CHAPTER III.

A QUIET CUP OF TEA.

Tickets for the opera reached Miriam Byrne, in due course, on the morning of the Friday following Gerald Warburton's first visit to the house of Max Van Duren in Spur Alley. Saturday was Miriam's birthday. Beyond an extra kiss from Mr. Byrne, and the expression of good wishes usual on such an occasion, the day brought little or no difference to either father or daughter. The weather was unpleasant, and neither of them stirred out of doors. But when tea time came, the best china was brought out of its retirement, and from some mysterious cupboard was produced a Madeira cake, with a little jar of honey, and some potted shrimps.

"Now, papa, dear, draw up to the table," cried Miriam, gaily, as soon as everything had been arranged in order due.

"I've put an extra spoonful of green into the pot in order to please you, and if you behave yourself nicely, you shall have an extra lump of sugar in your cup, for you are as fond of sweet things as any schoolgirl."

"That's why I'm so fond of you, dear," said Mr. Byrne, drily, as he drew his chair up to the table.

Just then came a knock at the door. Miriam opened it, and there stood Mr. Van Duren, with a pretty little rustic basket in his hands, full of freshly-cut flowers.

"Good evening, Miss Byrne," he said, in a hesitating sort of way. "I happened to hear Mrs. Bakewell remark this morning, that to-day was your birthday. Such being the case, I have taken the liberty of bringing you these few flowers, of which I beg your acceptance, together with my very best wishes for your health and happiness."

"It is very kind of you, Mr. Van Duren--very kind indeed," replied Miriam. "Many thanks for your flowers and good wishes. But pray come inside."

He came a few steps into the room, and then Miriam took the basket and smelled at the flowers.

"They are indeed lovely," she said. "Yours is the only present that I have had to-day, and nothing else that you could have offered me would have been half so acceptable."

The moment he heard the knock, Peter Byrne collapsed, as it were, and became older by a score years in as many seconds. Deaf and senile, he now tottered across the room, his walking-stick in one hand, the other hand held to his ear.

"What is it? what is it?" he quavered. "Flowers, eh? Vastly pretty--vastly pretty!"

"Mr. Van Duren has brought me these lovely flowers as a birthday present, papa," said Miriam, speaking loudly in his ear.

"Very kind of him--very kind indeed," nodding his head at Miriam. "But come in, Mr. Van Duren, come in, sir. Pussy and I were just about to have a quiet cup of tea. Come and join us, sir--come and join us. I like a quiet cup of tea; so does Pussy."

"I should be most happy, if I thought--"

"If you thought you were not intruding," said Miriam. "You are not doing that, I assure you. See, I will give your flowers the place of honour on my tea-table. But perhaps you are not a tea-drinker--perhaps----"

"Oh, yes, I am. Only I never can bear to drink tea alone. I think it a great promoter of sociability, and I only indulge in it when I have some one to keep me company."

"Then come and keep me company for once," said Miriam, with a smile, her magnificent eyes looking full into his face.

He shrank a little before that full-orbed gaze. For a moment or two the colour left his lips. He smiled faintly, and rubbed his hands together, as though he were cold.

"If I had the inclination to refuse--which, indeed, I have not," he said, "it would be impossible for me to do so after such an invitation. I can quite imagine that your life here is a little dull at times," he added, as he drew a chair up to the table.

"It certainly cannot be called a very lively one," returned Miriam, as she began to pour out the tea. "Poor dear papa is both very old and very feeble, and then his deafness is a great drawback, and makes home duller than it would otherwise be."

"But you have a brother, have you not?"

"Yes, one brother."

"In the city?"

"No, not in the city. He is secretary to a gentleman at the west end."

Peter Byrne, after sniffing once or twice at the flowers, toddled back to his easy-chair by the fire, and spreading his handkerchief over his knees, waited patiently for his tea. This Miriam now took to him; placing it on a little low table in front of him.

"Good girl, good girl," he said. Then, turning suddenly on Van Duren, he added, "When I was a young spark, I always liked to have a flower in my button-hole. The girls used to beg them of me--bless their pretty eyes! I daresay the young hussies nowadays do the very same thing."

Max Van Duren, at this time, was fifty years old. He was not very tall, but broad-set and strongly built. His coarse, short-cut, sandy hair showed as yet few traces of age. His face was closely shaven, so that whatever character there was in it could be clearly seen without the disguise of beard or moustache. A massive jaw; a close-shut mouth, with its straight line of thin lips; heavy, overhanging eyebrows, and small, deep-set eyes of a cold, steel gray: such were the prominent features of a face that was full of power, self-will, and obstinacy. His ears were pierced, but the small gold rings he had worn in them when a young man had been discarded years ago. Professional beggars are generally pretty good students of facial character, and no member of that fraternity had ever been known to solicit alms from Max Van Duren.

He had not been used to female society, and he felt himself altogether out of his element as he sat at the tea-table and was waited upon by Miriam.

