Chapter 11

Billy was smiling and picking at the sheets.

"But Peggy is so rich," the faint voice presently complained--"so beastly rich! There is gold in her hair, and if you will look very closely you will see that her lashes were pure gold until she dipped them in the ink-pot. Besides, she expects me to sit up and beg for lumps of sugar, and I _never_ take sugar in my coffee. And Peggy doesn't drink coffee at all, so I think it is very unfair, especially as Teddy Anstruther drinks like a fish and she is going to marry him. Peggy, why won't you marry me? You know I've always loved you, Peggy, and now I can tell you so because Uncle Fred has left me all his money. You think a great deal about money, Peggy. You said it was the greatest thing in the world. And it must be, because it is the only thing--the _only_ thing, Peggy--that has been strong enough to keep us apart. A part is never greater than the whole, Peggy, but I will explain about that when you open that desk. There are sharks in it. Aren't there, Peggy?--_aren't_ there?"

His voice had risen to a querulous tone. Gently the fat old man restrained him.

"Yes," said Petheridge Jukesbury; "dear me, yes. Why, dear me, of course."

But his warning hand held Margaret back--Margaret, who stood with big tears trickling down her cheeks.

"Dearer than life itself," Billy assented, wearily, "but before God, loving you as I do, I wouldn't marry you now for all the wealth in the world. I forget why, but all the world is a stage, you know, and they don't use stages now, but only railroads. Is that why you rail at me so, Peggy? That is a joke. You ought to laugh at my jokes, because I love you, but I can't ever, ever tell you so because you are rich. A rich man cannot pass through a needle's eye. Oh, Peggy, Peggy, I love your eyes, but they're so _big_, Peggy!"

So Billy Woods lay still and babbled ceaselessly. But through all his irrelevant talk, as you may see a tributary stream pulse unsullied in a muddied river, ran the thought of Peggy--of Peggy, and of her cruelty, and of her beauty, and of the money that stood between them.

And Margaret, who could never have believed him in his senses, listened and knew that in his delirium, the rudder of his thoughts snapped, he could not but speak truth. As she crouched in the corner of the room, her face buried in an arm-chair, her gold hair half loosened, her shoulders monotonously heaving, she wept gently, inaudibly, almost happily.

Almost happily. Billy was dying, but she knew now, past any doubting, that he loved her. The dear, clean-minded, honest boy had come back to her, and she could love him now without shame, and there was only herself to be loathed.

Then the door opened. Then, with Colonel Hugonin, came Martin Jeal--a wisp of a man like a November leaf--and regarded them from under his shaggy white hair with alert eyes.

"Hey, what's this?" said Dr. Jeal. "Eh, yes! Eh--yes!" he meditated, slowly. "Most irregular. You must let us have the room, Miss Hugonin."

In the hall she waited. Hope! ah, of course, there was no hope! the thin little whisper told her.

By and bye, though--after centuries of waiting--the three men came into the hall.

"Miss Hugonin," said Dr. Jeal, with a strange kindness in his voice, "I don't think we shall need you again. I am happy to tell you, though, that the patient is doing nicely--very nicely indeed."

Margaret clutched his arm. "You--you mean----"

"I mean," said Dr. Jeal, "that there is no fracture. A slight concussion of the brain, madam, and--so far as I can see--no signs of inflammation. Barring accidents, I think we'll have that young man out of bed in a week. Thanks," he added, "to Mr.--er--Jukesbury here whose prompt action was, under Heaven, undoubtedly the means of staving off meningitis and probably--indeed, more than probably--the means of saving Mr. Woods's life. It was splendid, sir, splendid! No doctor--why, God bless my soul!"

For Miss Hugonin had thrown her arms about Petheridge Jukesbury's neck and had kissed him vigorously.

"You beautiful child!" said Miss Hugonin.

"Er--Jukesbury," said the Colonel, mysteriously, "there's a little cognac in the cellar that--er--" The Colonel jerked his thumb across the hallway with the air of a conspirator. "Eh?" said the Colonel.

"Why--er--yes," said Mr. Jukesbury. "Why--ah--yes, I think I might."

They went across the hall together. The Colonel's hand rested fraternally on Petheridge Jukesbury's shoulder.

