The Price She Paid Part 6

Mildred started up nervously. She saw how drunk the general was, saw the expression of his face that a woman has to be innocent indeed not to understand. She was afraid to be left alone with him. Presbury came up to her, said rapidly, in a low tone:

"It's all right. He's got a high sense of what's due a respectable woman of our cla.s.s. He isn't as drunk as he looks and acts."

Having said which, he took his wife by the arm and pushed her into the adjoining conservatory. Mildred reseated herself upon the inlaid piano-bench. The little man, his face now s.h.i.+ny with the sweat of drink and emotion, drew up a chair in front of her. He sat--and he was almost as tall sitting as standing. He said graciously:

"Don't be afraid, my dear girl. I'm not that dangerous."

She lifted her eyes and looked at him. She tried to conceal her aversion; she feared she was not succeeding. But she need not have concerned herself about that. General Siddall, after the manner of very rich men, could not conceive of anyone being less impressed with his superiority in any way than he himself was. For years he had heard only flatteries of himself--his own voice singing his praises, the fawning voices of those he hired and of those hoping to get some financial advantage. He could not have imagined a mere woman not being overwhelmed by the prospect of his courting her. Nor would it have entered his head that his money would be the chief, much less the only, consideration with her. He had long since lost all point of view, and believed that the adulation paid his wealth was evoked by his charms of person, mind, and manner. Those who imagine this was evidence of folly and weak-mindedness and extraordinary vanity show how little they know human nature. The strongest head could not remain steady, the most accurate eyes could not retain their measuring skill, in such an environment as always completely envelops wealth and power. And the much-talked-of difference between those born to wealth and power and those who rise to it from obscurity resolves itself to little more than the difference between those born mad and those who go insane.

Looking at the little man with the disagreeable eyes, so dull yet so shrewd, Mildred saw that within the drunkard who could scarcely sit straight upon the richly upholstered and carved gilt chair there was another person, coldly sober, calmly calculating. And she realized that it was this person with whom she was about to have the most serious conversation of her life thus far.

The drunkard smiled with a repulsive wiping and smacking of the thin, sensual lips. "I suppose you know why I had you brought here this evening?" said he.

Mildred looked and waited.

"I didn't intend to say anything to-night. In fact, I didn't expect to find in you what I've been looking for. I thought that old fool of a stepfather of yours was cracking up his goods beyond their merits. But he wasn't. My dear, you suit me from the ground up. I've been looking you over carefully. You were made for the place I want to fill."

Mildred had lowered her eyes. Her face had become deathly pale. "I feel faint," she murmured. "It is very warm here."

"You're not sickly?" inquired the general sharply. "You look like a good solid woman--thin but wiry. Ever been sick? I must look into your health. That's a point on which I must be satisfied."

A wave of anger swept through her, restoring her strength. She was about to speak--a rebuke to his colossal impudence that he would not soon forget. Then she remembered, and bit her lips.

"I don't ask you to decide to-night," pursued he, hastening to explain this concession by adding: "I don't intend to decide, myself. All I say is that I am willing--if the goods are up to the sample."

Mildred saw her stepfather and her mother watching from just within the conservatory door. A movement of the portiere at the door into the hall let her know that Darcy, the butler, was peeping and listening there. She stood up, clenched her hands, struck them together, struck them against her temples, crossed the room swiftly, flung herself down upon a sofa, and burst into tears. Presbury and his wife entered.

Siddall was standing, looking after Mildred with a grin. He winked at Presbury and said:

"I guess we gave her too much of that wine. It's all old and stronger than you'd think."

"My daughter hardly touched her gla.s.ses," cried Mrs. Presbury.

"I know that, ma'am," replied Siddall. "I watched her. If she'd done much drinking, I'd have been done, then and there."

"I suspect she's upset by what you've been saying, General," said Presbury. "Wasn't it enough to upset a girl? You don't realize how magnificent you are--how magnificent everything is here."

"I'm sorry if I upset her," said the general, swelling and loftily contrite. "I don t know why it is that people never seem to be able to act natural with me." He hated those who did, regarding them as sodden, unappreciative fools.

Mrs. Presbury was quieting her daughter. Presbury and Siddall lighted cigars and went into the smoking--and billiard-room across the hall.

Said Presbury:

"I didn't deceive you, did I, General?"

"She's entirely satisfactory," replied Siddall. "I'm going to make careful inquiries about her character and her health. If those things prove to be all right I'm ready to go ahead."

"Then the thing's settled," said Presbury. "She's all that a lady should be. And except a cold now and then she never has anything the matter with her. She comes of good healthy stock."

