Phil grinned faintly at this acc.u.mulation of epithets, but his blue eyes had no mirth in them. The interview was beginning to be something of a strain. He wished it were over.

"That's good," he said. "Apparently we all know where we all stand. I have no illusions about Carlotta's view-point either. There is no reason I should have. I got it first hand."

"Don't be an idiot," ordered Mr. Cressy. "A woman can have as many view-points as there are days in the year, counting Sundays double. You have no more idea this minute where Carlotta stands than--than I have,"

he finished ignominiously, wiping his perspiring forehead with an imported linen handkerchief.

"Do you mind telling me just why you are here, if Carlotta didn't send you? I don't flatter myself you automatically selected me for your new post without some rather definite reason behind it."

"I came because I had a notion you were the best man for another job--a job that makes the whole brokerage business look like a game of jack-straws--the job of marrying my daughter Carlotta."

Phil stared. He had not expected Mr. Cressy to take this position. He had been ready enough to believe Carlotta's prophecy that her parent would raise a merry little row if she announced to him her intention of marrying that obscure individual, Philip Lambert, of Dunbury, Ma.s.sachusetts. He thought that particular way of behavior on the parent's part not only probable but more or less justifiable, all things considered. He saw no reason now why Mr. Cressy should feel otherwise.

Harrison Cressy drained a deep draught of water, once more wiped his highly shining brow and leaned forward over the table toward his puzzled guest.

"You see, Philip," he went on using the young man's first name for the first time. "Carlotta is in love with you."

Philip flushed and his frank eyes betrayed that this, though not entirely new news, was not unwelcome to hear.

"In fact," continued Carlotta's father grimly, "she is so much in love with you she is going to marry another man."

The light went out of Phil's eyes at that, but he said nothing to this any more than he had to the preceding statement. He waited for the other man to get at what he wanted to say.

"I can't stand Carlotta's being miserable. I never could. It is why I am here, to see if I can't fix up a deal with you to straighten things out.

I am in your hands, boy, at your mercy. I have the reputation of being hard as shingle nails. I'm soft as putty where the girl is concerned. It kills me by inches to have her unhappy."

"Is she--very unhappy?" Phil's voice was sober. He thought that he too was soft as putty, or softer where Carlotta was concerned. It made him sick all over to think of her being unhappy.

"She is--d.a.m.nably unhappy." Harrison Cressy blew his nose with a sound as of a trumpet. "Here you," he bellowed at the waiter who was timidly approaching. "Is that our steak at last? Bring it here, quick and don't jibber. Are you deaf and dumb as well as paralyzed?"

The host attacked the steak with ferocity, slammed a generous section on a plate and fairly threw it at the young man opposite. Phil wasn't interested in steak. He scarcely looked at it. His eyes were on Mr.

Cressy, his thoughts were on that gentleman's only daughter.

"I am sorry she is unhappy," he said. "I don't know how much you know about it all; but since you know so much I a.s.sume you also know that I care for Carlotta just as much as she cares for me, possibly more. I would marry her tomorrow if I could."

"For the Lord Harry's sake, do it then. I'll put up the money."

Phil's face hardened.

"That is precisely the rock that Carlotta and I split on, Mr. Cressy. She wanted to have you put up the money. I love Carlotta but I don't love her enough to let her or you--buy me."

The old man and the young faced each other across the table. There was a deadlock between them and both knew it.

"But this offer I've made you is a bona fide one. You'll make good. You will be worth the five thousand and more in no time. I know your kind. I told you I was a good picker. It isn't a question of buying. Can the movie stuff. It's a fair give and take."

"I have refused your offer, Mr. Cressy."

"You refused it before you knew Carlotta was eating her heart out for you. Doesn't that make any difference to you, my lad? You said you loved her," reproachfully.

A huge blue-bottle fly buzzed past the table, pa.s.sed on to the window where it fluttered about aimlessly, b.u.mping itself against the pane here and there. Mechanically Phil watched its gyrations. It was one of the hardest moments of his life.

"In one way it makes a great difference, Mr. Cressy," he answered slowly.

"It breaks my heart to have her unhappy. But it wouldn't make her happy to have me do something I know isn't right or fair or wise. I know Carlotta. Maybe I know her better than you do; I know she doesn't want me that way."