XXX

The next day there was a general exodus from Selwoode, and Margaret's satellites dispersed upon their divers ways. Selwoode, as they understood it, was no longer hers; and they knew Billy Woods well enough to recognise that from Selwoode's new master there were no desirable pickings to be had such as the philanthropic crew had fattened on these four years past. So there came to them, one and all, urgent telegrams or insistent letters or some equally unanswerable demand for their presence elsewhere, such as are usually prevalent among our guests in very dull or very troublous times.

Miss Hugonin smiled a little bitterly. She considered that the scales had fallen from her eyes, and flattered herself that she was by way of becoming a bit of a misanthrope; also, I believe, there was a note concerning the hollowness of life and the worthlessness of society in general. In a word, Margaret fell back upon the extreme cynicism and world-weariness of twenty-three, and assured herself that she despised everybody, whereas, as a matter of fact, she never in her life succeeded in disliking anything except mice and piano-practice, and, for a very little while, Billy Woods; and this for the very excellent reason that the gods had fashioned her solely to the end that she might love all mankind, and in return be loved by humanity in general and adored by that portion of it which inhabits trousers.

But, "The rats always desert a sinking ship," said Miss Hugonin, with the air of one delivering a particularly original sentiment. "They make me awfully tired, and I don't care for them in the least. But Petheridge Jukesbury is a _dear_, and I may be poor now, but I _did_ try to do good with the money when I had it, and _anyhow_, Billy is going to get well."

And, after all, that was the one thing that really mattered, though of course Billy would always despise her. He would be quite right, too, the girl thought humbly.

But the conventionalities of life are more powerful than even youthful cynicism and youthful heart-break. Prior to devoting herself to a loveless life and the commonplaces of the stoic's tub, Miss Hugonin was compelled by the barest decency to bid her guests Godspeed.

And Adèle Haggage kissed her for the first time in her life. She had been a little awed by Miss Hugonin, the famous heiress--a little jealous of her, I dare say, on account of Hugh Van Orden--but now she kissed her very heartily in farewell, and said, "Don't forget you are to come to us as soon as _possible_," and was beyond any question perfectly sincere in saying it.

And Hugh Van Orden almost dragged Margaret under the main stairway, and, far from showing any marked abhorrence to her in her present state of destitution, implored her with tears in his eyes to marry him at once, and to bring the Colonel to live with them for the rest of his natural existence.

For, "It's damned impertinent of me, of course," Mr. Van Orden readily conceded, "and I suppose I ought to beg your pardon for mentioning it, but I _do_ love you to a perfectly unlimited extent. It's playing the very deuce with my polo, Miss Hugonin, and as for my appetite--why, if you won't have me," cried Hugh, in desperation, "I--I really, you know, I don't believe I'll _ever_ be able to eat anything!"

When Margaret refused him--for the sixth time, I think--I won't swear that she didn't kiss him under the dark stairway. And if she did, he was a nice boy, and he deserved it.

And as for Sarah Ellen Haggage, that unreverend old parasite brought her a blank cheque signed with her name, and mentioned quite a goodly sum as the extent to which Margaret might go for necessary expenses.

"For you'll need it," she said, and rubbed her nose reflectively. "Moving is the very deuce for wasting money, because so many little things keep cropping up. Now, remember, a quarter is quite enough to give _any_ man for moving a trunk. And there's no earthly sense in your taking a cab, Margaret--the street-car will bring you within a block of our door. These little trifles count, dear. And don't let Célestine pack your things, because she's abominably careless. Let Marie do it--and don't tip her. Give her an old hat. And if I were you, I would certainly consult a lawyer about the legality of that idiotic will. I remember distinctly hearing that Mr. Woods was very eccentric in his last days, and I haven't a doubt he was raving mad when, he left all his money to a great, strapping, long-legged young fellow, who is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Getting better, is he? Well, I suppose I'm glad to hear it, but he'd much better have stayed in Paris--where, I remember distinctly hearing, he led the most dissipated and immoral life, my dear--instead of coming over here and upsetting everything." And again Mrs. Haggage rubbed her nose--indignantly.

