The Girl From His Town Part 17

He got Dan finally to himself and without any preparation began, pus.h.i.+ng Dan back into a big leather chair, and standing up like a judge over him:

"Now, you really must listen to me, my dear chap. I shan't rest in my grave unless I get a word with you. Your father sent you here to me and I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what for. I've been wondering every day about it for two months. He didn't know what this set was like or how rotten it is."

"What set?" The boy looked appallingly young as Gordon stared down at him. There wasn't a line or wrinkle on his smooth brow or on his lips and forehead finely cut and well molded-but there were the very seals of what his father would have been glad to see. The boy had the same clear look and unspoiled frankness that had charmed Galorey at the first. He had been a lazy coward to delay so long.

"Why, the rottenness of this set right here in my house." And as the host began to see that he should have to approach a woman's name in speaking, he stopped short, his mouth wide open, and Dan thought he had been drinking.

"You are talking of marrying Lily," Gordon got out.

"I am _going_ to marry her."

"You mustn't."

Blair got up out of his chair. It didn't need this attack of Galorey's to bring to his mind hints that had been dropped that Galorey was in love with the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater. It illuminated what Galorey was saying fast and incoherently.

"I mean to say, my dear chap, that you mustn't marry the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater. Look at most of these European marriages. They all go to smash. She is older than you are and she has lived her life. You are much too young."

"Hold up, Galorey; you mustn't go on, you know. You know I am engaged; that's all there is about it. Now, let's go and have a game of pool."

Galorey had not worked himself up to this pitch to break off now at a fatal point.

"I'm responsible for this, and by gad, Dan, I'm going to put you on your guard."

"You are responsible for nothing, Galorey, and I warn you to drop it."

"You would listen to your father if he were here, wouldn't you?"

"I don't know," said the boy slowly. Then followed up with an honest, "Yes, I would."

Gordon caught eagerly, "Well, he sent you to me. Your friend Ruggles has gone off and washed his hands of you, but I can't."

Lord Galorey walked across the room briskly and came back to Dan. "First of all, you are not in love with Lily-not a bit of it. You couldn't be-and what's more she is not in love with you."

Blair laughed coolly. "You certainly have got things down to a fine point, Gordon. I'll be hanged if I understand your game."

Galorey went bravely on: "Therefore, if neither of you are in love, you understand that there is nothing between you but your money."

The Englishman got his point out brutally, relieved that the impersonal thing money opened a way for him. He didn't want to be the bounder and the cad that the mention of the woman would have made him.

The boy drew in an angry breath. "Gosh," he said, "that cursed money will make me crazy yet! You are not very flattering to me, Gordon, I swear, and Lily wouldn't thank you for the motives you impute to her."

"Oh, rot!" returned Gordon more tranquilly. "She hasn't got a human sentiment in her. She's a rock with a woman's face."

Dan turned his back on his host and walked off into the billiard-room.

Galorey promptly followed him, took down a cue and chalked it, and said:

"Well, come now; let's put it to the test." Blair began stacking the b.a.l.l.s.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, when you have had time to get your first news over from Ruggles, tell her you have gone to smash and that you are a pauper."

"I don't play tricks like that," said the Westerner quietly.

"No," responded Galorey bitterly, "you let others play tricks on you."

The young man threw his cue smartly down, his youth looked contemptuously at the worldly man, and he turned pale, but he said in a low voice:

"Now, you've got to let up on this, Gordon; I thought at first you had been drinking. I won't listen. Let's get on another subject, or I'll clear out."

Galorey, however, cool and pitiful of the tangle in the boy's affairs, wouldn't let himself be angry. "You are my old chum's boy, Dan," he went on, "and I'm not going to stand by and see you spoil your life in silence. You are of age. You can go to the devil if you like, but you can't go there under my roof, without a word from me."

"Then I'll get out from under your roof, to-night."

"Right! I don't blame you there, but, before you go, tell Lily you have lost your money, and see what she is made of. My dear chap"-he changed his tone to one of affection-"don't be an ape; listen to me, for your father's sake; remember your whole life's happiness is in this game.

Isn't it worth looking after?"

"Not at the risk of hurting a woman's feelings," said the boy.

"How can it hurt her, my dear man, to tell her you are poor?"

"It's a lie. I'm not up to lying to her; I don't care to. And you mean to think that if I told her I was busted she would throw me over?"

"Like a shot, my green young friend-like a shot."

"You haven't a very good opinion of women," Blair threw out with as near a sneer as his fine young face could express.

"No, not very," agreed the pool player, who had continued his shots with more or less sangfroid. When Galorey had run off his string of b.a.l.l.s he said, looking up from the table: "But I've got a very good opinion of that 'nice girl' you told me of when you first came, and I wish to Heaven she had kept you in the States."

This caught the boy's attention as nothing else had. "There never was any such girl," he said slowly; "there never has been anywhere; I rather guess they don't grow. You have made me a cad in listening to you, Gordon, but as to playing any of those comedy tricks you suggest, they are not in my line. If she is marrying me for my money, why, she'll get it."

"You're a coward," said Galorey, "like the rest of American husbands-all ideal and no common sense. You want to make a mess of your life. You haven't the grit to get out of a bad job."

He spurred himself on and his weak face grew strong as he felt he was compelling the boy's attention. "If you only had half the character your father had, you wouldn't make a mistake like this; you wouldn't run blind into such a deal as this."

Blair was impressed by his host. Galorey was so deadly in earnest and so honest, and, as Dan's face grew set and hardened, his companion prayed for wisdom. "If I can only win through this without touching Lily hard,"

he thought, and as he waited, Blair said:

"You haven't hesitated to call me names, Gordon. You're not my build or my age, and I can't thrash you."

And his host said cheerfully: "Oh, yes, you can; come on and try," and, metaphorically speaking, Dan struck his first blow:

"They say-people have said to me-that you once cared for Lily yourself."

The Englishman's heavy eyelids did not flicker. "It's quite true."

Taken back by this frank response, Blair stammered: "Well, I guess that explains everything. It's not surprising that you should feel as you do.

If you are jealous, I can forgive it a little bit, but it is low down to call a woman a fortune hunter."