At the top of the rise, Robin considerately slackened his pace and the chubby gentleman drew alongside, somewhat out of breath but as cheerful as a cricket.
“Going too fast for you, Mr. Blithers?” inquired Robin.
“Not at all,” said Mr. Blithers. “By the way, Prince,” he went on, cunningly seizing the young man’s arm and thereby putting a check on his speed for the time being at least, “I want to explain my daughter’s unfortunate absence last night. You must have thought it very strange. Naturally it was unavoidable. The poor girl is really quite heart-broken. I beg pardon!” He stepped into a rut and came perilously near to going over on his nose. “Beastly road! Thanks. Good thing I took hold of you. Yes, as I was saying, it was really a most unfortunate thing; missed the train, don’t you see. Went down for the day—just like a girl, you know—and missed the train.”
“Ah, I see. She missed it twice.”
“Eh? Oh! Ha ha! Very good! She might just as well have missed it a dozen times as once, eh? Well, she could have arranged for a special to bring her up, but she’s got a confounded streak of thriftiness in her. Couldn’t think of spending the money. Silly idea of—I beg your pardon, did I hurt you? I’m pretty heavy, you know, no light weight when I come down on a fellow’s toe like that. What say to sitting down on this log for a while? Give your foot a chance to rest a bit. Deucedly awkward of me. Ought to look out where I’m stepping, eh?”
“It really doesn’t matter, Mr. Blithers,” said Robin hastily. “We’ll keep right on if it’s all the same to you. I’m due at home in—in half an hour. We lunch very punctually.”
“I was particularly anxious for you and Maud to meet under the conditions that obtained last night,” went on Mr. Blithers, with a regretful look at the log they were passing. “Nothing could have been more—er—ripping.”
“I hear from every one that your daughter is most attractive,” said Robin. “Sorry not to have met her, Mr. Blithers.”
“Oh, you’ll meet her all right. Prince. She’s coming home today. I believe Mrs. Blithers is expecting you to dinner tonight. She—”
“I’m sure there must be some mistake,” began Robin, but was cut short.
“I was on my way to Red Roof to ask you and Count Quiddux to give us this evening in connection with that little affair we are arranging. It is most imperative that it should be tonight, as my attorney is coming up for the conference.”
“I fear that Mrs. King has planned something—”
Mr. Blithers waved his hand deprecatingly. “I am sure Mrs. King will let you off when she knows how important it is. As a matter of fact, it has to be tonight or not at all.”
There was a note in his voice that Robin did not like. It savoured of arrogance.
“I daresay Count Quinnox can attend to all the details, Mr. Blithers. I have the power of veto, of course, but I shall be guided by the counsel of my ministers. You need have no hesitancy in dealing with—”
“That’s not the point, Prince. I am a business man,—as perhaps you know. I make it a point never to deal with any one except the head of a concern, if you’ll pardon my way of putting it. It isn’t right to speak of Growstock as a concern, but you’ll understand, of course. Figure of speech.”
“I can only assure you, sir, that Graustark is in a position to indemnify you against any possible chance of loss. You will be amply secured. I take it that you are not coming to our assistance through any desire to be philanthropic, but as a business proposition, pure and simple. At least, that is how we regard the matter. Am I not right?”
“Perfectly,” said Mr. Blithers. “I haven’t got sixteen millions to throw away. Still I don’t see that that has anything to do with my request that you be present at the conference tonight. To be perfectly frank with you, I don’t like working in the dark. You have the power of veto, as you say. Well, if I am to lend Groostork a good many millions of hard-earned dollars, I certainly don’t relish the idea that you may take it into your head to upset the whole transaction merely because you have not had the matter presented to you by me instead of by your cabinet, competent as its members may be. First hand information on any subject is my notion of simplicity.”
“The integrity of the cabinet is not to be questioned, Mr. Blithers. Its members have never failed Graustark in any—”
“I beg your pardon, Prince,” said Mr. Blithers firmly, “but I certainly suspect that they failed her when they contracted this debt to Russia. You will forgive me for saying it, but it was the most asinine bit of short-sightedness I’ve ever heard of. My office boys could have seen farther than your honourable ministers.”
To his utter amazement, Robin turned a pair of beaming, excited eyes upon him.
“Do you really mean that, Mr. Blithers?” he cried eagerly.
“I certainly do!”
“By jove, I—I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear you say it. You see it is exactly what John Tullis said from the first. He was bitterly opposed to the loan. He tried his best to convince the prime minister that it was inadvisable. I granted him the special privilege of addressing the full House of Nobles on the question, an honour that no alien had known up to that time. Of course I was a boy when all this happened, Mr. Blithers, or I might have put a stop to the—but I’ll not go into that. The House of Nobles went against his judgment and voted in favour of accepting Russia’s loan. Now they realise that dear old John Tullis was right. Somehow it gratifies me to hear you say that they were—ahem!—shortsighted.”