"He _didn't_!" said Margaret. "And I _can't_ take your money, beautiful! And I don't see how we can possibly come to stay with you."

"Don't you argue with me!" Mrs. Haggage exhorted her. "I'm not in any temper to be argued with. I've spent the morning sewing bias stripes in a bias skirt--something which from a moral-ruining and resolution-overthrowing standpoint simply knocks the spots off Job. You'll take that money, and you'll come to me as soon as you can, and--God bless you, my dear!"

And again Margaret was kissed. Altogether, it was a very osculatory morning for Miss Hugonin.

Mr. Jukesbury's adieus, however, were more formal; and--I am sorry to say it--the old fellow went away wondering if the rich Mr. Woods might not conceivably be very grateful to the man who had saved his life and evince his gratitude in some agreeable and substantial form.

Mrs. Saumarez and Mr. Kennaston, also, were somewhat unenthusiastic in their parting. Kennaston could not feel quite at ease with Margaret, brazen it as he might with devil-may-carish flippancy; and Kathleen had by this an inkling as to how matters stood between Margaret and Billy, and was somewhat puzzled thereat, and loved the former in consequence no more than any Christian female is compelled to love the woman who, either unconsciously or with deliberation, purloins her ancient lover. A woman rarely forgives the man who has ceased to care for her; and rarelier still can she pardon the woman who has dared succeed her in his affections.

And besides, they were utterly engrossed with one another, and utterly happy, and utterly selfish with the immemorial selfishness of lovers, who cannot for a moment conceive that the whole world is not somehow benefited by their happiness and does not await with breathless interest the outcome of their bickerings with the blind bow-god, and from this providential delusion derive a meritorious and comfortable glow. So Mrs. Saumarez and Mr. Kennaston parted from Margaret with kindness, it is true, but not without awkwardness.

And that was the man that almost she had loved! thought Margaret, as she gazed on the whirl of dust left by their carriage-wheels. Gone with a few perfunctory words of sympathy!

And for my part, I think that the base Indian who threw a pearl away worth more than all his tribe was, in comparison with Felix Kennaston, a shrewd and long-headed man. If you had given _me_ his chances, Margaret ... but this, however, is highly digressive.

The Colonel, standing beside her, used language that was unrefined. His aspirations as to the future of Mr. Kennaston and Mr. Jukesbury, it appeared, were both lurid and unfriendly.

"But why, attractive?" queried his daughter.

"May they be qualified with such and such adjectives!" desired the Colonel, fervently. "They tried to lend me money--wouldn't hear of my not taking it! In case of necessity.' Bah!" said the Colonel, and shook his fist after the retreating carriages. "May they be qualified with such and such adjectives!"

How happily she laughed! "And you're swearing at them!" she pouted. "Oh, my dear, my dear, how hard you are on all my little friends!"

"Of course I am," said the Colonel, stoutly. "They've deprived me of the pleasure of despising 'em. It was worth double the money, I tell you! I never objected to any men quite so much. And now they've gone and behaved decently with the deliberate purpose of annoying me! Oh!" cried the Colonel, and shook an immaculate, withered old hand toward the spring sky, "may they be qualified with such and such adjectives!"

And that, so far as we are concerned, was the end of Margaret's satellites.

My dear Mrs. Grundy, may one point the somewhat obvious moral? I thank you, madam, for your long-suffering kindness. Permit me, then, to vault toward my moral over the shoulders of a greater man.

Among the papers left by one Charles Dickens--a novelist who is obsolete now because he "wallows naked in the pathetic" and was frequently guilty of a very vulgar sort of humour that actually made people laugh, which, as we now know, is not the purpose of humour--a novelist who incessantly "caricatured Nature" and by these inartistic and underhand methods created characters that are more real to us than the folk we jostle in the street and (God knows!) far more vital and worthy of attention than the folk who "cannot read Dickens"--you will find, I say, a note of an idea which he never afterward developed, running to this effect: "Full length portrait of his lordship, surrounded by worshippers. Sensible men enough, agreeable men enough, independent men enough in a certain way; but the moment they begin to circle round my lord, and to shine with a borrowed light from his lordship, heaven and earth, how mean and subservient! What a competition and outbidding of each other in servility!"

