general kervick was by habit a punctual man, and thorpe found him hovering, carefully gloved and fur-coated, in the neighbourhood of the luncheon-room when he arrived. it indeed still lacked a few minutes of the appointed hour when they thus met and went in together. they were fortunate enough to find a small table out on the balcony, sufficiently removed from any other to give privacy to their conversation.
by tacit agreement, the general ordered the luncheon, speaking french to the waiter throughout. divested of his imposing great-coat, he was seen to be a gentleman of meagre flesh as well as of small stature. he had the roman nose, narrow forehead, bushing brows, and sharply-cut mouth and chin of a soldier grown old in the contemplation of portraits of the duke of wellington. his face and neck were of a dull reddish tint, which seemed at first sight uniformly distributed: one saw afterward that it approached pallor at the veined temples, and ripened into purple in minute patches on the cheeks and the tip of the pointed nose. against this flushed skin, the closely-cropped hair and small, neatly-waxed moustache were very white indeed. it was a thin, lined, care-worn face, withal, which in repose, and particularly in profile, produced an effect of dignified and philosophical melancholy. the general's over-prominent light blue eyes upon occasion marred this effect, however, by glances of a bold, harsh character, which seemed to disclose unpleasant depths below the correct surface. his manner with the waiters was abrupt and sharp, but undoubtedly they served him very well—much better, in truth, than thorpe had ever seen them serve anybody before.
thorpe observed his guest a good deal during the repast, and formed numerous conclusions about him. he ate with palpable relish of every dish, and he emptied his glass as promptly as his host could fill it. there was hardly a word of explanation as to the purpose of their meeting, until the coffee was brought, and they pushed back their chairs, crossed their legs, and lighted cigars.
“i was lucky to catch you with my wire, at such short notice,” thorpe said then. “i sent two, you know—to your chambers and your club. which of them found you?”
“chambers,” said the general. “i rarely dress till luncheon time. i read in bed. there's really nothing else to do. idleness is the curse of my life.”
“i've been wondering if you'd like a little occupation—of a well-paid sort,” said thorpe slowly. he realized that it was high time to invent some pretext for his hurried summons of the general.
“my dear sir,” responded the other, “i should like anything that had money in it. and i should very much like occupation, too—if it were, of course, something that was—was suitable to me.”
“yes,” said thorpe, meditatively. “i've something in my mind—not at all definite yet—in fact, i don't think i can even outline it to you yet. but i'm sure it will suit you—that is, if i decide to go on with it—and there ought to be seven or eight hundred a year for you in it—for life, mind you.”
the general's gaze, fastened strenuously upon thorpe, shook a little. “that will suit me very well,” he declared, with feeling. “whatever i can do for it”—he let the sentence end itself with a significant gesture.
“i thought so,” commented the other, trifling with the spoon in his cup. “but i want you to be open with me. i'm interested in you, and i want to be of use to you. all that i've said, i can do for you. but first, i'm curious to know everything that you can tell me about your circumstances. i'm right in assuming, i suppose, that you're—that you're not any too well-fixed.”
the general helped himself to another little glass of brandy. his mood seemed to absorb the spirit of the liqueur. “fixed!” he repeated with a peevish snap in his tone. “i'm not 'fixed' at all, as you call it. good god, sir! they no more care what becomes of me than they do about their old gloves. i gave them name and breeding and position—and everything—and they round on me like—like cuckoos.” his pale, bulging eyes lifted their passionless veil for an instant as he spoke, and flashed with the predatory fierceness of a hawk.
intuition helped thorpe to guess whom “they” might mean. the temper visibly rising in the old man's mind was what he had hoped for. he proceeded with an informed caution. “don't be annoyed if i touch upon family matters,” he said. “it's a part of what i must know, in order to help you. i believe you're a widower, aren't you, general?”
the other, after a quick upward glance, shook his head resentfully. “mrs. kervick lives in italy with her son-in-law—and her daughter. he is a man of property—and also, apparently, a man of remarkable credulity and patience.” he paused, to scan his companion's face. “they divide him between them,” he said then, from clenched teeth—“and i—mind you—i made the match! he was a young fellow that i found—and i brought him home and introduced him—and i haven't so much as an italian postage-stamp to show for it. but what interest can you possibly take in all this?” the unamiable glance of his eyes was on the instant surcharged with suspicion.
“how many daughters have you?” thorpe ventured the enquiry with inward doubts as to its sagacity.
“three,” answered the general, briefly. it was evident that he was also busy thinking.
“i ask because i met one of them in the country over sunday,” thorpe decided to explain.
the old soldier's eyes asked many questions in the moment of silence. “which one—edith?—that is, lady cressage?” he enquired. “of course—it would have been her.”
thorpe nodded. “she made a tremendous impression upon me,” he observed, watching the father with intentness as he let the slow words fall.