"I can't stand a sickly, ailing woman," said Siddall. "I wouldn't marry one, and if one I married turned out to be that kind, I'd make short work of her. When you get right down to facts, what is a woman? Why, a body. If she ain't pretty and well, she ain't nothing. While I'm looking up her pedigree, so to speak, I want you to get her mother to explain to her just what kind of a man I am."

"Certainly, certainly," said Presbury.

"Have her told that I don't put up with foolishness. If she wants to look at a man, let her look at me."

"You'll have no trouble in that way," said Presbury.

"I DID have trouble in that way," replied the general sourly. "Women are fools--ALL women. But the princ.i.p.al trouble with the second Mrs.

Siddall was that she wasn't a lady born."

"That's why I say you'll have no trouble," said Presbury.

"Well, I want her mother to talk to her plainer than a gentleman can talk to a young lady. I want her to understand that I am marrying so that I can have a WIFE--cheerful, ready, and healthy. I'll not put up with foolishness of any kind."

"I understand," said Presbury. "You'll find that she'll meet all your conditions."

"Explain to her that, while I'm the easiest, most liberal-spending man in the world when I'm getting what I want, I am just the opposite when I'm not getting what I pay for. If I take her and if she acts right, she'll have more of everything that women want than any woman in the world. I'd take a pride in my wife. There isn't anything I wouldn't spend in showing her off to advantage. And I'm willing to be liberal with her mother, too."

Presbury had been hoping for this. His eyes sparkled. "You're a prince, General," he said. "A genuine prince. You know how to do things right."

"I flatter myself I do," said the general. "I've been up and down the world, and I tell you most of the kings live cheap beside me. And when I get a wife worth showing of, I'll do still better. I've got wonderful creative ability. There isn't anything I can't and won't buy."

Presbury noted uneasily how cold and straight, how obviously repelled and repelling the girl was as she yielded her fingers to Siddall at the leave-taking. He and her mother covered the silence and ice with hot and voluble sycophantry. They might have spared themselves the exertion. To Siddall Mildred was at her most fascinating when she was thus "the lady and the queen." The final impression she made upon him was the most favorable of all.

In the cab Mrs. Presbury talked out of the fullness of an overflowing heart. "What a remarkable man the general is!" said she. "You've only to look at him to realize that you're in the presence of a really superior person. And what tact he has!--and how generous he is!--and how beautifully he entertains! So much dignity--so much simplicity--so much--"

"Fiddlesticks!" interrupted Presbury. "Your daughter isn't a d.a.m.n fool, Mrs. Presbury."

Mildred gave a short, dry laugh.

Up flared her mother. "I mean every word I said!" cried she. "If I hadn't admired and appreciated him, I'd certainly not have acted as I did. _I_ couldn't stoop to such hypocrisy."

"Fiddlesticks!" sneered Presbury. "Bill Siddall is a horror. His house is a horror. His dinner was a horror. These loathsome rich people! They're ruining the world--as they always have. They're making it impossible for anyone to get good service or good food or good furniture or good clothing or good anything. They don't know good things, and they pay exorbitant prices for showy trash, for crude vulgar luxury. They corrupt taste. They make everyone round them or near them sycophants and cheats. They subst.i.tute money for intelligence and discrimination. They degrade every fine thing in life.

Civilization is built up by brains and hard work, and along come the rich and rot and ruin it!"

Mildred and her mother were listening in astonishment. Said the mother:

"I'd be ashamed to confess myself such a hypocrite."

"And I, madam, would be ashamed to be such a hypocrite without taking a bath of confession afterward," retorted Presbury.

"At least you might have waited until Mildred wasn't in hearing,"

snapped she.

"I shall marry him if I can," said Mildred.

"And blissfully happy you'll be," said Presbury. "Women, ladies--true ladies, like you and your mother--have no sensibilities. All you ask is luxury. If Bill Siddall were a thousand times worse than he is, his money would buy him almost any refined, delicate lady anywhere in Christendom."

Mrs. Presbury laughed angrily. "YOU, talking like this--you of all men. Is there anything YOU wouldn't stoop to for money?"

"Do you think I laid myself open to that charge by marrying you?" said Presbury, made cheerful despite his savage indigestion by the opportunity for effective insult she had given him and he had promptly seized. "I am far too gallant to agree with you. But I'm also too gallant to contradict a lady. By the way, you must be careful in dealing with Siddall. Rich people like to be fawned on, but not to be s...o...b..red on. You went entirely too far."