Part 5 (1/2)
Eveley fairly glared upon him. ”What do you mean by that? Why a simp? Why shouldn't I be left a couple of millions as well as anybody else? Maybe you think I haven't sense enough to spend a couple of millions.”
”And why did you require advice?” Eileen queried.
”Oh, yes.” Eveley smiled again. ”Yes, of course. Now you must all think desperately for a while--I hate to ask so much of you, Nolan--but perhaps this once you won't mind--I want you to tell me what to do with the money.”
This was indeed a serious responsibility. What to do with twenty-five hundred dollars?
”You do not feel it is your duty to spend the twenty-five hundred pounding Americanism into your Irish-American Wops?” asked Nolan facetiously.
Eveley took this good-naturedly. ”Oh, I got off from work at four-thirty and went down to their field, and we had a celebration. We had ice-cream and candy and chewing gum, and I spent twenty-five dollars equipping them with b.a.l.l.s and bats and since I was with them an hour and a quarter, I feel that I am ent.i.tled to the rest of the fortune myself.”
”Well, dearie,” said Eileen, ”it is really very simple. Put it in a savings account, of course. Keep it for a rainy day. You may be ill. You may get married--”
”Can't she get married without twenty-five hundred dollars?” asked Nolan, with great indignation. ”She doesn't expect to buy her own groceries when she gets married, does she?”
”She may have to, Nolan,” said Eileen gently. ”One never knows what may happen after marriage. Getting married is no laughing matter, and Eveley should be prepared for any exigency.”
”But, Eileen, she won't need her twenty-five hundred to get married. No decent fellow would marry a girl unless he could support her, and do it well, even luxuriously. You don't suppose I would let my wife spend her twenty-five hundred--”
”If you mean me, I shall do whatever I like with my own money when I get married,” said Eveley quickly. ”My husband will have nothing to say about it. You needn't think for one minute--”
”I am not your husband, am I? I haven't exactly proposed to you yet, have I?”
Eveley swallowed hard. ”Certainly not. And probably never will. By the time you get around to it, getting married will be out of date, and none of the best people doing it any more.”
”You may not have asked her, Nolan,” said Eileen evenly. ”And that is your business, of course. She will probably turn you down when you do ask her, just as she does everybody else. But--”
”Who has been asking her now?” he cried, with jealous interest.
”But while we are on the subject, I hope you will permit me to say that I think your principles are all wrong, and even dangerous. You think a man should wait a thousand years until he can keep a wife like a pet dog, on a cus.h.i.+on with a pink ribbon around her neck--”
”The dog's neck, or the wife's?”
”The dog's--no, the wife's--both of them,” she decided at last, with never a ruffle. ”You want to wait until she is tired of loving, and too old to have a good time, and worn out with work. It isn't right. It is not fair. It is unjust both to yourself, and to Eve--to the girl.”
”But, my dear child,” he said. Eileen was three years older than Nolan; but being a lawyer he called all women ”child.” ”My dear child, do you realize that my salary is eighteen hundred a year, and I get only a few hundred dollars in fees. Think of the cost of food these days, and of clothes, and amus.e.m.e.nts, to say nothing of rent! Do you think I would allow Eve--my wife, to go without the sweet things of--”
”You needn't bring me in,” said Eveley loftily. ”I have never accepted you, have I?”
”No, not exactly, I suppose, but--”
”Eveley,” said Miriam, suddenly sitting erect on the couch. ”I have it.”
”Sounds like the measles,” said Kitty.
”I mean I know what to do with the money. Listen, dear. You do not want to go on slaving in an office until you are old and ugly. And Nolan is quite right, you certainly can not marry a grubby clerk in a law office.”
Nolan laughed at that, but Eveley sat up very straight indeed and fairly glowered at her unconscious friend on the couch.
”You must have the soft and lovely things of life, and the way to get them is to marry them. Now, sweet, you take your twenty-five hundred, be manicured and ma.s.saged and shampooed until you are glowing with beauty, buy a lot of lovely clothes, trip around like a lady, dance and play, and meet men--men with money--and there you are. You can look like a million dollars on your twenty-five hundred--and your looks will get you the million by marriage.”