“well she might,” the other replied, simply. “she's supposed to be the most beautiful woman in england.”
“well—i guess she is,” thorpe assented, while the two men eyed each other.
“is the third sister unmarried?” it occurred to him to ask. the tone of the question revealed its perfunctory character.
“oh—beatrice—she's of no importance,” the father replied. “she goes in for writing, and all that—she's not a beauty, you know—she lives with an old lady in scotland. the oldest daughter—blanche—she has some good looks of her own, but she's a cat. and so you met edith! may i ask where it was?”
“at hadlow house—lord plowden's place, you know.”
the general's surprise at the announcement was undoubted. “at plowden's!” he repeated, and added, as if half to himself, “i thought that was all over with, long ago.”
“i wish you'd tell me about it,” said thorpe, daringly. “i've made it plain to you, haven't i? i'm going to look out for you. and i want you to post me up, here, on some of the things that i don't understand. you remember that it was plowden who introduced you to me, don't you? it was through him that you got on the board. well, certain things that i've seen lead me to suppose that he did that in order to please your daughter. did you understand it that way?”
“it's quite likely, in one sense,” returned the general. he spoke with much deliberation now, weighing all his words. “he may have thought it would please her; he may not have known how little my poor affairs concerned her.”
“well, then,” pursued thorpe, argumentatively, “he had an object in pleasing her. let me ask the question—did he want to marry her?”
“most men want to marry her,” was the father's non-committal response. his moustache lifted itself in the semblance of a smile, but the blue eyes above remained coldly vigilant.
“well—i guess that's so too,” thorpe remarked. he made a fleeting mental note that there was something about the general which impelled him to think and talk more like an american than ever. “but was he specially affected that way?”
“i think,” said kervick, judicially, “i think it was understood that if he had been free to marry a penniless wife, he would have wished to marry her.”
“do you know,” thorpe began again, with a kind of diffident hesitation—“do you happen to have formed an idea—supposing that had been the case—would she have accepted him?” “ah, there you have me,” replied the other. “who can tell what women will accept, and what they will refuse? my daughter refused lord lingfield—and he is an under-secretary, and will be earl chobham, and a cabinet minister, and a rich man. after that, what are you to say?”
“you speak of her as penniless,” thorpe remarked, with a casual air.
“six hundred a year,” the father answered. “we could have rubbed along after a fashion on it, if she had had any notions at all of taking my advice. i'm a man of the world, and i could have managed her affairs for her to her advantage, but she insisted upon going off by herself. she showed not the slightest consideration for me—but then i am accustomed to that.”
thorpe smiled reflectively, and the old gentleman read in this an encouragement to expand his grievances.
“in my position,” he continued, helping himself to still another tiny glass, “i naturally say very little. it is not my form to make complaints and advertise my misfortunes. i daresay it's a fault. i know it kept me back in india—while ever so many whipper-snappers were promoted over my head—because i was of the proud and silent sort. it was a mistake, but it was my nature. i might have put by a comfortable provision for my old age, in those days, if i had been willing to push my claims, and worry the staff into giving me what was my due. but that i declined to do—and when i was retired, there was nothing for me but the ration of bread and salt which they serve out to the old soldier who has been too modest. i served my queen, sir, for forty years—and i should be ashamed to tell you the allowance she makes me in my old age. but i do not complain. my mouth is closed. i am an english gentleman and one of her majesty's soldiers. that's enough said, eh? do you follow me? and about my family affairs, i'm not likely to talk to the first comer, eh? but to you i say it frankly—they've behaved badly, damned badly, sir.
“mrs. kervick lives in italy, at the cost of her son-in-law. he has large estates in one of the healthiest and most beautiful parts; he has a palace, and more money than he knows what to do with—but it seems that he's not my son-in-law. i could do with italy very well—but that doesn't enter into anyone's calculations. no! let the worn-out old soldier sell boot-laces on the kerb! that's the spirit of woman-kind. and my daughter edith—does she care what becomes of me? listen to me—i secured for her the very greatest marriage in england. she would have been duchess of glastonbury today if her husband had not played the fool and drowned himself.”
“what's that you say?” put in thorpe, swiftly.
“it was as good as suicide,” insisted the general, with doggedness. his face had become a deeper red. “they didn't hit it off together, and he left in a huff, and went yachting with his father, who was his own sailing-master—and, as might be expected, they were both drowned. the title would have gone to her son—but no, of course, she had no son—and so it passed to a stranger—an outsider that had been an usher in a school, or something of that sort. you can fancy what a blow this was to me. instead of being the grandfather of a duke, i have a childless widow thrust back upon my hands! fine luck, eh? and then, to cap all, she takes her six hundred a year and goes off by herself, and gives me the cold shoulder completely. what is it shakespeare says? 'how sharper than a serpent's teeth'——”
thorpe brought his fist down upon the table with an emphasis which abruptly broke the quotation in half. he had been frowning moodily at his guest for some minutes, relighting his cigar more than once meanwhile. he had made a mental calculation of what the old man had had to drink, and had reassured himself as to his condition. his garrulity might have an alcoholic basis, but his wits were clear enough. it was time to take a new line with him.
