Chapter VII (2)

“I found that the Massingfords--that’s the family name of the Marquis of Crossley--I found they ranked higher as a family than any of the ducal families except one. Of course I don’t include the royal dukes.”

“Of course not,” said I gravely.

“I might possibly have got one of the royal dukes--if not in England, then here on the Continent. But I decided-- You see, Godfrey, I looked into everything.”

“You certainly have been thorough,” said I. “I should have said it was impossible in so short a time.”

“But it wasn’t difficult. All the Americans over here are well informed about these things.”

“I can readily believe it,” said I. “But why did you turn down the poor royal dukes?”

“Because the other women would have made it dreadfully uncomfortable for Margot. They’d have hated her for taking precedence over them by such a long distance. Then, too--the dowry. I was afraid you couldn’t afford the dowry--or wouldn’t think the title worth the money. Indeed, I didn’t think so, myself.”

“A royal duke comes high?”

“The least dowry would be seventy-five million francs.”

“Fifteen million dollars!” I exclaimed. “Whew!”

“Mrs. Sinkers tried to get one for her daughter for ten millions--all she could scrape together. They agreed to a morganatic marriage for that, but not a full marriage. So, she and poor Martha gave it up. Martha’s heart is broken. The duke made love to her so wonderfully. I can’t imagine what Mrs. Sinkers was about, to allow such a thing before the affair was settled. Poor Martha was so excited that she would have accepted the morganatic marriage--she ranking merely as the duke’s head mistress. But while he was willing to take other mistresses for nothing, and even to pay them, he wouldn’t take _her_ for less than fifty million francs.”

“Poor Martha!” said I.

“I was too wise to trifle with royal dukes,” pursued Edna, so interested in her own narrative and so eager to show how sagacious she had been that she forgot her pose and her doubts as to my sympathies. “I weighed the advantages and disadvantages of about a dozen eligible men. Only three stood the test, and it finally narrowed down to Crossley. Margot was so happy when I told her. She wanted to love him--and now she is loving him.”

A long pause while Edna calmed down to earth from her European soarings, and while I, too, returned to the normal from an excursion in the opposite direction. “How much does he want?” said I. “Let’s get to bed rock.”

“He loves her so that he is willing, so I hear-- Of course, nothing has been said-- You will not believe how refined and----”

“How much?” interrupted I.

Edna winced at my rudeness, then again presented an unruffled front of happy loving serenity. “Enough to pay off the mortgages and to provide them with a suitable income.”

“How much?” I persisted, laughing.

She looked tenderly remonstrant. “I don’t know, Godfrey----”

“You know _about_ how much. What’s the figure--the price of this marked down marquis?”

“I should say the whole thing would not cost more than three or four million dollars.”

“Three--or four.” I laughed aloud. “Not much difference there. Now which is it--three or four?”

“Perhaps nearer four. Margot must have a _good_ income.”

“To be sure,” said I.

“The whole object would be defeated if she hadn’t the means----”

“The money,” I suggested. “Why use these evasive words? We’re talking a plain subject. Let’s use its language.”

“The money, then,” acquiesced she, resolutely good-humored. “If she hadn’t the money to make a proper appearance.”

“Naturally, to lead in society you must lead in spending money.... Well--it can’t be done.”

She paled, half started from her chair, sank back again. There was a long silence. Then she said, “You have never been cruel, Godfrey. You won’t be cruel now. You won’t destroy my life work. You won’t shatter Margot’s happiness.”

“The whole thing is--is nauseating to me,” said I.

Her short, pretty upper lip quivered. Her eyes filled. “If you didn’t approve, dear, why didn’t you stop me long ago? Why did you let me go on until there was no turning back?”

I was silent. There seemed to be no answer to that.

“Did you do it purposely, Godfrey?” said she, with melancholy eyes upon me. “Did you lure us on, so that you could crush us at one stroke?”

I was silent.

“I can’t believe that of you. I won’t believe it until you compel me to.”

“As I understand it,” said I, “you propose that I hand over to this young man four million----”

“Only about half of it, Godfrey,” cried she, reviving. “The other half would be Margot’s--for her own income.”

“Then that I hand over to this amiable, insignificant young foreigner two million dollars to induce him to consent to the degradation of marrying my daughter--to have him going about, saying in effect, ‘It is true, she is only one of those low Americans, but don’t forget that I got two million dollars for stooping.’ Is that the proposition?”

