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Solana Axton
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Mr. Templeton Thorpe was soon to be married for the second time. Back in1860 he married a girl of twenty-two, and now in the year 1912 he wastaking unto himself another girl of twenty-two. In the interim he hadachieved a grandson whose years were twenty-nine. In his seventy-seventhyear he was worth a great many millions of dollars, and for that and noother reason perhaps, one of the newspapers, in commenting on theapproaching nuptials, declared that nobody could now deny that he was aphilanthropist.
"Perhaps you would better go now, Braden," said she, arising. She was atall, handsome woman, well under fifty. As she faced her visitor, hercold, unfriendly eyes were almost on a level with his own. The look shegave him would have caused a less determined man to quail. It was herway of closing an argument, no matter whether it was with her butcher,her grocer, of the bishop himself. Such a look is best described asimperious, although one less reserved than I but perhaps more potentlymetaphorical would say that she simply looked a hole through you, seeingbeyond you as if you were not there at all. She had found it especiallyefficacious in dealing with the butcher and even the bishop, to saynothing of the effect it always had upon the commonplace nobodies who goto the butcher and the bishop for the luxuries of both the present andthe[Pg 3] future life, and it had seldom failed to wither and blight the mosthardy of masculine opponents. It was not always so effective in crushingthe members of her own sex, for there were women in New York society whocould look straight through Mrs. Tresslyn without even appearing tosuspect that she was in the range of vision. She had been known,however, to stare an English duke out of countenance, and it was a longtime before she forgave herself for doing so. It would appear that it isnot the proper thing to do. Crushing the possessor of a title ispermissible only among taxi-drivers and gentlemen whose daughters arealready married.
Her stony look did not go far toward intimidating young Mr. Thorpe. Hewas a rather sturdy, athletic looking fellow with a firm chin and awell-set jaw, and a pair of grey eyes that were not in the habit ofwavering.
"So far as I am concerned, she is still engaged to me. She hasn't brokenit off by word or letter. If you don't mind, I'd like to have it brokenoff in the regular way. It doesn't seem quite proper for her to remainengaged to me right up to the instant she marries my grandfather. Or isit possible that she intends to remain bound to me during the lifetimeof my grandparent, with the idea of holding me to my bargain when he isgone?"
For a full minute they stood looking into each[Pg 4] other's eyes, eachappraising the other, one offensively, the other defensively. She hadthe advantage of him, for she was prepared to defend herself while hewas in the position of one who attacks without strategy and leaps fromone exposed spot to another. It was to her advantage that she knew thathe despised her; it was to his disadvantage that he knew she had alwaysliked him after a manner of her own, and doubtless liked him now despitethe things he had said to her. She had liked him from his boyhood dayswhen report had it that he was to be the sole heir to his grandfather'smillions, and she had liked him, no doubt, quite as sincerely, after theold man had declared that he did not intend to ruin a brilliant careerby leaving a lot of uninspiring money to his ambitious grandson.
In so many words, old Templeton Thorpe had said, not two months before,that he intended to leave practically all of his money to charity! Allexcept the two millions he stood ready to settle upon his bride the dayshe married him! Possibly Mrs. Tresslyn liked the grandson all the morefor the treasures that he had lost, or was about to lose. It is easy tolike a man who will not be pitied. At any rate, she did not consider itworth while to despise him, now that he had only a profession to offerin exchange for her daughter's hand.
"Of course, Mrs. Tresslyn, I know that Anne loves me," he said, withforced calmness. "She doesn't love my grandfather. That isn't evendebatable. I fear that I am the only person in the world who does lovehim. I suspect, too, that if he loves any one, I am that one. If youthink that he is fool enough to believe that Anne loves him, you arevastly mistaken. He knows perfectly well that she doesn't, and, by gad,[Pg 5]he doesn't blame her. He understands. That's why he sits there at homeand chuckles. I hope you will not mind my saying to you that heconsiders me a very lucky person."
His smile was more of an effort than hers. "Thanks. My grandfather hasexpressed the same hope. He says the affair will not be complete withoutmy presence at the feast. To-morrow, at this hour, I shall come to seeAnne. Thank you, Rawson."
