The Man with the Double Heart Part 29

He caught McTaggart roughly by the shoulder. "What the devil..." he stuttered--"is the meaning of this?"

Cydonia scrambled up with more speed than grace, retreating to the landing with a shamed cry:

"_Father!_"

McTaggart, honestly taken aback, sat there, dazed, finding no reply.

For Cadell was almost beside himself.

Cydonia to him was more than a daughter; she was the ideal of his work-a-day life: the crowning proof of his money's worth.

In the depths of his parental heart love was tinged with awe--the emotion he felt before a masterpiece.

That a man should _dare_ ... under his own roof ... to hold her in his arms--to kiss her untouched mouth! Here was sacrilege. He shook McTaggart, his social veneer cracking apart.

"Now, then, sir--haven't you a tongue? How dare you come here--into my house--and treat my girl like a...?"

"_Silence!_"

The young man was on his feet, his face very white, his blue eyes aflame.

"If you'd give me time to speak----" each word was measured--"you'd find there's no need to insult your daughter!"

"Shall I--you puppy--you!" for the shaft had sped. "You leave my house first--This minute--see?"

He pointed down the stairs with a hand that shook.

"You git--_now_!--I'll have no truck with you!" He was back once more in his master grocer days.

"With pleasure"--McTaggart stood his ground--"_when_ you have listened to what I have to say. I shall call on you at twelve to-morrow, Mr.

Cadell--to ask you for the honour of your daughter's hand."

Melodramatic?--with a touch of the South, but not without a certain youthful dignity.

The very fact of this, of the young man's breeding, served but to remind Cadell of his own.

"I tell you," he boiled, "I'll have no words about it. Marry Cydonia----? a pauper like you!" He fought for his breath as McTaggart smiled. "You can call if you choose and be d.a.m.ned to you!"

Peter bowed, outwardly calm. He turned his head once. Cydonia had vanished, safely sheltered in the house-maid's bedroom.

Then, leisurely, he walked downstairs, conscious that the moral victory was his.

But the flights seemed endless. He pa.s.sed the ball-room door and joined in the steady stream pouring down to supper.

The thought stung him suddenly as he drew on his coat and tipped the man who handed him his hat.

"Hardly hospitable!"

But his smile twisted. He refused, as he pa.s.sed out, the appeal of loitering taxis, and with long angry strides he forged ahead down the empty pavements in a bee line for his club.

The night was still young. The stars above shone down through the glow that London spreads upon the domed sky: orange-colored smoke, incense offered up from the fires of her pleasure and burnt sacrifice.

In Piccadilly a woman accosted him, with painted lips that brought to mind Fantine.

He hurried on, restless, with a feeling in his heart that all was crooked in this maddening world. Love bartered--love profaned ... His eyes still filled with Cydonia's light shrank from that ghastly pageant of l.u.s.t which decorous London openly allows.

In the hall of his club a page ran after him, a pile of letters outstretched on a tray.

He took them absently and turned into the smoking-room, with a breath of relief at finding it empty, save for a solitary form, half-buried in a chair, feet outstretched toward the fire.

"Hullo!--Bethune." The man reading turned. "Luck, finding you here."

For he felt a real pleasure at the sight of the burly figure of his friend and a sudden, uncontrollable longing for sympathy.

They drew their chairs together before the cheerful blaze and exchanged commonplaces as the waiter brought drinks.

Then, as the door closed, Bethune's voice changed. "What's up, Peter?--got the flu?"

"No--the sack!" He laughed as he spoke, amused at the other's perspicacity.

For Bethune was a man to whom his friends turned instinctively in trouble, with--perhaps?--no memory that, on other occasions more hilarious, they voted this "quiet chap" a trifle "slow."

"Turned you down--eh? Not that Merrod woman?"

"Good Lord, no! I've done with her. It's a girl ... a young girl. Or rather her father! I'm feeling a bit hipped over it all."

He told the story from beginning to end, Bethune listening with an occasional grunt.

"Nice sort of man for a father-in-law! Seems to me you're well out of it."

"But I don't want to be! Never mind Cadell! I'm not marrying the family." Bethune smiled. "I'm hard hit this time--and I'll see it through--if it comes to a good old Gretna Green bolt!"

"Better take my car," Bethune was amused--"You're a Scotchman, aren't you? Once across the border you've only got to say you're husband and wife and the thing's fair and square, I understand."

"Jove! I never thought of it." McTaggart looked up. "She's the prettiest thing you ever set eyes on."

"Anything like Jill?"

"Not a sc.r.a.p!" The sudden contrast checked his flow of words on the crest of a lover-like flood of description. Then followed one of those swift afterthoughts peculiar to his a.n.a.lytical brain. The difference was not all to Cydonia's advantage; she lacked the mentality of the other girl.

Angrily he thrust aside the fleeting disloyalty as Bethune went on in his calm voice.

"I don't see why the old man was so riled? ... You're quite decent to look at----" his honest eyes twinkled--"and you've got a steady income, rare in these days. What does he want? A t.i.tle, I suppose. Some young a.s.s with debts who'll make her 'milady.'"

"That's about it." McTaggart scowled.

"D'you think she'll stand by you?"

"Of course," said the lover.