The other kind has lost her sense of comparison, her standard, so to speak. Her husband may have been a rotter and all that sort of thing, but he's dead and buried and she can't see anything but the good that was in him for the simple reason that it's on his tombstone. But when they're still alive and as bad as ever,--well, don't you see it's different?"

"It occurs to me she'd be more likely to see the evil in all men and steer clear of them."

"That isn't feminine nature. All women want to be loved. They want to be married. They want to make some man happy."

"I suppose all this is philosophy," I mused, somewhat pleased and mollified. "But we'll look at it from another point of view. The former Miss t.i.tus set out for a t.i.tle. She got it. Do you imagine she'll marry a man who has no position--By Jove! That reminds me of something. You are altogether wrong in your reasoning, Fred. With her own lips she declared to me one day that she'd never marry again. There you are!"

He rolled his eyes heavenward.

"They take delight in self-pity," said he. "You can't believe 'em under oath when they're in that mood."

"Well, granting that she will marry again," said I, rather insistently, "it doesn't follow that her parents will consent to a marriage with any one less than a duke the next time."

"They've had their lesson."

"And she is probably a mercenary creature, after all. She's had a taste of poverty, after a fashion. I imagine--"

"If I know anything about women, the Countess Tarnowsy wants love more than anything else in the world, my friend. She was made to be loved and she knows it. And she hasn't had any of it, except from men who didn't happen to know how to combine love and respect. I'll give you my candid opinion, Mr. John Bellamy Smart. She's in a receptive mood.

Strike while the iron is hot. You'll win or my name isn't--"

"Fred p.o.o.pend.y.k.e, you haven't a grain of sense," I broke in sharply.

"Do you suppose, just to oblige you, I'll get myself mixed up in this wretched squabble? Why, she's not really clear of the fellow yet. She's got a good many months to wait before the matter of the child and the final decree--"

"Isn't she worth waiting a year for--or ten years? Besides, the whole squabble will come to an end the minute old man t.i.tus puts up the back million. And the minute the Countess goes to him and says she's _willing_ for him to pay it, you take my word for it, he'll settle like a flash. It rests with her."

"I don't quite get your meaning."

"She isn't going to let a stingy little million stand between her and happiness."

"Confound you, do you mean to say she'd ask her father to pay over that million in order to be free to marry--" I did not condescend to finish the sentence.

"Why not?" he demanded after a moment. "He owes it, doesn't he?"

I gasped. "But you wouldn't have him pay over a million to that d.a.m.ned brute of a Count!"

He grinned. "You've changed your song, my friend. A few weeks ago you were saying he ought to pay it, that it would serve him right, and--"

"Did I say that?"

"You did. You even said it to the Countess."

"But not with the view to making it possible for her to hurry off and marry again. Please understand that, Fred."

"He ought to pay what he owes. He gave a million to get one husband for her. He ought to give a million to be rid of him, so that she could marry the next one without putting him to any expense whatsoever. It's only fair to her, I say. And now I'll tell you something else: the Countess, who has stood out stubbornly against the payment of this money, is now halfway inclined to advise the old gentleman to settle with Tarnowsy."

"She is?" I cried in astonishment. "How do you know?"

"I told her I thought it was the cheapest and quickest way out of it, and she said: 'I wonder!'"

"Have you been discussing her most sacred affairs with her, you blithering--"

"No, sir," said he, with dignity. "She has been discussing them with _me_."

I have no recollection of what I said as I stalked out of the room.

He called out after me, somewhat pleadingly, I thought:

"Ask Britton what he has to say about it."

Things had come to a pretty pa.s.s! Couldn't a gentleman be polite and agreeable to a young and charming lady whom circ.u.mstances had thrown in his way without having his motives misconstrued by a lot of snooping, idiotic menials whose only zest in life sprung from a temperamental tendency to belittle the big things and enlarge upon the small ones?

What rot! What utter rot! Ask Britton! The more I thought of p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's injunction the more furious I grew. What insufferable insolence! Ask Britton! The idea! Ask _my valet_! Ask him what? Ask him politely if he could oblige me by telling me whether I was in love? I suppose that is what p.o.o.pend.y.k.e meant.

It was the silliest idea in the world. In the first place I was _not_ in love, and in the second place whose business was it but mine if I were?

Certainly not p.o.o.pend.y.k.e's, certainly not Britton's, certainly not the Schmicks'! Absolute lack of any sense of proportion, that's what ailed the whole bally of them. What looked like love to them--benighted dolts!--was no more than a rather resolute effort on my part to be kind to and patient with a person who had invaded my home and set everybody--including myself--by the ears.

But, even so, what right had my secretary to const.i.tute himself adviser and mentor to the charming invader? What right had he to suggest what she should do, or what her father should do, or what _anybody_ should do? He was getting to be disgustingly officious. What he needed was a smart jacking up, a little plain talk from me. Give a privileged and admittedly faithful secretary an inch and he'll have you up to your ears in trouble before you know what has happened. By the same token, what right had she to engage herself in confidential chats with--But just then I caught sight of Britton coming upstairs with my neatly polished tan shoes in one hand and a pair of number 3-1/2A tan pumps in the other. Not expecting to meet me in the hall, he had neglected to remove his cap when he came in from the courtyard. In some confusion, he tried to take it off, first with one hand, then with the other, sustaining what one might designate as absent treatment kicks on either jaw from two distinct s.e.xes in the shape of shoes. He managed to get all four of them into one hand, however, and then grabbed off his cap.

"Anythink more, sir?" he asked, purely from habit. I was regarding the shoes with interest. Never have I known anything so ludicrous as the contrast between my stupendous number tens and the dainty pumps that seemed almost babyish beside them.

Then I did the very thing I had excoriated p.o.o.pend.y.k.e for even suggesting. I asked Britton!

"Britton, what's all this gossip I hear going the rounds of the castle behind my back?"

Confound him, he looked pleased! "It's quite true, sir, quite true."

"Quite true!" I roared. "What's quite true, sir?"

"Isn't it, sir?" he asked, dismayed.

"Isn't what?"

"I mean to say, sir, isn't it true?"

"My G.o.d!" I cried, throwing up my hands in hopeless despair.

"You--you--wait! I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I want the truth, Britton. Who put it into that confounded head of yours that I am--er--in love with the Countess? Speak! Who did it?"

He lowered his voice, presumably because I had dropped mine to a very loud whisper. I also had glanced over both shoulders.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but I must be honest, sir. It was you as first put it into my 'ead, sir."

"I?" My face went the colour of a cardinal's cap.

"You, sir. It's as plain as the nose on your--"

"That will do, Britton," I commanded. He remained discreetly silent.

"That will do, I say," I repeated, somewhat testily. "Do you hear, sir?"

"Yes, sir," he responded. "That will do, you says."

"Ahem! I--ahem!" Somewhat clumsily I put on my nose-gla.s.ses and made a pretext of examining his burden rather closely. "What's this you have here."