one who has, or pretends he has, limitless wealth; and the despised swain ends his days a miserable and dejected bachelor.

All the same, Shiel determined that he would for once fare like the hero in romance--that he would either win the object of his affections or perish in the attempt; and no sooner did the fit of the blues, consequent on the conversation just related, wear off, than he set to work in grim earnest to discover some means of breaking up the Modern Sorcery Company Ltd., and of restoring to the firm of Martin and Davenport their former prestige.

In the meanwhile, affairs were by no means stationary, as far as Hamar and his colleagues were concerned. The appearance of their paper _To-morrow_, a morning journal, that chronicled faithfully every event of the following day, caused a tremendous sensation; and the sale of every other paper sank to nil--no one, naturally, wanting to buy the news that had happened yesterday, when, for the same money, they could obtain news of what would happen that very day. The stupid method of chronicling past events, Hamar announced in the first issue of his organ, was now obsolete. It was, perhaps, good enough for the Victorian era, but it was utterly out of keeping with the present age of hourly progress. Who, for instance, wanted to know that at 6 p.m., on the preceding evening, there had been a big fire in New York? Was it not far more to the point for them to learn, for example, that at 2 p.m., on that very day, Rio de Janeiro would be partially destroyed by an earthquake; that the Post Office in King's Road, Chelsea, would be broken into by thieves; that Nelson's Monument in Trafalgar Square would be blown up by Suffragettes; or something equally fresh and exciting? One cannot get thrills--at least not the right kind of thrills in reading of what has already taken place. To say to ourselves, or to a friend, "Just fancy, we might have been in that railway accident," or, in reading of a shipwreck "What a mercy we did not embark after all, is it not?" is not half as enthralling as to be wondering if, at eleven o'clock that night, when the terrific storm in which twenty-six people will be killed by lightning in various parts of England, we shall be among the fatal number. One is not much moved to find oneself alive when a danger is pa.s.sed, but one does get terribly excited in contemplating the risk we are bound to run of being killed. Within a week, the circulation of _To-morrow_ had gone up from fifty thousand to ten million, and Hamar, inflated with success, said to himself, "Now I will go and have another look at John Martin."

When he arrived, Gladys was in the garden. His stealthy approach had given her no chance to escape.

"What is your business?" she asked, glancing nervously in the direction of the house, and dreading lest her father should see Hamar from his window.

"I've come to see your father," Hamar said, his eyes resting admiringly on her face and then running leisurely over her figure.

"How is the old gentleman?"

"He is not well enough to see visitors," Gladys said, with absolute hauteur. "Perhaps you will state your business to me."

"Well! I don't mind if I do!" Hamar replied. "Let us sit down. It's more comfortable than standing." And he dropped into a seat as he spoke. "Now I've been noticing," he went on, "that your Show in the Kingsway is not getting on very well--that there are fewer and fewer people there every night, and I've no doubt it will soon have to dry up altogether. We, on the other hand, are doing better and better every night, and we shall go on doing better--there is no limit to our possibilities. We are worth half a million now--next year, we shall be worth ten times that amount!"

"You are optimistical, at all events," Gladys said.

"I can afford to be," Hamar grinned. "Now, do you know what we intend doing before very long?"

"I haven't the least idea, and I am not in the slightest degree curious."

"Aren't you? Well, you should be, since it concerns you. We mean to buy up the whole of Kingsway!"

"And later on, of course, the whole of Regent Street!"

"You are satirical. You are not alarmed at the prospect of having me for a landlord!"

"I don't understand you! The Hall in Kingsway is my father's own property."

"If that is so then you have nothing to fear," Hamar laughed, "but I think it just possible you are mistaken. At any rate, I've been in communication with some one styling himself the landlord."

"My father would have an agreement, anyhow!" Gladys said.

"Of course," Hamar replied, "and I've a pretty shrewd idea of the terms of it. But enough of this--let me come to the point. I intend buying the property, and I shall refuse to renew your father's lease, unless he agrees to give me what I want!"

"Of course a preposterous price?"

"No, you--only you!"

"Me!"

"Yes! I've never seen a girl I like more. I've limitless wealth and I'll give you everything you want--a steam yacht, motors, diamonds, anything, everything, and all I ask in return is that you should consent to be engaged to me on trial--say for fifteen months--just to see how we get on! What pretty hands you have."

And before Gladys could draw them away, he had caught hold of them in an iron grasp, and, turning them over, cast admiring glances at the slim, white fingers with the long, almond-shaped and carefully manicured nails.

"I reckon," he said, "I shall never find any one prettier all through.

What do you say?"

"Your proposition is impossible--monstrous! I detest you," Gladys retorted, her cheeks white with anger. "Leave go my hands at once, and never let me see you again!"

"I can't promise not to see you again," Hamar said, "but I'll let go your hands now, for I'm no more a lover of scenes than you. I antic.i.p.ated a little fuss at first--it's the way all you women have--you are so modest, you don't like to appear too eager to snap up a good offer. You'll close with it right enough in the end. I'll call again in a few days. By that time you may have changed your mind."

And, before she could prevent him, he had again seized her hand and was kissing it over and over again.

With an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of the utmost indignation, she sprang away from him, and with all the dignity she could a.s.sume, walked to the house.

What became of him she did not know. Some few seconds later she told the gardener to see him safely off the premises, but he was nowhere to be found.

A week later, Hamar turned up again at the Cottage, and, despite the vigilance of Gladys and the servants, caught John Martin alone.

When the latter, at last, came to the end of what had, at first, seemed an inexhaustible stock of invectives, Hamar stated his proposals with mathematical exact.i.tude.

"I don't believe for one moment my landlord would be such a blackguard as to play into your hands," John Martin spluttered.

"Oh, yes, he would!" Hamar replied. "An Englishman will do anything for money, and I am prepared to offer him just twice as much as any one else for your Hall. Do you think he will refuse--not he!"

"But what on earth's your object! You've ruined me already."