Miss Byrne had not had her magnificent eyes given her for nothing. Very early in life she had learned how to make use of them. After that one full, unveiled look into Van Duren's eyes when she invited him to take tea with her, she kept her own eyes carefully under subjection. He could not keep his away from her, a fact of which Miriam was perfectly conscious; but now that she had got him there, seated opposite to her, she seemed to have become all at once shy, timid, and all but speechless. Now and then he caught a momentary, half-startled glance aimed at him from under the shadow of her long lashes, but that was all. She seemed to turn her eyes anywhere, rather than look him full in the face. He was quite at a loss what to say. What bond of sympathies, tastes, or ideas, as he asked himself, could there be in common between a man like him and that charming creature opposite? There were a great many subjects that he knew a great deal about, but he could not call to mind one that would be likely to have the faintest possible interest for Miss Byrne. Still, it was requisite that he should say something, or she would think him no better than a mummy.

He looked round the room: there were a number of books scattered about. "Are you fond of reading, Miss Byrne?" he asked, suddenly: as good an opening, under the circumstances, as he could possibly have found.

"Yes, very--when I can get the sort of book I like."

"May I ask what sort of book it is that you do like?"

"Oh, novels of course: a sort of literature for which, I daresay, you care nothing."

"Well, I am certainly not a novel reader. But, were I a young lady, I daresay I should be. You like love-stories, of course?"

"Yes; love-stories. Having had no experience in that line myself, it is only natural that I should like to read about it in others."

"I thought that all young ladies nowadays could graduate and take honours in the Art of Love long before they were twenty."

"A rule is proved by its exceptions. I am one of the exceptions."

"How nice it must be to be able to write love-stories that you know will be read by some thousands of young ladies!"

"But if an author in every case writes only from his own experience, what a fearful experience must his be!"

"I apprehend that in such a case a writer is like a clever violinist. He may play to the public on one string as long as he likes, if only his variations are sufficiently amusing not to weary them."

"Yes, I daresay there is really a very great sameness in such matters," said Miriam, with well-feigned simplicity.

"And yet I suppose it hardly matters how poor a love-story may be; the vivid imagination of your sex supplies all deficiencies, and clothes it with whatever warmth and colour it may otherwise lack."

"I am not so sure on that point. But I am afraid you are getting beyond my depth, Mr. Van Duren. For my own part, I have not much imagination. I am very, very matter-of-fact."

"That ought to form a bond of sympathy between us, seeing that I am one of the most matter-of-fact people in the City of London."

"I have been told that bonds of sympathy are very dangerous things. Papa's Three-per-cent. bonds would be a much safer investment."

Van Duren laughed.

"How would it be, Miss Byrne, if I were to go through a course of reading under your tuition?"

"Do you mean the reading of love-stories?"

"That, and nothing else, is what I mean.

"How would it be possible for me to act as your tutor in such a course of reading when I don't know the alphabet of the language myself?"

"How would it be if we were to try to learn the alphabet together?"

"I am afraid that I am too old to learn a fresh language. Besides, if you are as ignorant as you say you are, we should not know the proper sounds to give to the different letters."

"Nature would be our schoolmistress. With her to teach us, we should soon become apt scholars."

"Very well. We will have our first lesson on Monday. But before we begin, you shall go and bowl your hoop a dozen times round the square at the bottom of the street, and I will sit on a doorstep, with a doll in my arms, and watch you."

All at once Peter Byrne, who for the last ten minutes had been gazing intently into the fire, and neither stirring nor speaking, turned in his chair, and said to Miriam--

"Go up to your room, Pussy, for a little while; I want to have a little private talk with Mr. Van Duren."

Miriam rose.

"Shall I not see you again?" asked Van Duren.

"Yes," whispered Miriam.

Then she crossed to the basket of flowers, plucked a spray, placed it in the bosom of her dress, smiled at Van Duren, and went.

Van Duren's face lost its brightness as soon as Miriam left the room. He crossed to Byrne's chair, laid his coarse hand on the old man's shoulder, and said, not without a touch of sternness--

"I am at your service, sir."

He was obliged to speak in a louder tone of voice than usual, and that of itself annoyed him.

"Sit down, Mr. Van Duren--sit down close beside me. I have something to say to you. But are you sure that we are quite alone?"

"We are quite alone, Mr. Byrne."

"Good."

He said no more for a minute or two, but fumbled nervously with his handkerchief, still keeping his eyes fixed intently on the fire. Then he had a little fit of coughing. When that was over, and he had recovered his breath, he laid his hand on Mr. Van Duren's wrist, and spoke.

"We can't expect to live for ever, Mr. Van Duren--eh?"

"I suppose not," said Mr. Van Duren, with a sneer; "and I for one would certainly not care to do so."

"Are you one of those people who think that a man is likely to die any the sooner for having made his will?"

"Certainly not. I am no believer in such foolish superstitions."

"When a man has anything to leave--when he has any dispositions to make with regard to his property, it is best not to put off making them till the last moment--eh?"

"It is very foolish to do so, Mr. Byrne. But it is what many people do, for all that."

