第13章

``Go where?'' inquired her husband.``To the poorhouse?''

By persistent rubbing in Presbury had succeeded in making the truth about her poverty and dependence clear to his wife.She continued to frown and to look unutterable contempt, but he had silenced her.

He noted this with a sort of satisfaction and went on:

``If Bill Siddall takes her, you certainly won't go there.He wouldn't have you.He feels strongly on the subject of mothers-in-law.''

``Has he been married before?'' asked Mrs.Presbury.

``Twice,'' replied her husband.``His first wife died.

He divorced the second for unfaithfulness.''

Mildred saw in this painstaking recital of all the disagreeable and repellent facts about Siddall an effort further to humiliate her by making it apparent how desperately off she was, how she could not refuse any offer, revolting though it might be to her pride and to her womanly instincts.Doubtless this was in part the explanation of Presbury's malicious candor.But an element in that candor was a prudent preparing of the girl's mind for worse than the reality.That he was in earnest in his profession of a desire to bring about the match showed when he proposed that they should take rooms at a hotel in New York, to give her a chance to dress properly for the dinner.True, he hastened to say that the expense must be met altogether out of the remnant of Mildred's share of her father's estate, but the idea would not have occurred to him had he not been really planning a marriage.

Never had Mildred looked more beautiful or more attractive than when the three were ready to sally forth from the Manhattan Hotel on that Thanksgiving evening.

At twenty-five, a soundly healthy and vigorous twenty-five, it is impossible for mind and nerves, however wrought upon, to make serious inroads upon surface charms.The hope of emancipation from her hideous slavery had been acting upon the girl like a powerful tonic.She had gained several pounds in the three intervening days; her face had filled out, color had come back in all its former beauty to her lips.Perhaps there was some slight aid from art in the extraordinary brilliancy of her eyes.

Presbury inventoried her with a succession of grunts of satisfaction.``Yes, he'll want you,'' he said.

``You'll strike him as just the show piece he needs.

And he's too shrewd not to be aware that his choice is limited.''

``You can't frighten me,'' said Mildred, with a radiant, coquettish smile--for practice.``Nothing could frighten me.''

``I'm not trying,'' replied Presbury.``Nor will Siddall frighten you.A woman who's after a bill-payer can stomach anything.''

``Or a man,'' said Mildred.

``Oh, your mother wasn't as bad as all that,'' said Presbury, who never lost an opportunity.

Mrs.Presbury, seated beside her daughter in the cab, gave an exclamation of rage.``My own daughter insulting me!'' she said.

``Such a thought did not enter my head,'' protested Mildred.``I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular.''

``Let's not quarrel now,'' said Presbury, with unprecedented amiability.``We must give Bill a spectacle of the happy family.''

The cab entered the porte-cochere of a huge palace of white stone just off Fifth Avenue.The house was even grander than they had anticipated.The wrought-iron fence around it had cost a small fortune; the house itself, without reference to its contents, a large fortune.

The massive outer doors were opened by two lackeys in cherry-colored silk and velvet livery; a butler, looking like an English gentleman, was waiting to receive them at the top of a short flight of marble steps between the outer and the inner entrance doors.As Mildred ascended, she happened to note the sculpturing over the inner entrance--a reclining nude figure of a woman, Cupids with garlands and hymeneal torches hovering about her.

Mildred had been in many pretentious houses in and near New York, but this far surpassed the grandest of them.Everything was brand new, seemed to have been only that moment placed, and was of the costliest-statuary, carpets, armor, carved seats of stone and wood, marble staircase rising majestically, tapestries, pictures, drawing-room furniture.The hall was vast, but the drawing-room was vaster.Empty, one would have said that it could not possibly be furnished.Yet it was not only full, but crowded-chairs and sofas, hassocks and tete-a-tetes, cabinets, tables, pictures, statues, busts, palms, flowers, a mighty fireplace in which, behind enormous and costly andirons, crackled enormous and costly logs.There was danger in moving about; one could not be sure of not upsetting something, and one felt that the least damage that could be done there would be an appallingly expensive matter.

Before that cavernous fireplace posed General Siddall.He was a tiny mite of a man with a thin wiry body supporting the head of a professional barber.

His black hair was glossy and most romantically arranged.His black mustache and imperial were waxed and brilliantined.There was no mistaking the liberal use of dye, also.From the rather thin, very sharp face looked a pair of small, muddy, brown-green eyes --dull, crafty, cold, cruel.But the little man was so insignificant and so bebarbered and betailored that one could not take him seriously.Never had there been so new, so carefully pressed, so perfectly fitting evening clothes; never a shirt so expensively got together, or jeweled studs, waistcoat buttons and links so high priced.From every part of the room, from every part of the little man's perfumed and groomed person, every individual article seemed to be shrieking, ``The best is not too good for Bill Siddall!''

Mildred was agreeably surprised--she was looking with fierce determination for agreeable surprises--when the costly little man spoke, in a quiet, pleasant voice with an elusive, attractive foreign accent.

``My, but this is grand--grand, General Siddall!''

said Presbury in the voice of the noisy flatterer.

``Princely! Royal!''