"But you can't expect her to live in a hole like this, on a yearly income that is probably less than she spends in one month just for nothing much."

"I don't expect it," explained Phil patiently. "I've never blamed Carlotta for deciding against it. But there is no use going over it all.

She and I had it out together. It is our affair, not yours, Mr. Cressy."

"Philip Lambert, did you ever see Carlotta cry?"

Phil winced. The shot went home.

"No. I'd hate to," he admitted.

"You would," seconded Harrison Cressy. "I hated it like the devil myself.

She cried all over my new dress suit the other night."

Phil's heart was one gigantic ache. The thought of Carlotta in tears was almost unbearable. Carlotta--his Carlotta--was all sunshine and laughter.

"It was like this," went on Carlotta's parent. "Her aunt told me she was going to marry young Lathrop--old skin-flint tea-and-coffee Lathrop's son. I couldn't quite stomach it. The fellow's an a.s.s, an un.o.bjectionable a.s.s, it is true, but with all the ear marks. I tackled Carlotta about it.

She said she wasn't engaged but might be any minute. I said some fool thing about wanting her to be happy, and the next thing I knew she was in my arms crying like anything. I haven't seen her cry since she was a little tot. She has laughed her way through life always up to now. I couldn't bear it. I can't bear it now, even remembering it. I squeezed the story out of her, drop at a time, till I got pretty much the whole bucket full. I tell you, Phil Lambert, you've got to give in. I can't have her heart broken. You can't have her heart broken. G.o.d, man, it's your funeral too."

Phil felt very much as if it were his own funeral. But he did not speak.

He couldn't. The other forged on, his big, mumbling ba.s.s mingled with the buzz of the blue-bottle in the window.

"I made up my mind something had to be done and done quick. I wasn't going to have my little girl run her head into the noose by marrying Lathrop when it was you she loved. I got busy, made inquiries about you as I said. I had to before I offered you the job naturally, but it was more than that. I had to find out whether you were the kind of man I wanted my Carlotta to marry. I found out, and came up here to put the proposition to you. I talked to your father first, by the way, and got his consent to go ahead with my plans."

"You went to my father!" There was concern and a trace of indignation in Phil's voice.

"Naturally I was playing to win. I had to hold all the trumps. I wanted your father on my side--had to have him in fact. He came without a murmur. He is a good sport. Said all he wanted was your happiness, same as all I wanted was Carlotta's. We quite understood each other."

Phil sat silent with down cast eyes on his almost untasted salad. He couldn't bear to think of his father's being attacked like that, hit with a lightning bolt out of a clear sky. The more he thought about it the more he resented it. Of course Dad would agree. He was a good sport as Mr. Cressy said. Rut that didn't make the thing any easier or more justifiable.

"Your father is willing. I want it. Carlotta wants it. You want it, yourself. Lord, boy, be honest. You know you do. You'll never regret giving in. Remember it is for Carlotta's happiness we are both looking for." There was an almost pleading note in Harrison Cressy's voice--a note few men had heard. He was more used to command than to sue for what he desired.

Phil rose from the table. His face was a little white as he stood there, tall, quiet, perfectly master of himself and the situation. Even before the young man spoke Harrison Cressy knew he had failed.

"I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. If Carlotta wants happiness with me I am afraid she will have to come to Dunbury."

"You won't reconsider?"

"There is nothing to reconsider. There never was any question. I am sorry you even raised one in Dad's mind. You shouldn't have gone to him in the first place. You should have come to me. It was for me to settle."

"Highty, tighty!" fumed the exasperated magnate. "People don't tell me what I should and should not do. They do what I tell 'em."

"I don't," said Philip Lambert in much the same tone he had once said to Carlotta, "You can't have this." "I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. I don't want to be rude, or unkind or obstinate; but there are some things no man can decide for me. And there are some things I won't do even to win Carlotta."

Harrison Cressy's head drooped for a moment. He was beaten for once--beaten by a lad of twenty-three whose will was quite as strong as his own. The worst of it was he had never liked any young man in his life so well as he liked Philip Lambert at this minute, never so coveted any thing for his daughter Carlotta as he coveted her marriage with Philip Lambert.