Part 72 (1/2)

”He is quite a nice young fellow,” argued Uncle Chris. ”None too many brains, perhaps, but Jill would supply that deficiency. Still, of course, Underhill would be much better.”

”She ought to marry someone,” said Freddie earnestly. ”I mean, all rot a girl like Jill having to knock about and rough it like this.”

”You're perfectly right.”

”Of course,” said Freddie thoughtfully, ”the catch in the whole dashed business is that she's such a bally independent sort of girl. I mean to say, it's quite possible she may hand Derek the mitten, you know.”

”In that case, let us hope that she will look more favourably on young Pilkington.”

”Yes,” said Freddie. ”Well, yes. But--well, I wouldn't call the Pilker a very ripe sporting proposition. About sixty to one against is the way I should figure it if I were making a book. It may be just because I'm feeling a bit pipped this morning--got turfed out of bed at seven o'clock and all that--but I have an idea that she may give both of them the old razz. May be wrong, of course.”

”Let us hope that you are, my boy,” said Uncle Chris gravely. ”For in that case I should be forced into a course of action from which I confess that I shrink.”

”I don't follow.”

”Freddie, my boy, you are a very old friend of Jill's and I am her uncle. I feel that I can speak plainly to you. Jill is the dearest thing to me in the world. She trusted me, and I failed her. I was responsible for the loss of her money, and my one object in life is to see her by some means or other in a position equal to the one of which I deprived her. If she married a rich man, well and good. That, provided she marries him because she is fond of him, will be the very best thing that can happen. But if she does not, there is another way.

It may be possible for me to marry a rich woman.”

Freddie stopped, appalled.

”Good G.o.d! You don't mean ... you aren't thinking of marrying Mrs.

Peagrim!”

”I wouldn't have mentioned names, but, as you have guessed.... Yes, if the worst comes to the worst, I shall make the supreme sacrifice.

To-night will decide. Good-bye, my boy. I want to look in at my club for a few minutes. Tell Underhill that he has my best wishes.”

”I'll bet he has!” gasped Freddie.

CHAPTER XX

DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER

It is safest for the historian, if he values accuracy, to wait till a thing has happened before writing about it. Otherwise he may commit himself to statements which are not borne out by the actual facts.

Mrs. Peagrim, recording in advance the success of her party at the Gotham Theatre, had done this. It is true that she was a ”radiant and vivacious hostess,” and it is possible, her standard not being very high, that she had ”never looked more charming.” But, when she went on to say that all present were in agreement that they had never spent a more delightful evening, she deceived the public. Uncle Chris, for one; Otis Pilkington, for another, and Freddie Rooke, for a third, were so far from spending a delightful evening that they found it hard to mask their true emotions and keep a smiling face to the world.

Otis Pilkington, indeed, found it impossible, and, ceasing to try, left early. Just twenty minutes after the proceedings had begun, he seized his coat and hat, shot out into the night, made off blindly up Broadway, and walked twice round Central Park before his feet gave out and he allowed himself to be taken back to his apartment in a taxi.

Jill had been very kind and very sweet and very regretful, but it was only too manifest that on the question of becoming Mrs. Otis Pilkington her mind was made up. She was willing to like him, to be a sister to him, to watch his future progress with considerable interest, but she would not marry him.

One feels sorry for Otis Pilkington in his hour of travail. This was the fifth or sixth time that this sort of thing had happened to him, and he was getting tired of it. If he could have looked into the future--five years almost to a day from that evening--and seen himself walking blushfully down the aisle of St. Thomas' with Roland Trevis'

sister Angela on his arm, his gloom might have been lightened. More probably, however, it would have been increased. At the moment, Roland Trevis' sister Angela was fifteen, frivolous, and freckled and, except that he rather disliked her and suspected her--correctly--of laughing at him, amounted to just _nil_ in Mr. Pilkington's life. The idea of linking his lot with hers would have appalled him, enthusiastically though he was in favour of it five years later.

However, Mr. Pilkington was unable to look into the future, so his reflections on this night of sorrow were not diverted from Jill. He thought sadly of Jill till two-thirty, when he fell asleep in his chair and dreamed of her. At seven o'clock his j.a.panese valet, who had been given the night off, returned home, found him, and gave him breakfast. After which, Mr. Pilkington went to bed, played three games of solitaire, and slept till dinner-time, when he awoke to take up the burden of life again. He still brooded on the tragedy which had shattered him. Indeed, it was only two weeks later, when at a dance he was introduced to a red-haired girl from Detroit, that he really got over it.

The news was conveyed to Freddie Rooke by Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris, with something of the emotions of a condemned man on the scaffold waiting for a reprieve, had watched Jill and Mr. Pilkington go off together into the dim solitude at the back of the orchestra chairs, and, after an all too brief interval, had observed the latter whizzing back, his every little movement having a meaning of its own--and that meaning one which convinced Uncle Chris that Freddie, in estimating Mr. Pilkington as a sixty to one chance, had not erred in his judgment of form.

Uncle Chris found Freddie in one of the upper boxes, talking to Nelly Bryant. Dancing was going on down on the stage, but Freddie, though normally a young man who shook a skilful shoe, was in no mood for dancing to-night. The return to the scenes of his former triumphs and the meeting with the companions of happier days, severed from him by a two-weeks' notice, had affected Freddie powerfully. Eyeing the happy throng below, he experienced the emotions of that Peri who, in the poem, ”at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate.”