But now, in that brief, swift glance, he found himself estimating thecost of all the treasures that it contained, and the price that was tobe paid in order that they might not be threatened. These thingsrepresented greed. They had always represented greed. They had beensaved out of the wreck that befell the Tresslyn fortunes when Anne was ayoung girl entering her teens, the wreck that destroyed Arthur Tresslynand left his widow with barely enough to sustain herself and childrenthrough the years that intervened between the then and the now.
He recalled that after the wreck had been cleared up, Mrs. Tresslyn hada paltry twenty-five thousand a year on which to maintain the housethat, fortuitously, had been in her name at the time of the smash. Apaltry sum indeed! Barely enough to feed and clothe one hundred lessexacting families for a year; families, however, with wheelbarrowsinstead of automobiles, and with children instead of servants.
Ten years had elapsed since the death of Arthur Tresslyn, and still thehouse in the east Seventies held[Pg 10] itself above water by means of thatmeagre two thousand a month! These rare, almost priceless objects uponwhich he now gazed had weathered the storm, proof against thetemptations that beset an owner embarrassed by their richness; they hadmaintained a smug relationship to harmony in spite of the jangling ofdiscordant instruments, such as writs and attachments and the wails ofinsufferable creditors who made the usual mistake of thinking that aman's home is his castle and therefore an object of reprisal. Thesplendid porcelains, the incomparable tapestries and the small butexquisite paintings remained where they had been placed by the amiablebut futile Arthur, and all the king's men and all the king's horsescould not have removed them without Mrs. Tresslyn's sanction. Themistress of the house subsisted as best she could on the pitiful incomefrom a sequestered half-million, and lived in splendour among objectsthat deluded even the richest and most arrogant of her friends intobelieving that nothing was more remote from her understanding than theword poverty, or the equally disgusting word thrift.
Here he had come to children's parties in days when he was a lad andAnne a child of twelve, and here he had always been a welcome visitorand playmate, even to the end of his college years. The motherless,fatherless grandson of old Templeton Thorpe was cherished amongheirlooms that never had had a price put upon them. Of all the boys whocame to the Tresslyn house, young Braden Thorpe was the heir with themost potent possibility. He did not know it then, but now he knew thaton the occasion of his smashing a magnificent porcelain vase theforgiving kiss that Mrs. Tresslyn bestowed upon his flaming cheek[Pg 11] wasnot due to pity but to farsightedness. Somehow he now felt that he couldsmash every fragile and inanimate thing in sight, and still escape thekiss.
Not the least regal and imposing object in the room was the woman whostood beside the fireplace, smiling as she always smiled when asituation was at its worst and she at her best. Her high-bred,aristocratic face was as insensitive to an inward softness as a chiseledblock of marble is to the eye that gazes upon it in rapt admiration. Shehad trained herself to smile in the face of the disagreeable; she hadacquired the art of tranquillity. This long anticipated interview withher daughter's cast-off, bewildered lover was inevitable. They had knownthat he would come, insistent. She had not kept him waiting. When hecame to the house the day after his arrival from England, followingclose upon a cablegram sent the day after the news of Anne's defectionhad struck him like a thunderbolt, she was ready to receive him.
Mrs. Tresslyn felt, and honestly too, that her own assurances that Anneloved him would be quite as satisfactory[Pg 12] as if Anne were to utter themherself. It all came to the same thing, and she had an idea that shecould manage the situation more ably than her daughter.
And Mrs. Tresslyn was quite sure that it would come out all right in theend. She hadn't the remotest doubt that Anne could marry Braden lateron, if she cared to do so, and if nothing better offered; so what wasthere to worry about? Things always shape themselves after the easiestpossible fashion. It wasn't as if she was marrying a young man withmoney. Mrs. Tresslyn had seen things shape themselves before. Moreover,she rather hated the thought of being a grandmother before she wasfifty. And so it was really a pleasure to turn this possible son-in-lawout of her house just at this time. It would be a very simple matter toopen the door to him later on and invite him in.
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