CHAPTER XXIV.

When Paul Macleod left Mrs. Vane's drawing-room that afternoon she told herself that she could, for once, afford to sit with folded hands and let the world go its own way for a time. Everything seemed working for her, so there was no need for her to work for herself. The question of those letters could very well wait for a time. For all she knew to the contrary, the lawyers might have similar proof of little Paul's legitimacy; if they had not, why they ought to have. Unless, indeed, that marriage certificate had nothing to do with the boy at all. That in itself was conceivable with such a woman as Jeanie Duncan must have been. Anyhow, for the present, the child was in comfortable circ.u.mstances, since Dr. Kennedy had taken him in charge, and, as Marjory mentioned in her letter, he was to come to London and become a scholar at her school. The first thing was to see this foolish, ridiculous engagement broken off, and then if the big Paul were wise, and realised that both love and money were at his command, it might be possible to tell him the truth. But under no other circ.u.mstances, since none could console him as she could for the loss of Gleneira.

Therefore, for the sake of everybody concerned, the best thing that could happen was that she should be Paul's wife. A great tenderness showed in her face at the very thought. "Poor Paul," she said half aloud; "he would be quite happy with me, quite content, and I, oh!

surely I deserve something after all these years? I am getting tired of doing everything for people I do not care about, as I have done all my life long."

And it was true. In all the trivial details of life she was as thoroughly unselfish a woman as ever stepped, ready at a moment's notice to weary herself out for the sake of making the world more pleasant to others.

So those letters should remain locked up, perhaps for ever. In sober truth she could scarcely imagine herself using them. Their melodramatic force was so unlike the gentle spiriting by which she usually effected her object; and though she could never recall the night of poor old Peggy's death without a shudder, her sound common sense told her that after all in advising the old woman not to open the lawyer's letter, she had done so in ignorance. She had acted, as she thought, for the best, and everybody was liable to make mistakes.

So much for the one party to the interview; the other, once the spell of Mrs. Vane's personality was removed, felt vaguely that matters were becoming uncomfortable. It had never occurred to him before that _he_ ran the chance of being jilted, and the bare idea filled him with indignation; and yet he saw the justice of Mrs. Vane's remarks. He was not a good match for a girl who wished for nothing better than to remain in that state of social comfort to which it had pleased Providence to call her. But, if this were so, it would be better to save his dignity by broaching the possibility himself. Anything was better than being dismissed like a footman. He was never long in deciding a question of this sort, yet, quick as he was, he found himself not a moment too soon, for when he walked round to see Mr.

Woodward next morning, before that gentleman went down to office, he found him in the act of writing a note asking him to call.

"The fact is, Macleod," said the elder man, a little nervously, "I wanted to continue our talk about your engagement to my daughter."

Paul flushed up, but took the bull by the horns without a moment's hesitation.

"I came for that purpose, sir. It has occurred to me that I have somewhat overlooked Miss Woodward's side of the question, and I shall be infinitely obliged if you would treat me with perfect frankness in regard to what you, no doubt, know better than I."

The dignity of this speech soothed him, and he awaited the reply with tolerable equanimity.

"Very straightforward--very straightforward on your part, Macleod,"

said the man of business, approvingly. "One can scarcely be too careful in regard--er--in regard to such contracts; and your remark makes me regret more than ever--my--my duty. For you really have been all that is--all our fancy painted you, I may say. But that does not alter the fact that I am now a comparatively poor man. Of course, I may, I very probably shall, recoup. At the same time it is not the sort of security for--for--marriage settlements and trustees; you understand me, of course. Now, what we have to face is this: Do you think my daughter is suited to be the wife of a poor man--even a possibly poor man? I don't. And, then, would she be content if she had to live most of the year at Gleneira, away from society and--and telegraph posts--I mean posts and telegraphs? It's a pretty place, Macleod, and an interesting place--with--with a sort of--er--_respectability_ about it, but it is a devilish bit out of the way."

