Chapter 2

As Lady Lawless had predicted, he was assiduously attentive to her, and it needed all her tact and cheerful frankness to keep him in line. She managed it very well: Mr. Pride's devotion was not too noticeable to the other guests. She tried to turn his attentions to some pretty girls; but, although there were one or two who might, in some weak moments, have compromised with his millions, he did no more than saunter with them on the terrace and oppress them with his lisping egotism. Every one hinted that he seemed an estimable, but trying, young man; and, as Sir Duke said to his wife, the men would not have him at any price.

As for Mr. Vandewaters and Gracia Raglan, Lady Lawless was not very sure that her delicate sympathy was certain of reward. The two were naturally thrown together a good deal; but Miss Raglan was a girl of singular individuality and high-mindedness, and she was keen enough to see from the start what Lady Lawless suspected might happen. She did not resent this,--she was a woman; but it roused in her a spirit of criticism, and she threw up a barrier of fine reserve, which puzzled Mr. Vandewaters. He did not see that Lady Lawless was making a possible courtship easy for him. If he had, it would have made no difference: he would have looked at it as at most things, broadly. He was not blind to the fact that his money might be a "factor", but, as he said to himself, his millions were a part of him--they represented, like whist-counters, so much pluck and mother-wit. He liked the general appreciation of them: he knew very well that people saw him in them and them in him. Miss Raglan attracted him from the moment of meeting. She was the first woman of her class that he had ever met closely; and the possibility of having as his own so adorable a comrade was inspiring. He sat down sometimes as the days went on--it was generally when he was shaving--and thought upon his intention regarding Miss Raglan, in relation to his humble past; for he had fully made up his mind to marry her, if she would have him. He wondered what she would think when he told her of his life; and he laughed at the humour of the situation. He had been into Debrett, and he knew that she could trace her family back to the Crusades.

He determined to make a clean breast of it. One day he was obliged to remain at the house in expectation of receiving important telegrams, and the only people who appeared at lunch were Lady Lawless, Mrs. Gregory Thorne (who was expecting her husband), Miss Raglan; Pride, and himself. While at luncheon he made up his mind to have a talk with Miss Raglan. In the library after luncheon the opportunity was given. It was a warm, pleasant day, and delightful in the grounds.

After one or two vain efforts to escape, Mrs. Gregory Thorne and Lady Lawless resigned themselves to the attentions of Mr. Pride; and for once Lady Lawless did not check Mrs. Thorne's irony. It was almost a satisfaction to see Mr. Pride's bewildered looks, and his inability to know whether or not he should resent (whether it would be proper to resent) this softly-showered satire.

Mr. Vandewaters and Gracia Raglan talked more freely than they had ever done before.

"Do you really like England?" she said to him; then, waving her hand lightly to the beeches and the clean-cropped grass through the window, "I mean do you like our 'trim parterres,' our devotion to mere living, pleasure, sport, squiring, and that sort of thing?"

He raised his head, glanced out, drew in a deep breath, thrust his hands down in the pockets of his coat, and looking at her with respectful good humour, said: "Like it? Yes, right down to the ground. Why shouldn't I! It's the kind of place I should like to come to in my old days. You needn't die in a hurry here. See?"

"Are you sure you would not be like the old sailors who must live where they can scent the brine? You have been used to an active, adventurous, hurried life. Do you think you could endure this humdrum of enjoyment?"

It would be hard to tell quite what was running in Gracia Raglan's mind, and, for the moment, she herself hardly knew; but she had a sudden, overmastering wish to make the man talk: to explore and, maybe, find surprising--even trying--things. She was astonished that she enjoyed his society so keenly. Even now, as she spoke, she remembered a day and a night since his coming, when he was absent in London; also how the party seemed to have lost its character and life, and how, when Mr. Pride condescended, for a few moments, to decline from Lady Lawless upon herself, she was even pleasant to him, making him talk about Mr. Vandewaters, and relishing the enthusiastic loyalty of the supine young man. She, like Lady Lawless, had learned to see behind the firm bold exterior, not merely a notable energy, force, self-reliance, and masterfulness, but a native courtesy, simplicity, and refinement which surprised her. Of all the men she knew not a half-dozen had an appreciation of nature or of art. They affected art, and some of them went to the Academy or the private views in Bond Street; but they had little feeling for the business. They did it in a well-bred way, with taste, but not with warmth.