And this, with "my lord" and "his lordship" erased to make way for the word "money," is my moral. The folk who have just left Selwoode were honest enough as honesty goes nowadays; kindly as any of us dare be who have our own way to make among very stalwart and determined rivals; generous as any man may venture to be in a world where the first of every month finds the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker rapping at the door with their little bills: but they cringed to money. It was very wrong of them, my dear lady, and in extenuation I can only plead that they could no more help cringing to money than you or I can help it.

This is very crude and very cynical, but unfortunately it is true.

We always cringe to money; which is humiliating. And the sun always rises at an hour when sensible people are abed and have not the least need for its services; which is foolish. And what you and I, my dear madam, are to do about rectifying either one of these vexatious circumstances, I am sure I don't know.

We can, at least, be honest. Let us, then, console ourselves at will with moral observations concerning the number of pockets in a shroud and the difficulty of a rich man's entering into the kingdom of Heaven; but with an humble and reverent heart, let us admit that, in the world we know, money rules. Its presence awes us. And if we are quite candid we must concede that we very unfeignedly envy and admire the rich; we must grant that money confers a certain distinction on a man, be he the veriest ass that ever heehawed a platitude, and that we cannot but treat him accordingly, you and I.

You are friendly, of course, with your poor cousins; you are delighted to have them drop in to dinner, and liberal enough with the claret when they do; but when the magnate comes, there is a magnum of champagne, and an extra lamp in the drawing-room, and--I blush to write it--a far more agreeable hostess at the head of the table. Dives is such good company, you see. And speaking for my own sex, I defy any honest fellow to lay his hand upon his waistcoat and swear that it doesn't give him a distinct thrill of pleasure to be seen in public with a millionaire. Daily we truckle in the Eagle's shadow--the shadow that lay so heavily across Selwoode. With the Eagle himself and with the Eagle's work in the world--the grim, implacable, ruthless work that hourly he goes about--our little comedy has naught to do; Schlemihl-like, we deal but in shadows. Even the shadow of the Eagle is a terrible thing--a shadow that, as Felix Kennaston has told you, chills faith, and charity, and independence, and kindliness, and truth, and--alas--even common honesty.

But this is both cynical and digressive.

XXXI

Dr. Jeal, better than his word, had Billy Woods out of bed in five days. To Billy they were very long and very dreary days, and to Margaret very long and penitential ones. But Colonel Hugonin enjoyed them thoroughly; for, as he feelingly and frequently observed, it is an immense consolation to any man to reflect that his home no longer contains "more damn' foolishness to the square inch than any other house in the United States."

On all sides they sought for Cock-eye Flinks. But they never found him, and to this day they have never found him. The Fates having played their pawn, swept it from the board, and Cock-eye Flinks disappeared in Clotho's capacious pocket.

All this time the young people saw nothing of one another. On this point Jeal was adamantean.

"In a sick-room," he vehemently declared, "a woman is well enough, but _the_ woman is the devil and all. I've told that young man plainly, sir, that he doesn't see your daughter till he gets well--and, by George, sir, he'll get well now just in order to see her. Nature is the only doctor who ever cures anybody, Colonel; we humans, for all our pill-boxes and lancets, can only prompt her--and devilish demoralising advice we generally give her, too," he added, with a chuckle.

"Peggy!"

This was the first observation of Mr. Woods when he came to his senses. He swore feebly when Peggy was denied to him. He pleaded. He scolded. He even threatened, as a last resort, to get out of bed and go in immediate search of her; and in return, Jeal told him very affably that it was far less difficult to manage a patient in a straight-jacket than one out of it, and that personally nothing would please him so much as a plausible pretext for clapping Mr. Woods into one of 'em. Jeal had his own methods in dealing with the fractious.

Then Billy clamoured for Colonel Hugonin, and subsequently the Colonel came in some bewilderment to his daughter's rooms.

"Billy says that will ain't to be probated," he informed her, testily. "I'm to make sure it ain't probated till he gets well. You're to give me your word you'll do nothing further in the matter till Billy gets well. That's his message, and I'd like to know what the devil this infernal nonsense means. I ain't a Fenian nor yet a Guy Fawkes, daughter, and in consequence I'm free to confess I don't care for all this damn mystery and shilly-shallying. But that's the message."