"Perhaps; but I would do my best to make your daughter forget that,"

said Paul, gloomily; the sense of being weighed in the balance and found wanting--he, Paul Macleod, whom so many women had fancied--was exquisitely painful.

Mr. Woodward blew his nose elaborately. "Just so; of course, of course! Very right and proper; very much so, indeed; only, my dear Macleod, marriage, after all, is a speculation, and I don't like to see my girl putting her capital into a concern which hasn't even a good prospectus. How many shareholders would even my name produce, if all we could say of a new railway was that, though the chances were dead against traffic, we would do our best to ensure it? Of course--er--if you were violently attached to each other one might allow something for the--er--the good-will of the business. Under those circ.u.mstances, I am led to believe--though I know nothing about it myself--that young people are content to live--er--on a ridiculously small income. My own impression is, however, that Alice is not that sort of girl; but, of course, I may be mistaken."

"In that case," put in Paul, loftily, "it would be best to refer to Alice herself."

"Exactly what we--I mean--er--decidedly. You two can settle it for yourselves. Her mother and I have no wish to interfere unnecessarily.

That, I think you will own, is fair dealing, though, of course, as a business man I have felt it my duty to warn her against risking what is virtually her all in a concern which, to put it briefly, has an unpromising prospectus. And, if you will allow me, I will give you the same advice."

There was a pompous warmth in his shake of the hand, but as he accompanied his visitor to the door his tone changed to a confidential whisper:

"You see it isn't as if it were a limited liability, but the Lord only knows how many children you might have."

Paul, as he made his way to the little boudoir where Alice frittered away so much of her time over _chiffons_ and picture papers, felt that he was being pursued by a Nemesis of his own creating. He had entered into this engagement by the light of reason, in obedience to the dictates of sound common sense, and it seemed likely that he would be driven from it by the same means. He found her, for a wonder, busy with needle and thread, and though the subject of it was only the st.i.tching of tinsel round some remarkably large velvet leaves pasted on satin, it gave her a more solid air than she usually had. That, and a brighter flush upon her cheek, told him that he was expected, and forewarned him of her decision. Indeed, he felt that words were really unnecessary, and that he might just as well have turned round and gone downstairs again, leaving her white fingers busy with the gold thread.

But there was a certain strain of savagery in Paul Macleod, as there is in most men when their dignity is touched, and he resolved to go through with it.

"I have just seen your father," he began, "and now I have come to you."

She might have been excused for turning a little pale and letting her work drop, for his tone was not rea.s.suring. He saw her dread of a scene, and gave a faint laugh.

"There is no need to be afraid, Alice. I have never made myself disagreeable to you yet, and I am not likely to begin now, when I have come to ask you plainly whether you could be happy with me? Could you?"

She clasped and unclasped her hands quite nervously. "I am ready to try--if you like--if you think I ought to."

"That has nothing to do with it. Put me out of the question, please.

Of course, it is always painful for a man to know that a woman does not care for him sufficiently----"

"It is not that," she broke in hurriedly. "I would not have promised if I had not liked you--it is the dulness, and the poverty. I have never been accustomed to it, and I might not be contented, and then how could I be a good wife if I were not happy? It is not as if there would be distractions, but there would be none, and I don't like the country as some girls do--Marjory Carmichael, for instance."

He looked at her sharply, but her eyes met his without any hidden meaning in them.

"She would not be dull, but I should, and then how could I cheer you up? For you need cheering at Gleneira--you know you do."

The truth irritated him. "From which I infer that you would rather be free. Well! you have only to take me or leave me," he said curtly.

She caught in her breath, and, as usual, the display of temper made her piteous. "Don't be angry, Paul! There is nothing to be angry about. If you wish it, I will try; but we can always be friends, and if it is wiser to part, then it is wiser."

"That is for you to decide. I am at your orders." He stood there looking very handsome, and she gave a sigh of indecision, though a certain resentment at being, as it were, thrust into the breach, came to her aid.