Mr. Vandewaters now startled her by quoting suddenly lines from an English poet unknown to her. By chance she was turning over the Academy pictures of the year, and came at last to one called "A Japanese Beauty of Old Days"--an exquisite thing.

"Is it not fascinating?" she said. "So piquant and fresh."

He gave a silent laugh, as was his custom when he enjoyed anything, and then replied:

"I came across a little book of verses one day in the States. A friend of mine, the president of a big railway, gave it to me. He does some painting himself when he travels in his Pullman in the Rockies. Well, it had some verses on just such a picture as that. Hits it off right, Miss Raglan."

"Verses?" she remarked, lifting her eyebrows. She expected something out of the "poet's corner" of a country newspaper. "What are they?"

"Well, one's enough to show the style. This is it:

"'Was I a Samurai renowned, Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow? A histrion angular and profound? A priest? or porter? Child, although I have forgotten clean, I know That in the shade of Fujisan, What time the cherry-orchards blow, I loved you once in old Japan.'"

The verse on the lips of Mr. Vandewaters struck her strangely. He was not like any man she had known. Most self-made Englishmen, with such a burly exterior and energy, and engaged in such pursuits, could not, to save themselves from hanging, have impressed her as Mr. Vandewaters did. There was a big round sympathy in the tone, a timbre in the voice, which made the words entirely fitting. Besides, he said them without any kind of affectation, and with a certain turn of dry humour, as if he were inwardly laughing at the idea of the poem.

"The verses are charming," she said, musingly; "and the idea put that way is charming also. But do you think there would be much amusement in living half-a-dozen times, or even twice, unless you were quite sure that you remembered everything? This gentleman was peculiarly fortunate to recall Fujisan, and the orange orchards--and the girl."

"I believe you are right. One life is about enough for most of us. Memory is all very fine; but you'd want a life set apart for remembering the others after awhile."

"Why do you not add, 'And that would bore one?' Most of the men I know would say so."

"Well, I never used the word that way in my life. When I don't like a thing, that ends it--it has got to go."

"You cannot do that with everything."

"Pretty much, if I set my mind to it. It is astonishing how things'll come round your way if you keep on thinking and willing them so."

"Have you always got everything you wanted?" He had been looking off into the grounds through the open window. Now he turned slowly upon her.

"So far I have got everything I set my mind to get. Little things don't count. You lose them sometimes because you want to work at something else; sometimes because, as in cards, you are throwing a few away to save the whole game."

He looked at her, as she thought, curiously. In his mind he was wondering if she knew that he had made up his mind to marry her. She was suddenly made aware of the masterfulness of his spirit, which might, she knew, be applied to herself.

"Let us go into the grounds," he added, all at once. Soon after, in the shade of the trees, she broke in upon the thread of their casual conversation. "A few moments ago," she murmured, "you said: 'One life is about enough for most of us.' Then you added a disparaging remark about memory. Well, that doesn't seem like your usual point of view--more like that of Mr. Pride; but not so plaintive, of course. Pray do smoke," she added, as, throwing back his coat, he exposed some cigars in his waistcoat pocket. "I am sure you always smoke after lunch."

He took out a cigar, cut off the end, and put it in his mouth. But he did not light it. Then he glanced up at her with a grave quizzical look as though wondering what would be the effect of his next words, and a smile played at his lips.

"What I meant was this. I think we get enough out of our life to last us for centuries. It's all worth doing from the start, no matter what it is: working, fighting, marching and countermarching, plotting and counterplotting, backing your friends and hating your foes, playing big games and giving others a chance to, standing with your hand on the lynch-pin, or pulling your head safe out of the hot-pot. But I don't think it is worth doing twice. The interest wouldn't be fresh. For men and women and life, with a little different dress, are the same as they always were; and there's only the same number of passions working now, as at the beginning. I want to live life up to the hilt; because it is all new as I go on; but never twice."