“You know it isn’t!” cried she. “He doesn’t feel that he is degrading himself. He feels proud of winning her--the most beautiful, the best mannered girl in London. But it’d be simply impossible for them to marry without the money. _I_ shouldn’t want it. They would be wretched. You talk like a sentimental schoolboy, Godfrey. How could two refined, sensitive people such as Hugh and Margot, used to every luxury, used to being foremost in society--how could they be happy without the means----”

“The money,” I corrected blandly.

“Without the money needed to maintain their position as marquis and marchioness of Crossley?”

I nodded assent.

“He has only about five thousand--twenty-five thousand of our money--a year. That is ridiculous for a marquis. He has to keep all his houses closed and run as economically as possible. Even then they cost him nearly seventy-five thousand dollars a year to maintain.”

“And he has only twenty-five thousand!”

“I meant twenty-five thousand over and above. He has that to live on. And, poor fellow, he is dropping every year deeper and deeper into debt. So much is expected of a marquis.”

“But not honesty, apparently,” said I.

“You mustn’t judge these people by our commercial standards,” she gently rebuked.

“I forgot,” said I penitently.

“And the poor fellow does love Margot so!”

“Um,” said I. “Have you ever happened to hear of a Miss Townley--Jupey Townley?”

A flash of annoyance flitted over Edna’s lovely, delicate countenance.

“I see you have,” said I. “You were, indeed, thorough. Permit me to compliment you, my dear.”

“I am glad Hugh hasn’t been a saint.”

“Isn’t,” said I.

“That’s all in the past,” declared she.

“I saw them in a box at a London music hall night before last,” said I. “They were-- They had been drinking.”

But Edna was not daunted. “You are a man of the world, Godfrey. Don’t pretend to be narrow.”

“When a man loves a woman----”

“Love is very different from that sort of thing, and you know it.”

“Has Margot heard----”

“Godfrey!” cried Edna, in horror. “Do you think I would permit _my_ daughter--_our_ daughter--to know such things! Why, her mind is as pure----”

I could not restrain a gesture of disgust. “You women!” I cried, rising. “Pure! Pure--God in Heaven, pure!”

Her look of dazed astonishment, obviously sincere, helped me to get back my composure. I sat down again. “I beg your pardon,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Even if you men have no purity yourselves, you ought to believe in it in women,” said she, with an injured air.

“Yes, indeed,” I agreed heartily. “I congratulate you on being able to make such generous allowances for masculine frailty.”

“You are sarcastic,” said she coldly.

“No matter. It certainly does not damage the title--perhaps adds to its luster.”

“It’s hereditary in their family to be wild up to marriage, and then to settle down and serve the state in some distinguished position.”

“Oh--in that case--” said I ironically.

“Margot and her husband and her children will have your money some day,” pursued she. “Why not give it to her now, when it will get her happiness?”

That impressed me. “I have not said I would not consent to this marriage,” I reminded her. “As a matter of fact, I’m in favor of it. I can see no future for Margot in America----”

“No, indeed,” cried Edna eagerly. “She simply couldn’t marry over there. She’d be wretched.”

“But I feel it is my duty-- Rather late in the day for me to talk about duty toward my daughter, after neglecting it all these years. Still, I ought to see to it that she has the best possible chance for a smooth married life. It’s only common prudence to take all precautions--isn’t it?”

“All _sensible_ precautions,” said she.

“You know how many of these foreign ‘alliances,’ as they’re called, have turned out badly.”

“They get a good many divorces in the states,” she suggested smilingly. “One to every twelve marriages, I read the other day.”

I admitted that she had made an effective retort. “The truth is,” said I, “American women aren’t brought up for domestic life. So, whether they marry at home or abroad they have trouble.”

“Men resent their independence,” said Edna.

“It may be so,” said I. Of what use to point out to her that the trouble lay in the women’s demanding to be supported and refusing to do anything to earn their support? All I said was: “I suspect a good many husbands think the marriage contract too one-sided--binding only them and not their wives. But the trouble with the ‘alliances’ can’t be that.”

“It’s because Europeans look on the wife as a kind of head servant. But Hugh isn’t that sort.”

