"I am more interested in the 'or,'" he declared rashly.
She turned her eyes slightly without moving her head, and knocked the ash from her cigarette into her plate.
"Let us go," she said, a little abruptly. "I am tired of talking here. If you really wish to know, you can accept the invitation which I shall send you presently, and come to Scotland."
CHAPTER XVI
Letitia and her escort pulled up their horses at the top of Rotten Row. Letitia was a little out of breath, but her colour was delightful, and the slight disarrangement of her tightly coiled brown hair most becoming.
"It was dear of you, Charlie, to think of lending me a hack," she declared. "I haven't enjoyed a gallop so much for ages. When we get down to Mandeleys I am going to raid Bailey's stables. He always has some young horses."
"Want schooling a bit before they're fit to ride," Grantham observed.
"If I had been born in another walk of life," Letitia said, "I am sure horse-breaking would have been my profession. You haven't been in to see us for ages, Charles."
"You weren't particularly gracious the last time I did come," he reminded her gloomily.
"Don't be silly," she laughed. "You must have come on an irritating afternoon. I get into such a terrible tangle sometimes with my housekeeping accounts up here. You know how impossible dad is with money matters, and he leaves everything to me."
The young man cleared his throat.
"I think you've borne the burdens of the family long enough," he remarked. "I wish you'd try mine."
"You do choose the most original forms of proposal," Letitia acknowledged frankly. "As a matter of fact, I have had enough of keeping accounts. I have almost made up my mind that when I do marry, if I ever do, I will marry some one enormously wealthy, who can afford to let me have a secretary-steward as well as a housekeeper."
"You've been thinking of that fellow Thain," he muttered.
"Oh, no, I haven't!" she replied. "Mr. Thain is a very pleasant person, but I can assure you that I have never considered him matrimonially. I suppose I ought to have done," she went on, "but, you know, I am just a little old-fashioned."
"I can't see what's the matter with me," the young man said disconsolately. "I've a bit of my own, a screw from my job, and the governor allows me a trifle. We might work it up to ten thousand a year. We ought to be able to make a start on that."
"It is positive wealth," Letitia acknowledged, "but I am sure you don't want me really, and I haven't the least inclination to get married, and heaven knows what would happen to dad if I let him go back to bachelor apartments!"
"He'd take care of himself all right," Letitia's suitor observed confidently.
"Would he!" she replied. "I am not at all sure. Our menkind always seem to have gone on sowing their wild oats most vigorously after middle age. Of course, if Ada Honeywell would marry him, I might feel a little easier in my mind."
"Ada won't marry any one," Grantham declared, "and I am perfectly certain, if she were willing, your father wouldn't marry her. She's too boisterous."
"Poor woman!" Letitia sighed. "She's immensely rich, but, you see, she has no past—I mean no pedigree. I am afraid it's out of the question."
"I wish you would chuck rotting and marry me, Letitia," he begged. "There's a little house in Pont Street—suit us down to the ground."
Letitia found herself gazing over the tops of the more distant trees.
"We are going down to Mandeleys in a few days," she said presently. "I'll take myself seriously to task there. I suppose I must really want to be married only I don't know it. Don't be surprised if you get a telegram from me any day."
"I'd come down there myself, if I had an invitation," he suggested.
She shook her head.
"Charlie," she declared, "it couldn't be done. So far as I can see at present, unless some of the tenantry offer their services for nothing—and our tenantry aren't like that—we shall have to keep house with about half a dozen servants, which means of course, only opening a few rooms. As a matter of fact, we shan't be able to go at all, unless Mr. Thain pays his rent for Broomleys in advance."
They turned out of the Park and not a word passed between them again until Letitia descended from her horse in Grosvenor Square.
"You were a dear to think of this, Charles," she said, standing on the steps and smiling at him. "I haven't enjoyed anything so much for a long time."
"You wouldn't care about a theatre this evening?" he proposed.
"Come in at tea time and see how I am feeling," she suggested. "I have dad rather on my hands. He has been wandering about like a lost sheep, the last few afternoons. I can't think what is wrong."
She strolled across the hall and looked in at the study. The Marquis was seated in an easy-chair, reading a volume of Memoirs. She crossed the room towards him.
"Father," she exclaimed, "you ought to have been out a beautiful morning like this."
The Marquis laid down his book. He was certainly looking a little tired. Letitia came up to his side and patted his hand.
"How's the gout?" she asked.
"Better," he replied, examining the offending finger.
"You're just lazy, I believe," Letitia observed reprovingly. "The sooner we get down to Mandeleys the better."
The Marquis glanced at a silver-framed calendar which stood upon the table. He had glanced at it about a hundred times during the last few days.
"A little country air," he confessed, "will be very agreeable. I think perhaps, too," he went on, "that I am inclined to be weary of London. It is more of a city, after all, isn't it, for the bourgeois rich than for a penniless Marquis. Where did you get your mount from, dear?"
"Charlie lent me a hack," she replied. "I've had a perfectly delightful ride."
"You have not yet arrived, I suppose," her father went on, "at any fixed matrimonial intentions with regard to Charlie?"
She shook her head a little dejectedly.