"Indeed?" She looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then added: "I should think you would have seen lost chances; and doing things a second time might do them better."

"I never missed chances," he replied, simply: "never except twice, and then--"

"And then?"

"Then it was to give the other fellow a chance."

"Oh!" There was a kind of dubiousness in her tone. He noticed it. "You can hardly understand, Miss Raglan. Fact is, it was one of those deals when you can make a million, in a straight enough game; but it comes out of another man--one, maybe, that you don't know; who is playing just the same as you are. I have had a lot of sport; but I've never crippled any one man, when my engine has been dead on him. I have played more against organisations than single men."

"What was the most remarkable chance you ever had to make a million, and did not?"

He threw back his head, smiling shrewdly. "When by accident my enemy got hold of a telegram meant for me. I was standing behind a frosted glass door, and through the narrow bevel of clear glass I watched him read it. I never saw a struggle like that. At last he got up, snatched an envelope, put the telegram inside, wrote my name, and called a messenger. I knew what was in the message. I let the messenger go, and watched that man for ten minutes. It was a splendid sight. The telegram had given him a big chance to make a million or two, as he thought. But he backed himself against the temptation, and won. That day I could have put the ball into his wicket; but I didn't. That's a funny case of the kind."

"Did he ever know?"

"He didn't. We are fighting yet. He is richer than I am now, and at this moment he's playing a hard game straight at several interests of mine. But I reckon I can stop him."

"You must get a great deal out of life," she said. "Have you always enjoyed it so?" She was thinking it would be strange to live in contact with such events very closely. It was so like adventure.

"Always--from the start."

"Tell me something of it all, won't you?" He did not hesitate.

"I was born in a little place in Maine. My mother was a good woman, they said--straight as a die all her life. I can only remember her in a kind of dream, when she used to gather us children about the big rocking-chair, and pray for us, and for my father, who was away most of the time, working in the timber-shanties in the winter, and at odd things in the summer. My father wasn't much of a man. He was kind-hearted, but shiftless, but pretty handsome for a man from Maine.

"My mother died when I was six years old. Things got bad. I was the youngest. The oldest was only ten years old. She was the head of the house. She had the pluck of a woman. We got along somehow, until one day, when she and I were scrubbing the floor, she caught cold. She died in three days."

Here he paused; and, without glancing at Miss Raglan, who sat very still, but looking at him, he lighted his cigar.

"Then things got worse. My father took to drinking hard, and we had mighty little to eat. I chored around, doing odd things in the village. I have often wondered that people didn't see the stuff that was in me, and give me a chance. They didn't, though. As for my relatives: one was a harness-maker. He sent me out in the dead of winter to post bills for miles about, and gave me ten cents for it. Didn't even give me a meal. Twenty years after he came to me and wanted to borrow a hundred dollars. I gave him five hundred on condition that he'd not come near me for the rest of his natural life.

"The next thing I did was to leave home--'run away,' I suppose, is the way to put it. I got to Boston, and went for a cabin-boy on a steamer; travelled down to Panama, and from there to Brazil. At Brazil I got on another ship, and came round to San Francisco. I got into trouble in San Francisco with the chief mate of the Flying Polly, because I tried to teach him his business. One of the first things I learned in life was not to interfere with people who had a trade and didn't understand it. In San Francisco I got out of the situation. I took to selling newspapers in the streets.

"There wasn't enough money in it. I went for a cabin-boy again, and travelled to Australia. There, once more, I resigned my position, chiefly because I wouldn't cheerfully let the Mate bang me about the quarter-deck. I expect I was a precocious youth, and wasn't exactly the kind for Sunday-school prizes. In Melbourne I began to speculate. I found a ticket for the theatre where an American actor--our biggest actor today--was playing, and I tried to sell it outside the door of the theatre where they were crowding to see him. The man who bought it was the actor himself. He gave me two dollars more than the regular price. I expect he knew from my voice I was an American. Is there anything peculiar about my voice, Miss Raglan?"