"Do you think it wiser?" he repeated.

"How can I tell? All I want to do is my duty, and I am afraid----"

"If you are afraid, that is enough," he said, losing patience.

"Good-bye, Alice; if you had decided otherwise I would have tried to be a good husband to you."

A faint flush came to her cheek. "And I would have tried to be a good wife; but----"

"Well?"

"Don't you think that with you trying to be a good husband and I trying to be a good wife, life would have been a little dreary--sometimes?"

The curse of home truths seemed in the air, and Paul felt he had no answer ready, and yet he liked her the better for the first touch of sarcasm he had ever heard from her lips. It reminded him of Mrs. Vane.

As he shook hands with her, the servant entering announced Mr. John Woodward, and Paul, going downstairs, met a big, florid young man coming up with a gardenia in his b.u.t.tonhole, and a parcel tied with gold thread in his hands. It was a box of Paris chocolates which Jack had purchased on his way from Riga. The two scowled at each other as they pa.s.sed, after the manner of Englishmen who have never been introduced, and Paul, as he put on his hat, felt a sudden insane desire to go up again, and tell Alice that he had changed his mind.

And yet, as he walked aimlessly through the Park, and so northward into the streets beyond, the certainty that life had been changed in the twinkling of an eye came slowly to him, and as it did he scarcely knew whither to turn for a little solid self-esteem. Of late he had been nurturing his own magnanimity, and, as Mrs. Vane had told him to his face, the fact that Alice Woodward's fortune was for the time diminished, and in the future uncertain, had not been without its consolation. It prevented him from feeling that people knew, to a fraction, what price he had put upon himself. And now, though he was, as it were, a "genuine reduction," he had been rejected! Rejected! the thought was intolerable. Even the memory of Marjory, and the look in her eyes which he had seen that last night, brought him cold comfort, for he told himself that, even if he had wished to do so, he could never go to her and say he had been jilted; yet he would not tell her a lie.

But he did not want to seek consolation from Marjory; after all, it had only been the old story of a pa.s.sing fancy fostered by romantic surroundings. Since he had left Gleneira he had scarcely thought of her, and for himself would have been quite content to fulfil his engagement. Therein, to tell truth, lay the whole sting of the position.

So he wandered on until he found himself in Regent's Park, and then, with that idle distaste to some decisive action which a return clubwards would necessitate, in the Zoological Gardens. It was years since he had been there of a morning without a band and a crowd. Years since he had brought papers of nuts and biscuits, and given them to the bears. But now he was free--yes! that was one comfort! he was free to do as he liked, so he watched the Polar bear--which made him smile at the recollection of Mrs. Vane's sally--and found a certain dreamy pleasure in strolling round by the antelopes and recognising beasts the like of which he had shot in strange climes. There is always some satisfaction to be got from bygone prowess in sport, and, as he finally found himself leaning over the railings of a tank where a pair of dippers were bobbing about, he had in a measure forgotten the present in the past.

So, as he watched the birds indifferently, a sleek round head slid suddenly, oilily from the water, and a pair of wistful brown eyes looked into his.

The card affixed to the railings only bore the legend:

"_Phoca vitulina_; or, Common Seal."

Yet no magician's wand could have been more powerful in transformation--say, rather translation--than the sight of the creature so designated was to Paul Macleod. In the twinkling of an eye the London haze--that condensed essence of millions of men, women, and children, struggling confusedly for breath--had pa.s.sed from him, and he was in a new heaven and a new earth. A boat was rocking idly on the summer sea, the blue clouds were sailing overhead, the world, its ways and works, were beyond the rampart of encircling hills, while a girl, with clear bright eyes, leant against the rudder.

"Why didn't you shoot, Captain Macleod?" He could hear the odd little tremor in her voice, as she gave the challenge, and feel the dim surprise of his own answer: "I never thought of it!"