The Wicked Marquis Part 7

"There are so many reasons. First of all, he hasn't really ever asked me."

"You're simply indolent," Lady Margaret persisted. "He'd ask you in five minutes if you'd let him. Do you suppose Bob would ever have thought of marrying me, if I hadn't put the idea into his head?"

"You're so much cleverer than I," Let.i.tia sighed.

"Not in the least," was the prompt disclaimer. "I really doubt whether I have your brains, and I certainly haven't your taste. The only thing that I have, and always had, is common sense, common sense enough to see that girls in our position in life must marry, and the sooner the better."

"Why only our cla.s.s of life?"

"Don't be silly! It's perfectly obvious, isn't it, that the daughters of the middle cla.s.ses are having the time of their lives. They are all earning money. Amongst them it has become quite the vogue to take situations as secretaries or milliners or that sort of thing, and it simply doesn't matter whether they marry or not. They get all the fun they want out of life."

"It sounds quite attractive," Let.i.tia admitted. "I think I shall take a course in typewriting and shorthand."

"You won't," Margaret rejoined. "You know perfectly well that that is one of the things we can never do. You've got to marry first. Then you can branch out in life in any direction you choose--art, travel, amours, or millinery. You can help yourself with both hands."

"Which have you chosen, Meg?"

"Oh, I am an exception!" Margaret confessed. "You see, Bob is such fun, and I've never got over the joke of marrying him. Besides, I haven't any craving for things at all. I am not temperamental like you. Where's father?"

"Just back from the country. He'll be here in time, though."

"And who's dining?"

"Charlie, for one," Let.i.tia replied, "Aunt Caroline, of course, and Uncle, Mrs. Honeywell, and the American person. The party was got up on his account, so I expect father wants to borrow money from him."

"He doesn't look an easy lender," Lady Margaret remarked.

"There's no one proof against father," Let.i.tia declared. "He is too exquisitely and transparently dishonest. You know, there's a man's story about the clubs that he once borrowed money from Lewis at five per cent. interest."

Margaret remained in a serious frame of mind.

"Something will have to be done," she sighed. "Robert went down and looked at the mortgages, the other day. He says they are simply appalling, there isn't an acre missed out. It's quite on the cards, you know, Letty, that Mandeleys may have to go."

Let.i.tia made a little grimace.

"I am getting perfectly callous," she confided. "If it did, this house would probably follow, father would realise everything he could lay his hands upon and become the autocrat of some French watering place, and I should cease to be the honest but impecunious daughter of a wicked n.o.bleman, and enjoy the liberty of the middle-cla.s.s young women you were telling me about. It wouldn't be so bad!"

"Or marry--" Margaret began.

"Mr. David Thain," the butler announced.

The juxtaposition of words perhaps incited in Let.i.tia a greater interest as she turned away from her sister to welcome the first of her guests. He had to cross a considerable s.p.a.ce of the drawing-room, with its old-fas.h.i.+oned conglomeration of furniture untouched and unrenovated for the last two generations, but he showed not the slightest sign of awkwardness or self-consciousness in any form. He was slight and none too powerfully built, but his body was singularly erect, and he moved with the alert dignity of a man in perfect health and used to gymnastic training. His clean-shaven face disclosed nervous lines which his manner contradicted. His mouth was unexpectedly hard, his deep-set grey eyes steel-like, almost brilliant. These things made for a strength which had in it, however, nothing of the uncouth. The only singularity about his face and manner, as he took his hostess' fingers, was the absence of any smile of greeting upon his lips.

"I am afraid that I am a little early," he apologised.

"We are all the more grateful to you," Lady Margaret a.s.sured him.

"Let.i.tia and I always bore one another terribly. A married sister, you know, feels rather like the cuckoo returning to the discarded nest."

"One hates other people's liberty so much," Let.i.tia sighed.

"I should have thought liberty was a state very easy to acquire," David Thain observed didactically.

"That is because you come from a land where all the women are clever and the men tolerant," Let.i.tia replied. "Where is that husband of yours, Margaret?"

"I am ashamed to say," her sister confessed, "that he stayed down in the morning room while Gossett fetched him a gla.s.s of sherry. Look at him now," she added, as Sir Robert entered the room unannounced and came smiling towards them. "How can I have any faith in a husband like that. Doesn't he look as though the only thing that could trouble him in life was that he hadn't been able to get here a few minutes earlier!"

"Given away, eh?" the newcomer groaned, as he kissed Let.i.tia's fingers.

"How are you, Mr. Thain? Your country is entirely to blame for my habits. I got so into the habit of drinking c.o.c.ktails while I was over there that I really prefer my aperitif to my wine at dinner."

Sir Robert, who had discovered within the last few days exactly where Mr. David Thain stood amongst the list of American multi-millionaires, drew this very distinguished person a little on one side to ask about a railway. Then the Marquis made his appearance, and immediately afterwards the remaining guests. David Thain, of whom many of the morning papers, during the last few days, had found something to say, found himself almost insinuated into the position of favoured guest.

He took Mrs. Honeywell--a dark and rather tired-looking lady--in to dinner, but he sat at Let.i.tia's left hand, and she gave him a good deal of her attention.

"You know everybody, don't you, Mr. Thain?" she asked him, soon after they had taken their places.

"Except the gentleman on your right," he answered.

She leaned towards him confidentially.

"His name," she whispered, "is Lord Charles Grantham. He is the son of the Duke of Leicester, who is, between ourselves, almost as wicked a duke as my father is a marquis. Fortunately, however, his mother left him a fortune. Do you notice how thoughtful he looks?"

David Thain glanced across the table at the young man in question, who was exchanging rather weary monosyllables with his right-hand neighbour.

"He is perhaps overworked?"

Let.i.tia shook her head.

"Not at all. He cannot make up his mind whether or not he wants to marry me."

"And can you make up your mind whether you wish to marry him?"

Let.i.tia lost for a moment her air of gentle banter.

"What a downright question!" she observed. "However, I can't tell you before I answer him, can I, and he hasn't asked me yet."

"I should think," David Thain said coolly, "that you would make an excellent match."

Their eyes met for a moment. There was a challenging light in hers to which he instantly responded. Her very beautiful white teeth closed for a moment upon her lower lip. Then she smiled upon him once more.

"It is so rea.s.suring," she murmured, "to be told things like that by people who are likely to know. Charles, talk to me at once," she went on, turning towards him. "Mr. Thain and I agree far too perfectly upon everything."

Thain was deep in conversation with his neighbour before Lord Charles was able to disentangle himself from the conversational artifices of the d.u.c.h.ess. Let.i.tia took note of his aptness with a little, malicious smile. It was towards the close of dinner when she once more turned towards him.

"Have you been telling Mrs. Honeywell how you made all your millions?"

she asked.

"I have been trying to point out," he replied, "that the first million is all one has to make. The rest comes."

"What a delightful country!" Let.i.tia observed. "If I were to borrow from all my friends and collected a million, do you think I could go out there and become a multi-millionaire?"