She looked at him quickly, smiled, and said in a low tone: "Yes, something peculiar. Please go on."

"Well, anyway, he said to me: 'Look here, where did you come from, my boy?' I told him the State of Maine. 'What are you doing here?' he asked. 'Speculating, said I, and seeing things.' He looked me up and down. 'How are you getting on?' 'Well. I've made four dollars to-day,' I answered. 'Out of this ticket?' I expect I grinned. He suddenly caught me by the arm and whisked me inside the theatre--the first time I'd ever been in a theatre in my life. I shall never forget it. He took me around to his dressing-room, stuck me in a corner, and prodded me with his forefinger. 'Look here,' he said, 'I guess I'll hire you to speculate for me.' And that's how I came to get twenty-five dollars a month and my living from a great American actor. When I got back to America--with him--I had two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and good clothes. I started a peanut-stand, and sold papers and books, and became a speculator. I heard two men talking one day at my stall about a railway that was going to run through a certain village, and how they intended to buy up the whole place. I had four hundred and fifty dollars then. I went down to that village, and bought some lots myself. I made four thousand dollars. Then I sold more books, and went on speculating."

He paused, blew his cigar-smoke slowly from him a moment; then turned with a quick look to Miss Raglan, and smiled as at some incongruous thing. He was wondering what would be the effect of his next words.

"When I was about twenty-two, and had ten thousand dollars, I fell in love. She was a bright-faced, smart girl. Her mother kept a boarding-house in New York; not an up-town boarding-house. She waited on table. I suppose a man can be clever in making money, and knowing how to handle men, and not know much about women. I thought she was worth a good deal more to me than the ten thousand dollars. She didn't know I had that money. A drummer--that's a commercial traveller--came along, who had a salary of, maybe, a thousand dollars a year. She jilted me. She made a mistake. That year I made twenty-five thousand dollars. I saw her a couple of years ago. She was keeping a boarding-house too, and her daughter was waiting on table. I'm sorry for that girl: it isn't any fun being poor. I didn't take much interest in women after that. I put my surplus affections into stocks and shares, and bulling and bearing... Well, that is the way the thing has gone till now."

"What became of your father and your brother?" she asked in a neutral tone.

"I don't know anything about my father. He disappeared after I left, and never turned up again. And Jim--poor Jim!--he was shiftless. Jim was a tanner. It was no good setting him up in business. Steady income was the cheapest way. But Jim died of too much time on his hands. His son is in Mexico somewhere. I sent him there, and I hope he'll stay. If he doesn't, his salary stops: he is shiftless too. That is not the kind of thing, and they are not the kind of people you know best, Miss Raglan."

He looked at her, eyes full-front, bravely, honestly, ready to face the worst. Her head was turned away.

He nodded to himself. It was as he feared.

At that moment a boy came running along the walk towards them, and handed Mr. Vandewaters a telegram. He gave the lad a few pence, then, with an apology, opened the telegram. Presently he whistled softly, in a quick surprised way. Then he stuffed the paper into his waistcoat pocket, threw away his cigar, and turned to Gracia Raglan, whose face as yet was only half towards him. "I hope your news is good," she said very quietly.

"Pretty bad, in a way," he answered. "I have lost a couple of millions--maybe a little more."

She gasped, and turned an astonished face on him. He saw her startled look, and laughed.

"Does it not worry you?" she asked.

"I have got more important things on hand just now," he answered. "Very much more important," he added, and there was that in his voice which made her turn away her head again.

"I suppose," he went on, "that the story you have just heard is not the kind of an autobiography you would care to have told in your drawing-room?"

Still she did not reply; but her hands were clasped tightly in front of her. "No: I suppose not," he went on--"I--I suppose not. And yet, do you know, Miss Raglan, I don't feel a bit ashamed of it, after all: which may be evidence of my lost condition."