“What you need in Groostock is a little more good American blood,” announced Mr. Blithers, pointedly. “If you are going to cope with the world, you’ve got to tackle the job with brains and not with that idiotic thing called faith. There’s no such thing in these days as charity among men, good will, and all that nonsense. Now, you’ve got a splendid start in the right direction, Prince. You’ve got American blood in your veins and that means a good deal. Take my advice and increase the proportion. In a couple of generations you’ll have something to brag about. Take Tullis as your example. Beget sons that will think and act as he is capable of doing. Weed out the thin blood and give the crown of Grasstick something that is thick and red. It will be the making of your—”
“I suppose you are advising me to marry an American woman, Mr. Blithers,” said Robin drily.
Mr. Blithers directed a calculating squint into the tree-tops. “I am simply looking ahead for my own protection, Prince,” said he.
“In what respect?”
“Well I am putting a lot of money into the hands of your people. Isn’t it natural that I should look ahead to some extent?”
“But my people are honest. They will pay.”
“I understand all that, but at the same time I do not relish the idea of some day being obliged to squeeze blood from a turnip. Now is the time for you to think for the future. Your people are honest, I’ll grant. But they also are poor. And why? Because no one has been able to act for them as your friend Tullis is capable of acting. The day will come when they will have to settle with me, and will it be any easier to pay William W. Blithers than it is to pay Russia? Not a bit of it. As you have said, I am not a philanthropist. I shall exact full and prompt payment. I prefer to collect from the prosperous, however, and not from the poor. It goes against the grain. That’s why I want to see you rich and powerful—as well as honest.”
“I grant you it is splendid philosophy,” said Robin. “But are you not forgetting that even the best of Americans are sometimes failures when it comes to laying up treasure?”
“As individuals, yes; but not as a class. You will not deny that we are the richest people in the world. On the other hand I do not pretend to say that we are a people of one strain of blood. We represent a mixture of many strains, but underneath them all runs the full stream that makes us what we are: Americans. You can’t get away from that. Yes, I do advise you to marry an American girl.”
“In other words, I am to make a business of it,” said Robin
, tolerantly.
“It isn’t beyond the range of possibility that you should fall in love with an American girl, is it? You wouldn’t call that making a business of it, would you?”
“You may rest assured, Mr. Blithers, that I shall marry to please myself and no one else,” said Robin, regarding him with a coldness that for an instant affected the millionaire uncomfortably.
“Well,” said Mr. Blithers, after a moment of hard thinking, “it may interest you to know that I married for love.”
“It does interest me,” said Robin. “I am glad that you did.”
“I was a comparatively poor man when I married. The girl I married was well-off in her own right. She had brains as well. We worked together to lay the foundation for a—well, for the fortune we now possess. A fortune, I may add, that is to go, every dollar of it, to my daughter. It represents nearly five hundred million dollars. The greatest king in the world today is poor in comparison to that vast estate. My daughter will one day be the richest woman in the world.”
“Why are you taking the pains to enlighten me as to your daughter’s future, Mr. Blithers?”
“Because I regard you as a sensible young man, Prince.”
“Thank you. And I suppose you regard your daughter as a sensible young woman?”
“Certainly!” exploded Mr. Blithers.
“Well, it seems to me, she will be capable of taking care of her fortune a great deal more successfully than you imagine, Mr. Blithers. She will doubtless marry an excellent chap who has the capacity to increase her fortune, rather than to let it stand at a figure that some day may be surpassed by the possessions of an ambitious king.”
There was fine irony in the Prince’s tone but no trace of offensiveness. Nevertheless, Mr. Blithers turned a shade more purple than before, and not from the violence of exercise. He was having some difficulty in controlling his temper. What manner of fool was this fellow who could sneer at five hundred million dollars? He managed to choke back something that rose to his lips and very politely remarked:
“I am sure you will like her, Prince. If I do say it myself, she is as handsome as they grow.”
“So I have been told.”
“You will see her tonight.”
“Really, Mr. Blithers, I cannot—”
“I’ll fix it with Mrs. King. Don’t you worry.”
“May I be pardoned for observing that Mrs. King, greatly as I love her, is not invested with the power to govern my actions?” said Robin haughtily.
“And may I be pardoned for suggesting that it is your duty to your people to completely understand this loan of mine before you agree to accept it?” said Mr. Blithers, compressing his lips.
“Forgive me, Mr. Blithers, but it is not altogether improbable that Graustark may secure the money elsewhere.”
“It is not only improbable but impossible,” said Mr. Blithers flatly.
“Impossible?”
“Absolutely,” said the millionaire so significantly that Robin would have been a dolt not to grasp the situation. Nothing could have been clearer than the fact that Mr. Blithers believed it to be in his power to block any effort Graustark might make in other directions to secure the much-needed money.
“Will you come to the point, Mr. Blithers?” said the young Prince, stopping abruptly in the middle of the road and facing his companion. “What are you trying to get at?”
Mr. Blithers was not long in getting to the point. In the first place, he was hot and tired and his shoes were hurting; in the second place, he felt that he knew precisely how to handle these money-seeking scions of nobility. He planted himself squarely in front of the Prince and jammed his hands deep into his coat pockets.
