Love, the Fiddler Part 9

"Oh, but you mustn't!" she broke out, with a quick intuition of what I meant.

"Why mustn't?" Tasked.

"Oh, because--because----" she returned. "I wouldn't like to fib to you, and I wouldn't like to tell you the truth--and it would make me feel hot and uncomfortable----"

"What would?" I asked.

"You see, if I really cared for him, it would be different," she said. "But I don't--and that's all."

"Lady Grizzle over again?" I ventured.

"Not altogether," she said, "you see she was perfectly mad about somebody else--which really was hard lines for her, poor thing-- while I----"

"Oh, please go on!" I said, as she hesitated.

"Fyles," she said, with the ghost of a sigh, "this isn't day- dreaming at all, and I'm going to give you another cup of tea and change the subject."

"What would you prefer, then?" I asked. "No! No more chocolate cake, thank you."

"Let's have a fairy story all of our own," she said.

"Well, you begin," I said.

"Once upon a time," she began, "there was a poor young man in New York--an American, though of course he couldn't help that--and he came over to England and discovered the home of his ancestors, and he liked them, and they liked him--ever so much, you know--and he found that the old place was destined to pa.s.s to strangers, and so he worked and worked in a dark old office, and stayed up at night working some more, and never accepted any invitations or took a holiday except at week-ends to the family castle--until finally he ama.s.sed an immense fortune. Then he got into a fairy chariot, together with a bag of gold and the family lawyer, and ordered the coachman to drive him to Lord George Willoughby's in Curzon Street. Then they sent out in hot haste for Sir George's son, an awfully fast young man in the Guards, and the family lawyer haggled and haggled, and Lord George hemmed and hawed, and the Guardsman's eyes sparkled with greed at the sight of the bag of gold, and finally for two hundred thousand pounds (Papa says he often thinks he could pull it off for a hundred and ten thousand) the entail is broken and everybody signs his name to the papers and the poor young man buys the succession of Fyles and comes down here, regardless of expense, in a splendid gilt special train, and is received with open arms by his kinsmen at the castle."

"The open arms appeal to me," I said.

"He was nearly hugged to death," said Verna, "for they were so pleased the old name was not to die out and be forgotten. And then the poor young man married a ravis.h.i.+ng beauty and had troops of sunny-haired children, and the daughter of the castle (who by this time was an old maid and quite plain, though everybody said she had a heart like hidden treasure) devoted herself to the little darlings and taught them music-lessons and manners and how to spell their names with a little f, and as a great treat would sometimes bring them up here and tell them how she had first met the poor young man in the 'diamond mornings of long ago'!"

"That's a good fairy story," I said, "but you are all out about the end!"

"You said you liked it," she protested.

"Yes, where they hugged the poor young man," I returned, "but after that, Verna, it went off the track altogether."

"Perhaps you'll put it back again," she said.

"I want to correct all that about the daughter of the castle," I said. "She never became an old maid at all, for, of course, the poor young man loved her to distraction and married her right off, and they lived happily together ever afterwards!"

"I believe that is nicer," she said thoughtfully, as though considering the matter.

"Truer, too," I said, "because really the poor young man adored her from the first minute of their meeting!"

"I wonder how long it will take him to make his fortune," she said, which, under the circ.u.mstances, struck me as a cruel thing to say.

"Possibly he has made it already," I said. "How do you know he hasn't?"

"By his looks for one thing," she said, regarding the machine oil on my cuff out of the corner of her eye. "Besides, he hasn't any of the arrogance of a parvenu, and is much too----"

"Too what?" I asked.

"Well bred," she replied simply.

"No doubt that's the ffrench in him," I said, which I think was rather a neat return.

She didn't answer, but looked absently across to the harbour mouth.

"I believe there is a steamer coming in," she said. "Yes, a steamer."

"A yacht, I think," I said, for, sure enough, it was Babc.o.c.k true to the minute, heading the Tallaha.s.see straight in. I could have given him a hundred dollars on the spot I was so delighted, for he couldn't have timed it better, nor at a moment when it could have pleased me more. She ran in under easy steam, making a splendid appearance with her raking masts and razor bow, under which the water spurted on either side like dividing silver. Except a beautiful woman, I don't know that there's a sweeter sight than a powerful, sea-going steam yacht, with the sun glinting on her bright bra.s.s-work, and a uniformed crew jumping to the sound of the boatswain's whistle.

"The poor young man's s.h.i.+p's come home," I said.

"It must be Lady Gaunt's Sapphire," said Verna.

"With the American colours astern?" I said.

"Why, how strange," she said, "it really is American. And then I believe it's larger than the Sapphire!"

"Fifteen hundred and four tons register," I said.

"How do you know that?" she demanded, with a shade of surprise in her voice.

"Because, my dear, it's mine!" I said.

"Yours!" she cried out in astonishment.

"If you doubt me," I said, "I shall tell you what she is going to do next. She is about to steam in here and lower a boat to take me aboard."

"She's heading for Dartmouth," said Verna incredulously, and the words were hardly out of her pretty mouth when Babc.o.c.k swung round and pointed the Tallaha.s.see's nose straight at us.

For a moment Verna was too overcome to speak.

"Fyles," she said at last, "you told me you worked in an office!"

"So I do," I said.

"And own a vessel like that!" she exclaimed. "A yacht the size of a man-of-war!"

"It was you that said I was a poor young man," I observed. "I was so pleased at being called young that I let the poor pa.s.s."

"Fancy!" she exclaimed, looking at me with eyes like stars. And then, recovering herself, she added in another tone: "Now don't you think it was very forward to rendezvous at a private castle?"

"Oh, I thought I could make myself solid before she arrived," I said.

"Fyles," she said, "I am beginning to have a different opinion of you. You are not as straightforward as a ffrench ought to be--and, though I'm ashamed to say it of you--but you are positively conceited."

"Unsay, take back, those angry words," I said; and even as I did so the anchor went splash and I could hear the telegraph jingle in the engine-room.