Now she turned to him with a wonderful light in her eyes, her sweet, strong face rich with feeling. She put out her hand to his arm, and touched it quickly, nervously.

"Your story has touched me inexpressibly," she said. "I did not know that men could be so strong and frank and courageous as you. I did not know that men could be so great; that any man could think more of what a woman thought of--of his life's story--than of"--she paused, and then gave a trembling little laugh--"of two millions or more."

He got to his feet, and faced her. "You--you are a woman, by heaven!" he said. "You are finer even than I thought you. I am not worthy to ask you what I had in my mind to ask you; but there is no man in God's universe who would prize you as I do. I may be a poor man before sundown. If that happens, though, I shall remember the place where I had the biggest moment of my life, and the woman who made that moment possible."

Now she also rose. There was a brave high look in her face; but her voice shook a little as she said: "You have never been a coward, why be a coward now?"

Smiling, he slowly answered: "I wouldn't if I were sure about my dollars."

She did not reply, but glanced down, not with coquetry, but because she could not stand the furnace of his eyes.

"You said a moment ago," she ventured, "that you have had one big moment in your life. Oughtn't it to bring you good fortune?"

"It will--it will," he said, reaching his hand towards hers.

"No, no," she rejoined archly. "I am going. Please do not follow me." Then, over her shoulder, as she left him: "If you have luck, I shall want a subscription for my hospital."

"As many thousands as you like," he answered: then, as she sped away: "I will have her, and the millions too!" adding reminiscently: "Yes, Lady Lawless, this is my biggest deal."

He tramped to the stables, asked for and got a horse, and rode away to the railway station. It was dinner time when he got back. He came down to dinner late, apologising to Lady Lawless as he did so. Glancing across the table at Mr. Pride, he saw a peculiar excited look in the young man's face.

"The baby fool!" he said to himself. "He's getting into mischief. I'll startle him. If he knows that an army of his dollars is playing at fox-and-geese, he'll not make eyes at Lady Lawless this way--little ass."

Lady Lawless appeared oblivious of the young man's devotional exercises. She was engaged on a more congenial theme. In spite of Miss Raglan's excellent acting, she saw that something had occurred. Mr. Vandewaters was much the same as usual, save that his voice had an added ring. She was not sure that all was right; but she was determined to know. Sir Duke was amused generally. He led a pretty by-play with Mrs. Gregory Thorne, of whom he asked the details of the day, much to the confusion, not admirably hid, of Mr. Pride; lamenting now and then Mr. Vandewaters's absence from the shooting.

Mr. Vandewaters was cool enough. He said that he had been playing at nine-pins with railways, which was good enough sport for him. Soon after dinner, he was handed two telegrams. He glanced slowly up at Pride, as if debating whether to tell him something. He evidently decided against it, and, excusing himself by saying he was off to take a little walk in Wall Street, went away to the telegraph office, where he stayed three hours.

The magnitude of the concerns, the admirable stoicism with which he received alarming news, his dry humour while they waited between messages--all were so unlike anything the telegraph-clerk had ever seen, or imagined, that the thing was like a preposterous dream. Even when, at last, a telegram came which the clerk vaguely felt was, somehow, like the fall of an empire, Mr. Vandewaters remained unmoved. Then he sent one more telegram, gave the clerk a pound, asked that the reply be sent to him as soon as it came, and went away, calmly smoking his cigar.

It was a mild night. When he got to the house he found some of the guests walking on the veranda. He joined them; but Miss Raglan was not with them; nor were Lady Lawless and Mr. Pride. He wanted to see all three, and so he went into the house. There was no one in the drawing-room. He reached the library in time to hear Lady Lawless say to Mr. Pride, who was disappearing through another door: "You had better ask advice of Mr. Vandewaters."

The door closed. Mr. Vandewaters stepped forward.

He understood the situation. "I guess I know how to advise him, Lady Lawless," he said.

She turned on him quietly, traces of hauteur in her manner. Her self-pride had been hurt. "You have heard?" she asked.