“We’ll know more as to that when we hear what Margot says after she’s been married a few years,” said I. “The point to settle now is how to bind him to good behavior so far as it can be done in advance. He may be deeply in love with Margot. He may stay in love with her. But in the circumstances it’s wise to assume that he wants only her money and that, if he gets it, he’ll treat her badly.”

My wife’s silence was encouraging.

“If he had plenty of money he might even goad her into releasing him--and might marry again.”

My wife was obviously impressed. “Yes--that has been done,” said she. “Of course, if Margot should have an heir right away. But----”

She looked at me as if trying to decide whether she could trust me with a confidence. She evidently decided in my favor, for she went on to say:

“On the other hand--Margot is a peculiar girl. No--many women have the same peculiarity. They can’t be trusted with power over their husbands. If she had all the money in her own name and he were dependent on her-- Godfrey, I’m sure there’d be trouble.”

Once more she was astonishing me with her clear judgment in matters as to which I should have thought her hopelessly prejudiced. “But _I_ can be trusted,” said I. “The plan I had in mind was to take over the mortgages and guarantee a sufficient income.”

She shook her head. “He won’t consent,” said she. “His solicitors will insist on better terms than that.”

“Now you see why I want to talk to him directly. I don’t purpose to be hampered by that old trick of the principal hidden behind a go-between.”

“There’s no other way,” said Edna. “They’re too clever to yield that.”

“He needs money badly.”

“But he won’t marry unless he’s actually to get it,” replied she. “Almost every American who has married a daughter over here has tried to make a business bargain--at least, a bargain not altogether one-sided. Not one of them has succeeded. These Europeans have been handling the dowry and settlement question too many centuries.”

“I see,” said I affably. “If we want what they’ve got, we have to take it on their terms.”

It was most satisfactory, talking with her now that she consented to speak and listen to good sense. I was at once in a more amiable frame of mind, although I knew she had descended from her high horse only because she was shrewd enough to see it was the one way to get me to do as she wished.

“I will hide behind a go-between myself,” said I.

“Any English lawyer would simply play into the hands of the other side. At least, so Hilda was telling me.”

“Is she happy?”

“Very.”

“When’s her husband coming back?”

“Not for a year or so, I believe. Lord Blankenship cares more for big game and for exploring than for anything else.”

“An ideal marriage,” said I. “She brought him the money he wanted. He brought her the title she wanted. And they don’t annoy each other. He devotes himself to sport, she to society. These aristocratic people, with their simple, vulgar wants that are so easily gratified--how they are to be envied!”

Edna was observing me furtively, uneasily. I pretended not to notice. I went on: “Now, if they wanted the difficult things--things like love and companionship and congeniality--they might be wretched. When a child cries for a stick of candy or a tinsel-covered rattle--for money or social position--why, it’s easily pacified. But if it cries for the moon and the stars--” I laughed softly, enjoying her wonder as much as my own fancies.

After a while she said, with some constraint: “You see a great deal of Armitage?”

“We console each other,” said I, with mild raillery.

“Have you been going out much?”

“I’m very busy.”

“In one of your letters-- Those rare little notes of yours! You are cruelly neglectful, Godfrey-- In one of them you spoke of a week end or so on Armitage’s yacht. You and he don’t go off alone?”

“Oh, no. Some literary and artistic people usually are aboard.”

“I didn’t know you cared for that sort.”

“They’re interesting enough.”

“I suppose they’re friends of Mrs. Kirkwood’s,” pursued Edna. “She’s like her brother--affects to despise fashionable society. Their pretenses always amused me.”

“They are sincere people,” said I. “They don’t pretend. That’s why I like them.”

“I notice that Armitage belongs to every fashionable club in New York--and to some over here,” said Edna with a smile that was as shrewd as her observation. “Also, that he manages to find time to appear at the most exclusive parties during the season.”

I had observed this same peculiarity. While I refused to draw from it the inference she drew--and was undeniably justified in drawing--I had been tempted to do so. It irritated me to see her finger upon the weak spot in Armitage’s profession of freedom from snobbishness.

“And Mary Kirkwood,” pursued Edna, “she’s the same sort of fakir. Only, being a woman, she does it more deceptively than he.”

“She goes nowhere,” said I.

“But she revels in the fact that she _could_ go anywhere. So, she fooled you--did she?” Edna laughed merrily at my ill-concealed discomfiture. “But then you know so little about women.”