“i don't want to hear you abuse your daughter,” he admonished him now, with a purpose glowing steadily in his firm glance. “damn it all, why shouldn't she go off by herself, and take care of her own money her own way? it's little enough, god knows, for such a lady as she is. why should you expect her to support you out of it? no—sit still! listen to me!”—he stretched out his hand, and laid it with restraining heaviness upon the general's arm—“you don't want to have any row with me. you can't afford it. just think that over to yourself—you—can't afford—it.”
major-general kervick's prominent blue eyes had bulged forth in rage till their appearance had disconcerted the other's gaze. they remained still too much in the foreground, as it were, and the angry scarlets and violets of the cheeks beneath them carried an unabated threat of apoplexy—but their owner, after a moment's silence, made a sign with his stiff white brows that the crisis was over. “you must remember that—that i have a father's feelings,” he gasped then, huskily.
thorpe nodded, with a nonchalance which was not wholly affected. he had learned what he wanted to know about this veteran. if he had the fierce meannesses of a famished old dog, he had also a dog's awe of a stick. it was almost too easy to terrorize him.
“oh, i make allowances for all that,” thorpe began, vaguely. “but it's important that you should understand me. i'm this sort of a man: whatever i set out to do, and put my strength into it, that i do! i kill every pheasant i fire at; plowden will tell you that! it's a way i have. to those that help me, and are loyal to me, i'm the best friend in the world. to those that get in my way, or try to trip me up, i'm the devil—just plain devil. now then—you're getting three hundred a year from my company, that is to say from me, simply to oblige my friend plowden. you don't do anything to earn this money; you're of no earthly use on the board. if i chose, i could put you off at the end of the year as easily as i can blow out this match. but i propose not only to keep you on, but to make you independent. why do i do that? you should ask yourself that question. it can't be on account of anything you can do for the company. what else then? why, first and foremost, because you are the father of your daughter.”
“let me tell you the kind of man i am,” said the general, inflating his chest, and speaking with solemnity.
“oh, i know the kind of man you are,” thorpe interrupted him, coolly. “i want to talk now.”
“it was merely,” kervick ventured, in an injured tone, “that i can be as loyal as any man alive to a true friend.”
“well, i'll be the true friend, then,” said thorpe, with impatient finality. “and now this is what i want to say. i'm going to be a very rich man. you're not to say so to anybody, mind you, until the thing speaks for itself. we're keeping dark for a few months, d'ye see?—lying low. then, as i say, i shall be a very rich man. well now, i wouldn't give a damn to be rich, unless i did with my money the things that i wanted to do, and got the things with it that i wanted to get. whatever takes my fancy, that's what i'll do.”
he paused for a moment, mentally to scrutinize a brand-new project which seemed, by some surreptitious agency, to have already taken his fancy. it was a curious project; there were attractive things about it, and objections to it suggested themselves as well.
“i may decide,” he began speaking again, still revolving this hypothetical scheme in his thoughts—“i may want to—well, here's what occurs to me as an off-chance. i take an interest in your daughter, d'ye see? and it seems a low-down sort of thing to me that she should be so poor. well, then—i might say to you, here's two thousand a year, say, made over to you in your name, on the understanding that you turn over half of it, say, to her. she could take it from you, of course, as her father. you could say you made it out of the company. of course it might happen, later on, that i might like to have a gentle hint dropped to her, d'ye see, as to where it really came from. mind, i don't say this is what is going to be done. it merely occurred to me.”
after waiting for a moment for some comment, he added a second thought: “you'd have to set about making friends with her, you know. in any case, you'd better begin at that at once.”
the general remained buried in reflection. he lighted a cigarette, and poured out for himself still another petit verre. his pursed lips and knitted brows were eloquent of intense mental activity.
“well, do you see any objections to it?” demanded thorpe, at last.
“i do not quite see the reasons for it,” answered the other, slowly. “what would you gain by it?”
“how do you mean—gain?” put in the other, with peremptory intolerance of tone.
general kervick spread his hands in a quick little gesture. these hands were withered, but remarkably well-kept. “i suppose one doesn't do something for nothing,” he said. “i see what i would gain, and what she would gain, but i confess i don't see what advantage you would get out of it.”
