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by the spell of her shrewd and pleasant common sense. It made him forget that the prime function of a lover and his supreme expression lie in giving, and that the woman truly makes the man in love with her when she makes him give all he has and think that he is giving brass for gold. But if this it is to be a lover, Arthur Lisle was no lover now; if this it is to be a lover, Marie Sarradet had never seen and scarce imagined one.
But the spring sunshine, the impulses of youth, the ministering sympathy blinded his eyes. He seemed to have all because he liked so much that which he had. Gaily and happily, with that fine gallantry which she so admired, on he came, step by step. She grew secure.
By now father and brother were on the alert. They had canvassed the matter in all its bearings. Raymond was Arthur's enthusiastic adherent. Old Mr. Sarradet affected reserve and doubt; he complained that the suitor was far from rich. But in his heart he was delighted at the prospect. He admired Arthur, he believed in his abilities, he thought the marriage would be a "step up" for his darling daughter—and perhaps for her family. Above all he saw the time draw near when he should enjoy the greatest pleasure that he had to look forward to in life—surprising Marie by the handsome dimensions of her dowry. He hugged the thought of it; he loved her, and he knew she was a good woman of business. It would be a great moment when she saw in him, at one and the same moment, a more munificent father and a cleverer man of business than ever she had thought. Incidentally the disclosure might cause Master Raymond to realise what very considerable things he stood to lose if he did not mind what he was about. The old fellow had no real thought of disinheriting his son, but he loved the power his money gave him, and would now and again flourish the sword that he would have been most loth to use.
So all things promised bravely—Marie, the tender diplomatist, held a winning hand and was playing it well. Leave her to the skill that her heart taught her, and the game was won!
Among the accidents of life are relatives appurtenant to but ordinarily outside of the family circle. Mr. Sarradet owned one—an elder sister—in his eyes, by early memory and tradition, exceptionally endowed with the knowledge of the way to look after girls, and the proper things to be done in the interest of their dignity and virtue. She came up from Manchester, where she lived, to have her teeth seen to—not that there were not excellent dentists in Manchester, but her father had always gone to Mr. Mandells of Seymour Street and she had a fancy to go to Mr. Mandells's son (of Seymour Street still)—and stayed with her brother from Friday to Tuesday. Having seen what she saw, and had her doubts, and come to her own conclusions, she sat up late on Monday night, sat up till Arthur Lisle had departed and Marie was between the sheets, and even Raymond had yawned himself on to bed; and then she said abruptly to her brother Mr. Sarradet:
"It's a settled thing, I suppose, though it's not announced yet?"
Mr. Sarradet passed his hand over his hair-brush of a head, and pulled his moustache perplexedly. "I suppose it is," he answered lamely, quite conscious that Mrs. Veltheim possessed knowledge and commanded deference, but conscious also that, up to now, matters had gone on very well without her.
"You suppose!" said the lady. The two words carried home to a conscience hitherto guiltily easy. But Mrs. Veltheim left nothing to chance; she rammed the charge in. "If dear Marie had a mother!"
She alarmed the cautious old bourgeois—to the point of protesting that he felt no alarm whatever.
"He's a gentleman." He took a sip at his toddy. "No girl in the world has more self-respect." Another sip ended in "Perfect confidence!" vaguely murmured.
"Young men are young men."
"Not at all! I don't believe it of him for a minute." His protest was against the insinuation which even an identical proposition may carry.
"I rescued my Harriet just in time!"
"Damn your Harriet, and I wish you'd go back to Manchester!" It was not what he said to his respected sister. "Cases differ," was the more parliamentary form his answer took.
But the seed was sown before Mrs. Veltheim did go back to Manchester. It germinated in the cautious suspicious soul of the old shopkeeper, so trustful of a man's credit till the breath of a suspicion blew upon it, then so acute to note every eddying current of the air. He grew minded to confront Arthur Lisle with the attitude of Mrs. Veltheim—a lady for whom Arthur, on the strength of one evening's acquaintance, had conceived a most profound aversion.
She was a fat woman—broad, heavy, fair and florid, married to an exceedingly prosperous German. To Mr. Sarradet her opinion was, like her person, weighty; not always agreeable, but never unimportant. To Arthur she was already—before ever he had conceived of her as having or being entitled to have an opinion about him, his sentiments, or his intentions—an appreciable drawback, though not a serious obstacle, to the alliance which he was contemplating. He was, in fine, extremely glad that she and her husband, whom he defined and incarnated with all his imagination's power of vividness, lived in Manchester. If they too had dwelt in Regent's Park, it would not have been the same place to him. Collateral liabilities would have lurked round every corner.
By now, and notwithstanding a transitory disturbance created by the revelation of Mrs. Veltheim, Arthur's mind had subconsciously chosen its course; but emotionally he was not quite ready. His feelings waited for a spark to set them in a blaze—such a spark as might come any moment when he was with Marie, some special note of appeal sounded by her, some quick intuition of him or his mood, raising his admiration and gratitude, even some especially pretty aspect of her face suddenly striking on his sense of beauty. Any one of these would serve, but one of them was needed to change his present contentment into an impulse towards something conceived as yet more perfect. The tender shrewd diplomatist divined pretty well how things stood; she would not hurry or strive, that way danger lay; she waited, securely now and serenely, for the divine chance, the happy coincidence of opportunity and impulse. It was bound to come, and to come now speedily. Alas, she did not know that clumsy hands had been meddling with her delicate edifice!
Two days after Mrs. Veltheim had gone back to Manchester, old Sarradet left his place of business early, travelled by omnibus from Cheapside to the corner of Bloomsbury Street, and presented himself at the door of Arthur's lodgings. Arthur was at home; Marie had told him that she would not be able to meet him in Regent's Park that afternoon, as some shopping business called her elsewhere, and he was lounging through the hours, not (as it happened, and it does happen sometimes even when a man is in love) thinking about her much, but rather about that problem of his legal career which the waning of the vacation brought again to his mind. The appearance of Mr. Sarradet—who had never before honoured him with a visit—came as something of a surprise.
"As I was passing your corner, I thought I'd look in and see if you were coming up to our place this afternoon," Mr. Sarradet explained. "Because, if so, we might walk together."
Arthur said that he understood that Marie would be out, and therefore had not proposed to pay his friends a visit that day.
"Out, is she? Ah, yes!" He smiled knowingly. "You know what she's doing better than her father does!" He was walking about the little room, looking at Arthur's pictures, photographs, and other small possessions. "Well, you'll be coming again soon, I expect?"
"I expect so, if you'll have me," said Arthur, smiling.
Mr. Sarradet took up a photograph. "That's a nice face!"
"It's my mother, Mr. Sarradet."
"Your mother, is it? Ah, well now! And she lives at——? Let me see! You did mention it."
"At Malvern—she and my sister."
"Your sister? Ah, yes! Unmarried, isn't she? Have you no other brothers or sisters?"
Under these questions—and more followed, eliciting a good deal of information about his family and its circumstances—Arthur's face gradually assumed its distinctively patient expression. The patience was very closely akin to endurance—in fact, to boredom. Why did the fussy old fellow worry him like that? Instinctively he hardened himself against Sarradet—against Sarradet's implied assertion of a right to ask him all these questions. Perhaps he knew