“I confess I’ve never seen in her the least sign of snobbishness or of interest in fashionable foolishness,” said I, with what I flatter myself was a fair attempt at the impartial air.

“That in itself ought to have opened your eyes,” said Edna. “Whenever you see anyone, dear, with no sign of a weakness that everybody in the world has, you may be sure you are seeing a fraud.”

“Because _you_ have a weakness, dear,” said I--as pleasant and as acid as she, “you must not imagine it is universal.”

“But _you_ have that weakness, too.”

“Really?”

“Did you or did you not join the fashionable clubs Armitage put you up at?”

I had to laugh at myself.

“Are you or are you not proud of the fact that your best friend, Armitage, is a fashionable person? Would you be as proud of him if he were only welcome in middle-class houses?”

“I’m ashamed to say there’s something in that,” said I. “Not much, but something.”

“Yet you believed Mary Kirkwood!” ended Edna.

“I thought little about it,” said I. “And I still believe that she is sincere--that she has no snobbishness in her.”

“You like her?”

“So far as I know her--yes.” My answer was an attempt to meet and parry a suspicion I felt in Edna’s mind. And it was fairly successful; fairly--for no one ever yet completely dislodged a suspicion. We cannot see into each other’s minds. We know, from what is going on in our own minds, that the human mind is capable of any vagary. Once we have applied this general principle to a specific person, once we have become definitely aware that there are in that person’s mind things of which we have no knowledge--from that time forth suspicion of them is in us, and is ready to grow, to flourish.

I had no difficulty in shifting to the subject of the marriage. “I’ll cable for my lawyer,” said I. “If anyone can beat this game, Fred Norman can.”

“Yes--send for him,” said Edna. “He is canny--and a man of _our_ world.”

“I’m going back to London to-night--” I went on.

“To-night!” she exclaimed. Her eyes filled with tears. “Godfrey--is this treating us right?”

I looked at her intently. “Don’t fake with me,” said I quietly. “It isn’t necessary.”

“What _do_ you mean?” cried she.

“I mean, I understand perfectly that you care nothing about me, except as the source of the money you need in amusing yourself. As you see in my manner, I am not wildly agitated by that fact. So far as I’m concerned, there’s no reason why we should make each other uncomfortable.”

“What _is_ the matter with you, Godfrey?” she said, with large widening eyes gazing at me. “You have changed entirely.”

“As you have,” said I, admiring her shrewdness, and afraid of it. “You’ve been educating. So have I. Mine has been slower than yours and along different lines. But it, too, has been thorough.”

She was not satisfied, though I’m confident my tone and manner betrayed nothing. Said she: “Some bad woman has been poisoning you against Margot and me.”

“As you please,” said I, too wary to be drawn into that discussion. I realized I had said entirely too much. Relying upon her intense vanity, her profound belief in her power over me, I had gone too far. “My business takes me to London to-night. I’ll probably be there until Norman arrives. Then we’ll come over.”

“Don’t you want us in London with you?” said Edna.

“You are comfortably settled here,” replied I. “Why disturb yourselves?”

She knew how to read me. She saw I was not in a dangerous mood, as she had begun to fear. She said: “We _did_ intend to stay in Paris a month or six weeks. We have a charming circle of friends among the old families here. I wish you’d stop on, Godfrey. The people are attractive, and the social life is most interesting.”

“Not to me,” said I. “You forget I’m a Hooligan. Besides, you don’t need me. There’s your advantage through being young and lovely and rich. You can get plenty of men to escort you about. It’s only the old and ugly married women who really need their husbands. Well--I’ll be ready when you are forced to fall back on me. Nothing like having in reserve a faithful Dobbin.”

She looked hurt. “How _can_ you joke about sacred things,” she reproached.

I laughed her seriousness aside. “Yes, I’ll be waiting, ready to be your companion, the confidant of your rheumatism and gout, when all the others have fled. Meanwhile, my dear, I’ll have my frisk.”

“Godfrey!”

It amused me to see how bitter to her was the taste of the medicine she had been forcing upon me so self-complacently. It amused me to watch the confusion into which these new and unsuspected aspects of myself was throwing her.

Said I: “I’m glad you’re as generous toward me as I’ve been toward you. That’s why we’ve avoided the Armitage sort of smash-up.”

When I left Paris that night I’ll engage she was thinking about me as she had never thought in her whole self-centered, American-female life.