“no-o, i daresay you don't,” assented thorpe, with sneering serenity. “but what does that matter? you admit that you see what you would gain. that's enough, isn't it?”
the older man's veined temples twitched for an instant. he straightened himself in his chair, and looked hard at his companion. there was a glistening of moisture about his staring eyes.
“it surely isn't necessary—among gentlemen”—he began, cautiously picking his phrases—“to have quite so much that's unpleasant, is it?”
“no—you're right—i didn't mean to be so rough,” thorpe declared, with spontaneous contrition. upon the instant, however, he perceived the danger that advantage might be taken of his softness. “i'm a plain-spoken man,” he went on, with a hardening voice, “and people must take me as they find me. all i said was, in substance, that i intended to be of service to you—and that that ought to interest you.”
the general seemed to have digested his pique. “and what i was trying to say,” he commented deferentially, “was that i thought i saw ways of being of service to you. but that did not seem to interest you at all.”
“how—service?” thorpe, upon consideration, consented to ask.
“i know my daughter so much better than you do,” explained the other; “i know plowden so much better; i am so much more familiar with the whole situation than you can possibly be—i wonder that you won't listen to my opinion. i don't suggest that you should be guided by it, but i think you should hear it.”
“i think so, too,” thorpe declared, readily enough. “what is your opinion?”
general kervick sipped daintily at his glass, and then gave an embarrassed little laugh. “but i can't form what you might call an opinion,” he protested, apologetically, “till i understand a bit more clearly what it is you propose to yourself. you mustn't be annoyed if i return to that—'still harping on my daughter,' you know. if i must ask the question—is it your wish to marry her?”
thorpe looked blankly at his companion, as if he were thinking of something else. when he spoke, it was with no trace of consciousness that the question had been unduly intimate.
“i can't in the least be sure that i shall ever marry,” he replied, thoughtfully. “i may, and i may not. but—starting with that proviso—i suppose i haven't seen any other woman that i'd rather think about marrying than—than the lady we're speaking of. however, you see it's all in the air, so far as my plans go.”
“in the air be it,” the soldier acquiesced, plausibly. “let us consider it as if it were in the air—a possible contingency. this is what i would say—my—'the lady we are speaking of' is by way of being a difficult lady—'uncertain, coy, and hard to please' as scott says, you know—and it must be a very skilfully-dressed fly indeed which brings her to the surface. she's been hooked once, mind, and she has a horror of it. her husband was the most frightful brute and ruffian, you know. i was strongly opposed to the marriage, but her mother carried it through. but—yes—about her—i think she is afraid to marry again. if she does ever consent, it will be because poverty has broken her nerve. if she is kept on six hundred a year, she may be starved, so to speak, into taking a husband. if she had sixteen hundred—either she would never marry at all, or she would be free to marry some handsome young pauper who caught her fancy. that would be particularly like her. you would be simply endowing some needy fellow, beside losing her for yourself. d'ye follow me? if you'll leave it to me, i can find a much better way than that—better for all of us.”
“hm!” said thorpe, and pondered the paternal statement. “i see what you mean,” he remarked at last. “yes—i see.”
the general preserved silence for what seemed a long time, deferring to the reverie of his host. when finally he offered a diversion, in the form of a remark about the hour, thorpe shook himself, and then ponderously rose to his feet. he took his hat and coat from the waiter, and made his way out without a word.
at the street door, confronting the waning foliage of the embankment garden, kervick was emboldened to recall to him the fact of his presence. “which way are you going?” he asked.
“i don't know,” thorpe answered absently. “i think—i think i'll take a walk on the embankment—by myself.”
the general could not repress all symptoms of uneasiness. “but when am i to see you again?” he enquired, with an effect of solicitude that defied control.
“see me?” thorpe spoke as if the suggestion took him by surprise.
“there are things to be settled, are there not?” the other faltered, in distressed doubt as to the judicious tone to take. “you spoke, you know, of—of some employment that—that would suit me.”
thorpe shook himself again, and seemed by an effort to recall his wandering attention. “oh yes,” he said, with lethargic vagueness—“i haven't thought it out yet. i'll let you know—within the week, probably.”
with the briefest of nods, he turned and crossed the road. walking heavily, with rounded shoulders and hands plunged deep in his overcoat pockets, he went through the gateway, and chose a path at random. to the idlers on the garden benches who took note of him as he passed, he gave the impression of one struggling with nausea. to his own blurred consciousness, he could not say which stirred most vehemently within him, his loathing for the creature he had fed and bought, or his bitter self-disgust.
the general, standing with exaggerated exactness upon the doorstep, had followed with his bulging eyes the receding figure. he stood still regarding the gateway, mentally summarizing the events of the day, after the other had vanished. at last, nestling his chin comfortably into the fur of his collar, he smiled with self-satisfaction. “after all,” he said to himself, “there are always ways of making a cad feel that he is a cad, in the presence of a gentleman.”
