Part 40 (1/2)

I'd rather see him dead.” He was struggling for composure.

”Oh, I shouldn't have told you,” she said, solicitously.

”Why not? It is my right to know.”

”Jean is a pretty little thing, and you may like her.”

”I like McKenzie,” thoughtfully.

She glanced at him. His old face had fallen into gentler lines. She gave a hard laugh. ”Of course, a rich man like your son rather dazzles the eyes of a young girl like Jean.”

”You think then it is his--money?”

”I shouldn't like to say that. But, of course, money adds to his charms.”

”He won't have any money,” grimly, ”unless I choose that he shall. I can stop his allowance tomorrow. And what would the little lady do then?”

She shrugged. ”I am sure I don't know. She'd probably take Ralph Witherspoon. He's in the race. She dropped him after she met your son.”

The General's idea of women was somewhat exalted. He had an old-fas.h.i.+oned chivalry which made him blind to their faults, the champion of their virtues. He had always been, therefore, to a certain extent, at the mercy of the unscrupulous. He had loaned money and used his influence in behalf of certain wily and weeping females who had deserved at his hands much less than they got.

In his thoughts of a wife for Derry, he had pictured her as sweet and unsophisticated--a bit reserved, like Derry's mother--

The portrait which Hilda had subtly presented was of a mercenary little creature, lured by the glitter of gold--off with the old and on with the new, lacking fineness.

”I can stop his allowance,” he wavered. ”It would be a good test. But I love the boy. The war has brought the first misunderstandings between Derry and me. It would have hurt his mother.”

Hilda was always restless when the name was introduced of the painted lady on the stairs. When the General spoke of his wife, his eyes grew kind--and inevitably his thoughts drifted away from Hilda to the days that he had spent with Derry's mother.

”She loved us both,” he said.

Hilda rose and crossed the room. A low bookcase held the General's favorite volumes. There was a Globe edition of d.i.c.kens on the top shelf, little fat brown books, shabby with much handling. Hilda extracted one, and inserted her hand in the hollow s.p.a.ce back of the row. She brought out a small flat bottle and put the book back.

”I always keep it behind 'Great Expectations,'” she said, as she approached the bed. ”It seems rather appropriate, doesn't it?”

The old eyes, which had been soft with memories, glistened.

She filled two little gla.s.ses. ”Let us drink to our--secret.”

Then while the wine was firing his veins, she spoke again of Jean and Derry. ”It really seems as if he should have told you.”

”I won't have him getting married. He can't marry unless he has money.”

”Please don't speak of it to him. I don't want to get into trouble.

You wouldn't want to get me into trouble, would you?”

”No.”

She filled his gla.s.s again. He drank. Bit by bit she fed the fire of his doubts of his son. When at last he fell asleep in his lacquered bed he had made up his mind to rather drastic action.