“The day my daughter is married to the man of my choice, I will hand over to that man exactly twenty million dollars,” he said slowly, impressively.
“Yes, go on.”
“The sole object I have in life is to see my girl happy and at the same time at the top of the heap. She is worthy of any man’s love. She is as good as gold. She—”
“The point is this, then: You would like to have me for a son-in-law.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Blithers.
Robin grinned. He was amused in spite of himself. “You take it for granted that I can be bought?”
“I have not made any such statement.”
“And how much will you hand over to the man of her choice when she marries him?” enquired the young man.
“You will be her choice,” said the other, without the quiver of an eye-lash.
“How can you be sure of that? Has she no mind of her own?”
“It isn’t incomprehensible that she should fall in love with you, is it?”
“It might be possible, of course, provided she is not already in love with some one else.”
Mr. Blithers started. “Have you heard any one say that—but, that’s nonsense! She’s not in love with any one, take it from me. And just to show you how fair I am to her—and to you—I’ll stake my head you fall in love with each other before you’ve been together a week.”
“But we’re not going to be together for a week.”
“I should have said before you’ve known each other a week. You will find—”
“Just a moment, please. We can cut all this very short, and go about our business. I’ve never seen your daughter, nor, to my knowledge, has she ever laid eyes on me. From what I’ve heard of her, she has a mind of her own. You will not be able to force her into a marriage that doesn’t appeal to her, and you may be quite sure, Mr. Blithers, that you can’t force me into one. I do not want you to feel that I have a single disparaging thought concerning Miss Blithers. It is possible that I could fall in love with her inside of a week, or even sooner. But I don’t intend to, Mr. Blithers, any more than she intends to fall in love with me. You say that twenty millions will go to the man she marries, if he is your choice. Well, I don’t give a hang, sir, if you make it fifty millions. The chap who gets it will not be me, so what’s the odds? You—”
“Wait a minute, young man,” said Mr. Blithers coolly. (He was never anything but cool when under fire.) “Why not wait until you have met my daughter before making a statement like that? After all, am I not the one who is taking chances? Well, I’m willing to risk my girl’s happiness with you and that’s saying everything when you come right down to it. She will make you happy in—”
“I am not for sale. Mr. Blithers,” said Robin abruptly. “Good morning.” He turned into the wood and was sauntering away with his chin high in the air when Mr. Blithers called out to him from behind.
“I shall expect you tonight, just the same.”
Robin halted, amazed by the man’s assurance. He retraced his steps to the roadside.
“Will you pardon a slight feeling of curiosity on my part, Mr. Blithers, if I ask whether your daughter consents to the arrangement you propose. Does she approve of the scheme?”
Mr. Blithers was honest. “No, she doesn’t,” he said succinctly. “At least, not at present. I’ll be honest with you. She stayed away from the ball last night simply because she did not want to meet you. That’s the kind of a girl she is.”
“By jove, I take off my hat to her,” cried Robin. “She is a brick, after all. Take it from me, Mr. Blithers, you will not be able to hand over twenty millions without her consent. I believe that I should enjoymeeting her, now that I come to think of it. It would be a pleasure to exchange confidences with a girl of that sort.”
Mr. Blithers betrayed agitation. “See here, Prince, I don’t want her to know that I’ve said anything to you about this matter,” he said, unconsciously lowering his voice as if fearing that Maud might be somewhere within hearing distance. “This is between you and me. Don’t breathe a word of it to her. ’Gad, she’d—she’d skin me alive!” At the very thought of it, he wiped his forehead with unusual vigour.
Robin laughed heartily. “Rest easy, Mr. Blithers. I shall not even think of your proposition again, much less speak of i
t.”
“Come now, Prince; wait until you’ve seen her. I know you’ll get on famously—”
“I should like her to know that I consider her a brick, Mr. Blithers. Is it too much to ask of you? Just tell her that I think she’s a brick.”
“Tell her yourself,” growled Mr. Blithers, looking very black. “You will see her this evening,” he added levelly.
“Shall I instruct your chauffeur to come for you up here or will you walk back to—”
“I’ll walk to Red Roof,” said Mr. Blithers doggedly. “I’m going to ask Mrs. King to let you off for tonight.”
CHAPTER VII
A LETTER FROM MAUD
Mr. Blithers, triumphant, left Red Roof shortly after luncheon; Mr. Blithers, dismayed, arrived at Blitherwood a quarter of an hour later. He had had his way with Robin, who, after all, was coming to dinner that evening with Count Quinnox. The Prince, after a few words in private with the Count, changed his mind and accepted Mr. Blithers’ invitation with a liveliness that was mistaken for eagerness by that gentleman, who had made very short work of subduing Mrs. King when she tried to tell him that her own dinner-party would be ruined if the principal guest defaulted. He was gloating over his victory up to the instant he reached his own lodge gates. There dismay sat patiently waiting for him in the shape of a messenger from the local telegraph office in the village below. He had seen Mr. Blithers approaching in the distance, and, with an astuteness that argued well for his future success in life, calmly sat down to wait instead of pedaling his decrepit bicycle up the long slope to the villa.
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