The Lost Girl Part 64

"Yes. I _think_ so. I think so!" And again he laid his hand on the pile of papers under the paper-weight, and ran through the edges with the tips of his fingers.

"All those?" said Alvina.

"Yes," he said quietly. It sounded ominous.

"Many!" said Alvina.

"A fair amount! A fair amount! Let me show you a statement."

He rose and brought her a paper. She made out, with the lawyer's help, that the claims against her father's property exceeded the gross estimate of his property by some seven hundred pounds.

"Does it mean we owe seven hundred pounds?" she asked.

"That is only on the _estimate_ of the property. It might, of course, realize much more, when sold--or it might realize less."

"How awful!" said Alvina, her courage sinking.

"Unfortunate! Unfortunate! However, I don't think the realization of the property would amount to less than the estimate. I don't think so."

"But even then," said Alvina. "There is sure to be something owing--"

She saw herself saddled with her father's debts.

"I'm afraid so," said the lawyer.

"And then what?" said Alvina.

"Oh--the creditors will have to be satisfied with a little less than they claim, I suppose. Not a very great deal, you see. I don't expect they will complain a great deal. In fact, some of them will be less badly off than they feared. No, on that score we need not trouble further. Useless if we do, anyhow. But now, about yourself.

Would you like me to try to compound with the creditors, so that you could have some sort of provision? They are mostly people who know you, know your condition: and I might try--"

"Try what?" said Alvina.

"To make some sort of compound. Perhaps you might retain a lease of Miss Pinnegar's work-rooms. Perhaps even something might be done about the cinematograph. What would you like--?"

Alvina sat still in her chair, looking through the window at the ivy sprays, and the leaf buds on the lilac. She felt she could not, she could not cut off every resource. In her own heart she had confidently expected a few hundred pounds: even a thousand or more.

And that would make her _something_ of a catch, to people who had nothing. But now!--nothing!--nothing at the back of her but her hundred pounds. When that was gone--!

In her dilemma she looked at the lawyer.

"You didn't expect it would be quite so bad?" he said.

"I think I didn't," she said.

"No. Well--it might have been worse."

Again he waited. And again she looked at him vacantly.

"What do you think?" he said.

For answer, she only looked at him with wide eyes.

"Perhaps you would rather decide later."

"No," she said. "No. It's no use deciding later."

The lawyer watched her with curious eyes, his hand beat a little impatiently.

"I will do my best," he said, "to get what I can for you."

"Oh well!" she said. "Better let everything go. I don't _want_ to hang on. Don't bother about me at all. I shall go away, anyhow."

"You will go away?" said the lawyer, and he studied his finger-nails.

"Yes. I shan't stay here."

"Oh! And may I ask if you have any definite idea, where you will go?"

"I've got an engagement as pianist, with a travelling theatrical company."

"Oh indeed!" said the lawyer, scrutinizing her sharply. She stared away vacantly out of the window. He took to the attentive study of his finger-nails once more. "And at a sufficient salary?"

"Quite sufficient, thank you," said Alvina.

"Oh! Well! Well now!--" He fidgetted a little. "You see, we are all old neighbours and connected with your father for many years.

We--that is the persons interested, and myself--would not like to think that you were driven out of Woodhouse--er--er--dest.i.tute.

If--er--we could come to some composition--make some arrangement that would be agreeable to you, and would, in some measure, secure you a means of livelihood--"

He watched Alvina with sharp blue eyes. Alvina looked back at him, still vacantly.

"No--thanks awfully!" she said. "But don't bother. I'm going away."

"With the travelling theatrical company?"

"Yes."

The lawyer studied his finger-nails intensely.

"Well," he said, feeling with a finger-tip an imaginary roughness of one nail-edge. "Well, in that case--In that case--Supposing you have made an irrevocable decision--"

He looked up at her sharply. She nodded slowly, like a porcelain mandarin.

"In that case," he said, "we must proceed with the valuation and the preparation for the sale."

"Yes," she said faintly.

"You realize," he said, "that everything in Manchester House, except your private personal property, and that of Miss Pinnegar, belongs to the claimants, your father's creditors, and may not be removed from the house."

"Yes," she said.