Rich Man, Poor Man. Foster Maximilian

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СКАЧАТЬ solicitor who tenanted Mrs. Tilney's back parlor.

      " – Christmas, young man!" he grunted; and again fell to pronging his slaw in moody silence. His wife leaned over and touched him. She was a tall, faded woman in black silk and a lace cap, with the frail pink cheeks that go with caps and black silk. "Some night you must put on your full-dress suit too," she whispered. "We will go to a theater!"

      As Varick passed toward the door her eyes followed him. She could remember the time when Mr. Lomax, too, had looked young; when he had seemed slender, vital, energetic. Varick saw the look, and as his eyes caught hers he smiled at her in his friendly, boyish way. Mrs. Lomax beamed.

      The young man had reached the floor above and was passing on his way up the second flight of stairs when Mr. Mapleson appeared suddenly at the stairhead. The little man's haste was evident. The instant he saw Varick he exclaimed:

      "Why, there you are! I was just looking for you!"

      He came pattering down the stairs, his small figure more alert, more fussy, more bustling than ever. About it, though, was an uneasiness that was unmistakable. His air was, in fact, as if he had steeled himself to face something.

      "You are going out?" he asked, his tone quick.

      Varick said he was. Mr. Mapleson at the reply seemed to fuss and flutter even more. Then, swiftly putting out his hand, he touched Varick on the arm.

      "Could you wait?" he appealed. "It is a favor – a great favor!"

      Varick regarded him with surprise. The little man was quivering. For the moment a fit of shyness more than usually awkward seemed painfully to convulse him. His eyes leaped about him everywhere. Nor was his speech less agitated.

      "If you could wait," he faltered, "I have something to tell you."

      Then his emotion, whatever the cause of it, got the better of him. "I beg of you do not go yet!" he piped; and he peered up at Varick, his eyes gleaming, his mouth working nervously.

      A moment passed while Varick, his wonder growing, gazed down at the white face turned up to his. Then he laid his hand quietly on Mr. Mapleson's shoulder.

      "Why, what's wrong, Mr. Mapleson?" he asked. "You're not in any trouble, are you?"

      Mr. Mapleson at the question looked blank.

      "In trouble? I?"

      "Yes. If I can help you – " Varick had begun, when the little man gave vent to a sudden exclamation.

      "I'm in no trouble! Who said I was?" he cried; and Varick stared, gazing at him with renewed astonishment. If it wasn't for his own sake that Mr. Mapleson had begged him to stay in, for whose, then, was it? Varick at this point started with a sudden thought.

      "Look here," he said sharply; "it isn't Bab, is it?"

      The effect was immediate. Again Mr. Mapleson peered up at Varick, his face transfigured; and again, his manner impulsive, he touched the young man on the arm.

      "She is very lovely, isn't she?" he said; "and she is very good and sweet; don't you think she is?"

      There was no doubt of it, but still Varick did not reply. A vague understanding had begun to creep into his mind, and questioningly he gazed down into the little man's upturned face.

      "Tell me," said Mr. Mapleson – and as he heard him Varick's eyes grew wide – "tell me," he faltered, "you do think her lovely? You do think her sweet and lovely, don't you?"

      Varick nodded slowly.

      "Why, yes," he said, "she is very lovely." And at that Mr. Mapleson gave vent to an eager exclamation.

      His face gleaming, again he threw out both his hands.

      "Oh!" he cried, "then if she were rich, if you knew her to be well-born, too, why – why – " Here Mr. Mapleson began awkwardly to falter – "Why, then you would – would – " There he paused. Moistening his lips, the little man quivered suddenly: "She could marry – marry anyone, don't you think?" he shrilled. "She could marry whom she chose; you think so, don't you?"

      But if he did, Varick did not say so. A moment passed, and then, as it had been with Bab, a tide of color swept up into his face, mantling it to the brows. In other words he had seen at last exactly what Mr. Mapleson meant by his vague, faltering phrases. If Bab were rich, if Bab were well-born, then would Varick marry her? The question was never answered. Just then at Varick's back Mrs. Tilney's doorbell rang suddenly.

      V

      Would he marry Barbara Wynne? That night with its train of abrupt, confusing happenings, all following swiftly, one hard on the heels of another, Varick ever afterward could remember only as the mind recalls the vague, inconstant images of a dream. The least of it all, though, was that veiled query put to him by Mr. Mapleson. However, he had still to answer it, even to himself, when the clang of the doorbell interrupted.

      Outside in the vestibule stood two persons – a woman and a man. Their voices, as they waited, were audible through the glass; and Varick, once he heard them, listened curiously. Something in their tone was familiar, especially in the woman's tone; and though the footfalls of Lena, the waitress, already could be heard slipslopping on the stair, he did not wait. Instinctively he threw open the door.

      It was as he'd surmised. The two outside were known to him, and for a moment he gazed, astonished. The lady – for manifestly in spite of her curious appearance she was that – was the first to break the silence.

      "Bless me!" she said in a voice that boomed like a grenadier's. "If it isn't Bayard Varick!"

      Her escort seemed equally astonished. The gentleman, a middle-aged, medium-sized person with pale, myopic eyes, pale, drooping mustaches, and thin, colorless hair, gave vent to a grunt, then a sniff. The lady's buglelike tones, however, at once submerged this.

      Her surprise at finding Varick there was not only startled, it was scandalized, one saw.

      "You don't mean you're living here?" she demanded. Afterward, having given her bonnet a devastating jab with one hand, she remarked eloquently: "My Lord!"

      Varick in spite of himself had to smile. The world, or that part of the world at least which arrogates to itself that title, ever will recall with reverence – a regard, however, not unmixed with humor – that able, energetic figure, Miss Elvira Beeston. The chatelaine, the doyenne too, of that rich, powerful family, Miss Elvira enjoyed into the bargain a personality not to be overlooked. Briefly, it would have made her notable whatever her walk in life. But never mind that now. In years she was sixty – that or thereabouts; in figure she was short, not to mention dumpy. Bushy eyebrows, a square, craggy face, inquiring eyes and a salient, hawklike nose comprised other details of her appearance.

      As the prefix suggests, Miss Elvira never had married. There were reasons, perhaps. Of these, however, the one advanced by the lady herself possibly was the most plausible. "Life," she was heard to observe, "has enough troubles as it is."

      However, that she was a woman of mind, of character, rather than one merely feminine, you would have divined readily from Miss Elvira's dress. Her hat, a turban whose mode was at least three seasons in arrears, sagged jadedly into the position where her hand last had jabbed it; while her gown, equally rococo, was of a style with which no washerwoman would have deigned to disfigure herself.

      Her companion, the gentleman of the myopic eyes and pale mustaches, was her niece's husband, СКАЧАТЬ