"Then you think that I should be doing a wise thing if I were to make my will--eh?"

"Certainly--a very wise thing--if you have any property to dispose of."

"If I have any property to dispose of! Ech! ech! ech! If I have any property to dispose of--he says!"

He laughed till another fit of coughing nearly choked him, and after that was over he had to gather breath before he could speak again.

"Yes, Mr. Van Duren," he gasped out, "I have a little property to leave behind me--just a little. And I want you, as a business man, to recommend to me some good sound lawyer, to whom I could give the requisite instructions for drawing up my last will and testament."

"Oh, if that's all, I can recommend to you my own lawyer, Mr. Billing, who is a thorough business man, and would do you justice in every way."

"That's kind of you--very kind. There will be nothing complicated about the affair, There's only two of 'em to leave it to--my boy and my girl. I shall divide it equally between them."

Mr. Van Duren was beginning to feel interested. After all, it was quite possible that this pottering, deaf old fellow might be far better off than he--Van Duren--had any idea of.

"House property, or land, chiefly, I suppose?" he said, in a casual, off-hand kind of way.

"Not a bit of it," said the old man. "I don't own a single house, nor an acre of land. No, sir, my property is all in scrip and shares--in good sound investments, every penny of it. And the beauty of it is--ech! ech!--that not even my own boy has any idea what I'm worth--what he and his sister will drop in for when the old man's under the turf. I've always kept 'em both in the dark about my money matters--and the best way too. They might want me out of the way, they might wish me dead, if they knew everything. No, no! I've kept my own counsel. I've speculated and speculated, and nobody but my broker and myself has been a bit the wiser."

Mr. Van Duren began to feel quite an affectionate regard for his lodger--leaving out of the question his lodger's daughter.

"Then Miss Byrne is an heiress without knowing it?" he said.

"Mum's the word," chuckled the old man, as he clutched Van Duren by the sleeve. "I'm telling you what I've always kept a secret from them; but there'll be thirty thousand between 'em when I go. Thirty thousand--not a single penny less!"

Van Duren's colour came and went. Miriam, then, would have a fortune of fifteen thousand pounds, respecting which, at present, she knew nothing! Would not the wisest thing he could do be to propose to her and win her consent to become his wife before she became aware of the golden future in store for her? Afterwards it might be too late--she might regard him with altogether different eyes when she knew that her dowry would be fifteen thousand pounds.

"A noble legacy, my dear sir--a truly noble legacy!" said Van Duren, warmly. "And were I in your place, I should not lose an unnecessary hour in making my testamentary arrangements. You may depend on it that your mind will feel more settled and easy when you have made everything secure, and put your wishes beyond the possibility of dispute."

"Egad! I'll take your advice; and if you'll send that lawyer of yours on Tuesday, I'll have the job got out of hand at once. I don't suppose I shall live a day less for having made my will--eh?"

"Not you, my dear sir--not you. There are many pleasant days in store for you yet. You are as tough as a bit of seasoned oak."

"Aye, aye. It's not always the youngest ones that are the strongest. Why shouldn't I live to be a hundred?"

"What a noble girl is that daughter of yours, Mr. Byrne!"

"A good girl, sir--a very good girl, though it is I who say it."

"I have never met any one in my life whom I have learnt to admire so much in so short a time."

"Ah! poor Pussy will feel it when her old father goes. It preys on my mind sometimes when I think of it. What is to become of her, with her money and her inexperience; and no one to look after her but a brother almost as young and inexperienced as herself?"

"Miss Byrne's fate will probably be that of most other young ladies--she will marry."

"I wish with all my heart that she would: that is, if she would marry the sort of man I should like her to have. But to see her married to some empty-headed, extravagant fop of a fellow, who would squander her money and not make her happy--I could never rest quiet in my grave if that were to happen."

What Van Duren's answer would have been is not upon record, for just at this moment there came a knock at the door, and presently Bakewell's head was intruded into the room.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, carrying a finger to his forehead, "but there's a gentleman downstairs as wants to see you immediately on important business."

"Confound the gentleman, whoever he may be!" said Van Duren, with hearty goodwill. "Tell him I'll be down presently." Then, turning to Byrne, he added: "We business men can never really call an hour our own. I must ask you to make my excuses to Miss Byrne: I am sorry that I cannot say good-night to her in person."

"It will be your own fault if you don't see her again before long. Come and take a quiet cup of tea with us as often as you like. We are very quiet and very homely, but we shall always be glad to see you. You won't forget the lawyer, will you?"

When Miriam came downstairs a quarter of an hour later, she found her father sitting with his legs perched against the chimney-piece, and smoking his china pipe. He had flung his wig and skull-cap aside, he had relieved himself of his false hump, and he had taken his artificial teeth out of the bureau in which he kept them, and had fitted them carefully into his month.

"Miriam," he said, "before you are a week older Max Van Duren will propose marriage to you. I will tell you to-morrow what you are to say when he makes the offer. To-night I am tired. And now mix me a tumbler of grog: the sort of tumbler that you know so well how to mix, dear."