Miss Hugonin debated with herself. "That I will do nothing further in the matter till Billy gets well," she repeated, reflectively. "Yes, I suppose I'll have to promise it, but you can tell him for me that I consider he is _horrid_, and just as obstinate and selfish as he can _possibly_ be. Can you remember that, attractive?"

"Yes, thank you," said the Colonel. "I can remember it, but I ain't going to. Nice sort of message to send a sick man, ain't it? I don't know what's gotten into you, Margaret--no, begad, I don't! I think you're possessed of seventeen devils. And now," the old gentleman demanded, after an awkward pause, "are you or are you not going to tell me what all this mystery is about?"

"I can't," Miss Hugonin protested. "It--it's a secret, attractive."

"It ain't," said the Colonel, flatly--"it's some more damn foolishness." And he went away in a fret and using language.

XXXII

Left to herself, Miss Hugonin meditated.

Miss Hugonin was in her kimono.

And oh, Madame Chrysastheme! oh, Madame Butterfly! Oh, Mimosa San, and Pitti Sing, and Yum Yum, and all ye vaunted beauties of Japan! if you could have seen her in that garb! Poor little ladies of the Orient, how hopelessly you would have wrung your henna-stained fingers! Poor little Ichabods of the East, whose glory departed irretrievably when she adopted this garment, I tremble to think of the heart-burnings and palpitations and hari-karis that would have ensued.

It was pink--the pink of her cheeks to a shade. And scattered about it were birds, and butterflies, and snaky, emaciated dragons, with backs like saw-teeth, and prodigious fangs, and claws, and very curly tails, such as they breed in Nankeen plates and used to breed on packages of fire-crackers--all done in gold, the gold of her hair. Moreover, one might catch a glimpse of her neck--which was a manifest favour of the gods--and about it mysterious, lacy white things intermingling with divers tiny blue ribbons. I saw her in it once--by accident.

And now I fancy, as she stood rigid with indignation, her cheeks flushed, it must have been a heady spectacle to note how their shell-pink repeated the pink of her fantastic garment like a chromatic echo; and how her sunny hair, a thought loosened, a shade dishevelled, clung heavily about her face, a golden snare for eye and heart; and how her own eyes, enormous, cerulean--twin sapphires such as in the old days might have ransomed a brace of emperors--grew wistful like a child's who has been punished and does not know exactly why; and how her petulant mouth quivered and the long black lashes, golden at the roots, quivered, too--ah, yes, it must have been a heady spectacle.

"_Now_," she announced, "I see plainly what he intends doing. He is going to destroy that will, and burden me once more with a large and influential fortune. I don't want it, and I won't take it, and he might just as well understand that in the very beginning. I don't care if Uncle Fred did leave it to me--I didn't ask him to, did I? Besides, he was a very foolish old man--if he had left the money to Billy _everything_ would have been all right. That's always the way--my dolls are invariably stuffed with sawdust, and I _never_ have a dear gazelle to glad me with his dappled hide, but when he comes to know me well he falls upon the buttered side--or something to that effect. I hate poetry, anyhow--it's so mushy!"

And this from the Miss Hugonin who a week ago was interested in the French _decadents_ and partial to folk-songs from the Romaic! I think we may fairly deduce that the reign of Felix Kennaston is over. The king is dead; and Margaret's thoughts and affections and her very dreams have fallen loyally to crying, Long live the king--his Majesty Billy the First.

"Oh!" said Margaret, with an indignant gasp, what time her eyebrows gesticulated, "I think Billy Woods is a meddlesome _piece_!--that's what I think! Does he suppose that after waiting all this time for the only man in the world who can keep me interested for four hours on a stretch and send my pulse up to a hundred and make me feel those thrilly thrills I've always longed for--does he suppose that now I'm going to pay any attention to his silly notions about wills and things? He's abominably selfish! I shan't!"

Margaret moved across the room, shimmering, rustling, glittering like a fairy in a pantomime. Then, to consider matters at greater ease, she curled up on a divan in much the attitude of a tiny Cleopatra riding at anchor on a carpeted Cydnus.