He went perfectly crazy after a month or so and ordered me about and patronised me as if I was a bootblack he meant to teach something to.So at last I had a talk with Lily and told her I was going to put an end to it.Of course she cried and was half frightened to death, but by that time he had ill-used her so that she only wanted to get rid of him.So I sent for him and had a talk with him in my office.I led him on to saying all he had on his mind.He explained to me what a condescension it was for a man like himself to marry a girl like Lily.He made a dignified, touching picture of all the disadvantages of such an alliance and all the advantages they ought to bring in exchange to the man who bore up under them.I rubbed my head and looked worried every now and then and cleared my throat apologetically just to warm him up.I can tell you that fellow felt happy, downright happy when he saw how humbly I listened to him.He positively swelled up with hope and comfort.He thought I was going to turn out well, real well.I was going to pay up just as a vulgar New York father-in-law ought to do, and thank God for the blessed privilege.Why, he was real eloquent about his blood and his ancestors and the hoary-headed Slosh.So when he'd finished, I cleared my throat in a nervous, ingratiating kind of way again and I asked him kind of anxiously what he thought would be the proper thing for a base-born New York millionaire to do under the circumstances--what he would approve of himself."Sir Nigel was disgusted to see the narrator twist his mouth into a sweet, shrewd, repressed grin even as he expectorated into the nearest receptacle.The grin was greeted by a shout of laughter from his companions.
"What did he say, Stebbins?" someone cried.
"He said," explained Mr.Stebbins deliberately, "he said that an allowance was the proper thing.He said that a man of his rank must have resources, and that it wasn't dignified for him to have to ask his wife or his wife's father for money when he wanted it.He said an allowance was what he felt he had a right to expect.And then he twisted his moustache and said, `what proposition' did I make--what would Iallow him?"
The storyteller's hearers evidently knew him well.Their laughter was louder than before.
"Let's hear the rest, Joe! Let's hear it! ""Well," replied Mr.Stebbins almost thoughtfully, "Ijust got up and said, `Well, it won't take long for me to answer that.I've always been fond of my children, and Lily is rather my pet.She's always had everything she wanted, and she always shall.She's a good girl and she deserves it.
I'll allow you----" The significant deliberation of his drawl could scarcely be described."I'll allow you just five minutes to get out of this room, before I kick you out, and if I kick you out of the room, I'll kick you down the stairs, and if I kick you down the stairs, I shall have got my blood comfortably warmed up and I'll kick you down the street and round the block and down to Hoboken, because you're going to take the steamer there and go back to the place you came from, to the Slosh thing or whatever you call it.We haven't a damned bit of use for you here.' And believe it or not, gentlemen----"looking round with the wry-mouthed smile, "he took that passage and back he went.And Lily's living with her mother and I mean to hold on to her."Sir Nigel got up and left the club when the story was finished.He took a long walk down Broadway, gnawing his lip and holding his head in the air.He used blasphemous language at intervals in a low voice.Some of it was addressed to his fate and some of it to the vulgar mercantile coarseness and obtuseness of other people.
"They don't know what they are talking of," he said.
"It is unheard of.What do they expect? I never thought of this.Damn it! I'm like a rat in a trap."It was plain enough that he could not arrange his fortune as he had anticipated when he decided to begin to make love to little pink and white, doll-faced Rosy Vanderpoel.If he began to demand monetary advantages in his dealing with his future wife's people in their settlement of her fortune, he might arouse suspicion and inquiry.He did not want inquiry either in connection with his own means or his past manner of living.People who hated him would be sure to crop up with stories of things better left alone.There were always meddling fools ready to interfere.
His walk was long and full of savage thinking.Once or twice as he realised what the disinterestedness of his sentiments was supposed to be, a short laugh broke from him which was rather like the snort of the Bishopess.
"I am supposed to be moonstruck over a simpering American chit--moonstruck! Damn!" But when he returned to his hotel he had made up his mind and was beginning to look over the situation in evil cold blood.Matters must be settled without delay and he was shrewd enough to realise that with his temper and its varied resources a timid girl would not be difficult to manage.He had seen at an early stage of their acquaintance that Rosy was greatly impressed by the superiority of his bearing, that he could make her blush with embarrassment when he conveyed to her that she had made a mistake, that he could chill her miserably when he chose to assume a lofty stiffness.A man's domestic armoury was filled with weapons if he could make a woman feel gauche, inexperienced, in the wrong.When he was safely married, he could pave the way to what he felt was the only practical and feasible end.
If he had been marrying a woman with more brains, she would be more difficult to subdue, but with Rosalie Vanderpoel, processes were not necessary.If you shocked, bewildered or frightened her with accusations, sulks, or sneers, her light, innocent head was set in such a whirl that the rest was easy.It was possible, upon the whole, that the thing might not turn out so infernally ill after all.Supposing that it had been Bettina who had been the marriageable one! Appreciating to the full the many reasons for rejoicing that she had not been, he walked in gloomy reflection home.
