Part 39 (2/2)
”Yes; you're not such a prig after all,” mused Peter. ”I saw the old man's death in the paper--your brother Lionel became the bart.”
”Yes, poor beggar, I don't hate him half so much as I did. He reminds me of a man invited to dinner which is nothing but flowers and serviettes and silver plate.”
”I'd p.a.w.n the plate, anyhow,” said Peter, with a little laugh.
”He can't touch anything, I tell you; everything's tied up.”
”Ah, well, he'll get tied up, too. He'll marry an American heiress.”
”Confound him! I'd rather see the house extinct first.”
”Hoity, toity! She'll be quite as good as any of you.”
”I can't discuss this with you, Peter,” said Lancelot, gently but firmly.
”If there is a word I hate more than the word heiress, it is the word American.”
”But why? They're both very good words and better things.”
”They both smack of the most vulgar thing in the world--money,” said Lancelot, walking hotly about the room. ”In America there's no other standard. To make your pile, to strike ile--oh, how I shudder to hear these idioms! And can any one hear the word heiress without immediately thinking of matrimony? Phaugh! It's a prost.i.tution.”
”What is? You're not very coherent, my friend.”
”Very well, I am incoherent. If a great old family can only bolster up its greatness by alliances with the daughters of oil-strikers, then let the family perish with honour.”
”But the daughters of oil-strikers are sometimes very charming creatures.
They are polished with their fathers' oil.”
”You are right. They reek of it. Pah! I pray to Heaven Lionel will either wed a lady or die a bachelor.”
”Yes; but what do you call a lady?” persisted Peter.
Lancelot uttered an impatient snarl, and rang the bell violently. Peter stared in silence. Mary Ann appeared.
”How often am I to tell you to leave my matches on the mantel-shelf?”
snapped Lancelot. ”You seem to delight to hide them away, as if I had time to play parlour games with you.”
Mary Ann silently went to the mantel-piece, handed him the matches, and left the room without a word.
”I say, Lancelot, adversity doesn't seem to have agreed with you,” said Peter, severely. ”That poor girl's eyes were quite wet when she went out.
Why didn't you speak? I could have given you heaps of lights, and you might even have sacrificed another sc.r.a.p of that precious ma.n.u.script.”
”Well, she has got a knack of hiding my matches all the same,” said Lancelot, somewhat shamefacedly. ”Besides, I hate her for being called Mary Ann. It's the last terror of cheap apartments. If she only had another name like a human being, I'd gladly call her Miss something. I went so far as to ask her, and she stared at me in a dazed, stupid, silly way, as if I'd asked her to marry me. I suppose the fact is she's been called Mary Ann so long and so often that she's forgotten her father's name--if she ever had any. I must do her the justice, though, to say she answers to the name of Mary Ann in every sense of the phrase.”
”She didn't seem at all bad-looking, anyway,” said Peter.
”Every man to his taste!” growled Lancelot. ”She's as _platt_ and uninteresting as a wooden sabot.”
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