"It's so hard," she confessed. "I am dying to say 'yes,' especially, somehow, during the last few days, but somehow I can't. I think it must be his fault," she added resentfully. "He doesn't ask me properly."
"You'll find some one will be taking him off your hands before long," her father warned her. "Personally, I have no objection to find with the alliance."
"Of course," Letitia complained, "it's very clear what you are thinking of! You want your bachelor apartments in the Albany again, and the gay life. I really feel that it is my duty to remain a spinster and look after you."
The Marquis smiled. Once more his eyes glanced towards the calendar.
"Better ask Charlie down to Mandeleys and settle it with him there," he suggested.
"That's just what he wants," she sighed. "If we begin a house party there, though, think what a picnic it will be! And besides, Sylvia Laycey is sure to be somewhere about, and he'll probably fall in love with her again. I do wish I could make up my mind. What are you doing to-night, dad?"
"I am dining with Montavon," her father replied, "at the club. He has a party of four for whist."
"Dear old things!" Letitia murmured affectionately. "I hope you have Sheffield plate candlesticks on the table. Why not go in fancy dress—one of those Georgian Court dresses, you know—black velvet knickerbockers, a sword and peruke! Much better let me give you a lesson at auction bridge."
The Marquis shivered.
"You play the game?" he asked politely.
"I tried it as a means of subsistence," Letitia confessed, "but my partners always did such amazing things that I found there was nothing in it. If you are really dining out, dad, I shall go to the play with Charlie."
"Alone?"
"Don't be silly, dear," Letitia protested, flicking her whip. "Remember what that wicked old lady wrote in her memoirs—'Balham requires a chaperon, but Grosvenor Square never.' I shall try and get used to him this evening. I may even have wonderful news for you in the morning."
The Marquis took up his book again
.
"I wish, my dear, that I could believe it," he told her fervently.
CHAPTER XVII
"I feel like the German lady," Marcia observed, as she stood before her little sideboard and mixed a whisky and soda, "who went on cutting bread and butter. The world falls to pieces before my eyes—and I press the handle of a syphon. There!"
She carried the tumbler to Borden, who was seated by her fireside, and threw herself into an easy-chair opposite to him.
"I know it's all wrong," she declared. "My instincts are so obstinate even about the simplest things. You see, I have even wheeled away his easy-chair so that you shan't sit in it."
"Women always confuse instincts with prejudices," Borden rejoined, calmly sipping his whisky and soda. "May I smoke a pipe?"
Marcia gave a little gesture of despair.
"I never knew a man," she exclaimed, "who exhibited such a propensity for making himself at home! Tell me," she went on, "did you notice a very aristocratic looking, almost beautiful girl, with large brown eyes and a pale skin, seated in the stalls just below our box?"
"The girl with Charles Grantham?"
Marcia nodded.
"That was Lady Letitia Thursford," she told him.
"Is she engaged to Grantham?"
"She wasn't last week," Marcia replied. "I think the Marquis would like it, but Lady Letitia is by way of being difficult. I saw her looking at me thoughtfully, once or twice. I was dying to send down word to her that I had permission."
Borden moved in his chair a little uneasily.
"You are bound to no one," he reminded her. "There is no one of whom you need to ask permission."
"Don't be silly," Marcia replied. "I asked permission, and without it I wouldn't have dined with you alone to-night or lunched with Morris Hyde on Tuesday."
"I trust that both entertainments," he ventured, "have been a success."
Marcia shook her head.
"Morris Hyde was very disappointing," she confessed. "I was looking forward to being tremendously entertained, but instead of telling me all about these unknown tribes in Central America, his only anxiety seemed to be to know if I was going to let him kiss me in the taxi afterwards. Explorers, I am afraid, are far too promiscuous."
"Publishers," Borden said firmly, "are renowned throughout the world for their fidelity."
"Fidelity to their cash boxes," Marcia scoffed.
Borden, who had lit his pipe, blinked at her through a little cloud of smoke. They had come straight from the theatre, and he was in the evening clothes of a man who cares nothing about his appearance,—the black waistcoat, the none-too-well fitting shirt, the plainest of studs, and the indifferently arranged white tie. Nevertheless, Marcia liked the look of him, seated at ease in her low chair, and it was very obvious that he, too, approved of his hostess. She was curled up now at the end of the sofa, a cigarette in her mouth, an expression of curious perplexity upon her face. She was dressed very plainly in black, having alternately tried on and discarded all her more elaborate evening gowns. She had had a queer, almost desperate fancy to make herself look as unattractive as possible, but the very simplicity of her dress enhanced the gleaming perfection of her throat and arms. Even her posture, which should have been ungraceful, suited her. Her disturbed and doubtful frame of mind had softened her firm mouth, and lit with a sort of sweet plaintiveness her beautiful eyes.
"Do you think," he asked, "that I look upon you as a promising investment?"
"Well, I am," Marcia replied. "You admit having made money out of me this spring."
"At any rate, I am willing to divide it," he suggested.
"Upon conditions!"
"No one in the world gives something for nothing," he reminded her.
"We seem to be mixing up business and the other things most shockingly," Marcia declared. "Do you really mean that you are willing to share the profits of my next novel with me?"
"I couldn't do that," he objected, "it would be too unbusinesslike. I am quite willing, however, to share my life and all I have with you."
"Mere rhetoric!" Marcia exclaimed uneasily.
"Solemn earnest," he insisted. "Will you marry me, Marcia?"
She looked across at him. Her eyebrows were a little raised, her eyes inclined to be misty, her mouth tremulous.
"James," she replied, "I believe I'd like to. I'm not quite sure—I believe I would. But just tell me—how can I?"
"He has kept you to himself for pretty well twenty years," Borden said gruffly.
She sighed.
"When I was a child of seventeen," she confided, "a young farmer down at Mandeleys kissed me. If I had been one year younger," she went on, "I should have spat at him. As it was, I never spoke to him again. Then, a few months after that, the schoolmaster at the school where I was teaching made an awkward attempt at the same thing. He missed me, but his lips just touched my cheek. Then Reginald came. Let me see, that was nineteen years ago, and since then no one else has kissed me."
"A record of fidelity," Borden observed, "at which, even in your own stories, you would scoff."
"But then, you see," she reminded him, "I never write about a person with queer ideas like mine, because they wouldn't be interesting. People like a little more resilience about their heroines."
"Couldn't we talk brutal common sense for once?" he asked impatiently. "I have never abused your Marquis. From your own showing, he has played the game, as you have. All I want to say is that the natural time has come for your separation. I have waited for you a good many years, and I am a domestic man. I want a home—and children. It's quite time you wanted the same."
Perhaps for a moment the light in her eyes was a shade softer. She moved uneasily in her place.
"Quite primitive, aren't you, James?" she murmured.
"Life's a primitive thing when we get down to the bone," he answered. "You and I have wasted many an hour discussing the ologies, trying to thrust ourselves into the peculiar point of view of these neurotic Norwegians or mad Russians. When you come down to bedrock, though, for sober, decent people there is only one outlet to passion, only one elementary satisfaction for man and woman."
"You make things sound very simple."
"It isn't that," he persisted. "It's you who make them complex by being maudlin about this man. He has had what many would call the best part of your life. He has given up nothing for your sake, done nothing for your sake. He has kept you in the same seclusion that his grandfather would have done. He has treated you, so far as regards the outside world, as a man does—"
He stopped abruptly. Something in her eyes warned him.
"There are limits," she told him drily, "to my appreciation of unbridled speech. According to his lights, Reginald has been wonderful. To me there has been more romance than ignominy in many of his ideas. My trouble is something different. I can't quite make up my mind what it would mean for him if I were to strike out for myself now."
"You are like all women," he declared furiously. "You complicate every situation in life by thinking of other people. Think for yourself, Marcia. What about your own future? I promise you that your Marquis would think for himself, if he were up against a similar problem. He is getting all he wants. Are you? Of course you aren't!"
"Does anybody get all they want out of life?"
"It is generally their own fault if they don't get the main things," he insisted. "But, see here, I'll attack you with your own weapons. Here am I, forty-one years old, in love with you since I was thirty-two. What about those nine years? I am dropping into the ways of untidy, unsatisfactory bachelordom. I only order new clothes when some friend chaffs me into it, and if I do I forget the ties and shirts and those sorts of things. I've lost all interest in myself. I loaf at the club, play auction bridge when I might be doing something a great deal better, and drink a whisky and soda when any one asks me. I hang on to the business, but when I've finished my work I drift. In another five years' time I shall begin to stoop, I shall live with cigar ash all o
ver my clothes, and I shall have to be taken home from the club every other night. Your doing, Marcia—your responsibility."
"I should think," she said severely, "that your self-respect—"
"Oh, don't bother about my self-respect!" he interrupted. "I am a human being, and I tell you, Marcia, that every man needs something in his life to lift him just a little, to live up to, not down to. There is only one person in the world can take that place for me. I'm a clear charge upon your hands. You know that I love you, that you've driven all thoughts of other women out of my head, that you keep me beating against the walls of my impotence every time we meet and part. I am perfectly certain, if you don't come down to the world of common sense, I shall sink into the world of melodrama and go and tackle your Marquis myself. He must let you go."
"Do you want me as much as all that?" she asked, a little wistfully.
He was by her side in a moment, inspired by the break in her tone, the sweet, soft look in her eyes. He sank on one knee by the side of her couch and took her hands in his, kissing them one after the other.
"Ah, Marcia," he murmured, "I want you more than anything else on earth! I want you so much that, when you come, you will make the years that have passed seem like nothing but a nightmare, and the minutes, as they come, years of happiness. I am awkward, I know, sometimes, and gruff and morose, but so is any man who spends his life fretting for the thing he can't get. I only ask you, dear, to be fair. I have never said an unkind word about the man for whom you have cared so long. I only say now that you belong to me. I am not a bit foolish—I am not even jealous—only your time has come, your time for that little home in the country, a husband always with you, and, I hope to Heaven, children."
She took his face between her hands and kissed him. He understood her so perfectly that, as she drew her lips away, he rose and stood on the hearthrug, a conqueror yet humble.
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