"Well, his daughter has a mind of her own, and she has made it up. She has wisely concluded that a lot of our happiness in this life has to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the Fates who dangle it before our eyes, just out of our reach. She feels that the most practical way for you and her to grab yours is to marry first and let the fireworks follow. Opposition to the marriage will be curiously ineffective if the marriage has already taken place. I thought she showed a good deal of fine logic, there."

"You mean, she agreed with everything you suggested!" Copley made a despairing gesture. "Aunt Ocky, come down to bra.s.s tacks. It's true that I'm crazy about Sheila and that she cares more for me that I could hope to deserve--"

"Ever so much more!"

"--but Sheila is a human being who has to _eat_! She has to have clothes to wear. She probably has a preference for a roof over her head. And I--I'm _bust_!"

"Nothing saved from your allowance, I suppose?"

"It was never magnificent. Now, it is discontinued. Father has always put it to my credit at the bank punctually on the first of the month.

Last Tuesday I dropped in to get my balance and--found an overdraft!

He was never careless in his life, so I don't need to ask him if he forgot to make the deposit. He has simply decided to bring it sharply to my attention that I am in no situation to marry, so he has cut out my allowance."

"Humph. I expect you're right." She frowned at this new manifestation of Simon's ruthless determination always to have his own way in everything, then shifted a portion of her severity toward her nephew.

"In a sense, Copley, I'm rather glad that he did. If there's one thing you need, it's a touch of adversity. Stiffen up, boy! I've done everything this morning that I propose to do for you; now go to Sheila and talk things over with her, as you ought to, instead of with me.

She's waiting for you!"

He rose with decision, a new alertness in his face and manner.

"Aunt Ocky, you're a brick." Impulsively, he took a step toward her, thrust forth a sinewy hand and gripped the one she raised. "It makes me feel like a new man just to listen to you--and the only thing I can't understand is why you think me worth the trouble you take."

"There is no mystery about that. I have always loved your mother tenderly, and some of that affection you have inherited. Sheila is a lovely girl who I believe will make you happy--and do you good. As for my desire to have the business settled--well, I've my own reasons for that which will be made clear to you in time. Have you anything else on your infant mind? No? Then, go--for goodness' sake, go!"

He went.

Miss Ocky sank back in her chair and for a s.p.a.ce stared out at the peaceful countryside that rose and fell in gentle undulations which finally faded away into the blue distance. The forgiving Angora leaped to her lap and she caressed him absently, her mind centered upon her thoughts, which were not always as cheerful as they might have been.

So rapt was she in meditation that she was not aware of Bates' presence until he had stood near her for a full minute. His house-shoes enabled him to move on noiseless feet and he had never stooped to that common subterfuge of butlers, the nervous cough. He stood patiently, in silence, and Miss Ocky, when she noticed him at length, was stirred to remembrance by something in his att.i.tude. It was just so he had used to come upon her in the old days when he was wont to bring his difficulties to her, apparently deriving comfort from her half-mocking, half-sympathetic comments.

"Well, Bates--you want to speak to me?"

"Yes, Miss Ocky, I do--and I don't."

"I understand perfectly, thanks to my exceptional cleverness and my vast knowledge of human nature. What you want to do is blow off steam--as you used to--but you are not certain that it's quite the right thing to do. Isn't that it?"

"Yes, Miss Ocky."

"Well, I can set your doubts at rest. It isn't right; and now that we've settled that," added the lady comfortably, "go ahead and blow.

After a long and very virtuous life I'm beginning to think there is much to be said for crime! I can guess your secret sorrow, too."

"I'm sure you can, Miss Ocky." A faint amus.e.m.e.nt that had lighted his tired eyes at her philosophy vanished again. "You've been here two months or more, and you've seen how it is for yourself."

"Yes--I have. I tell you candidly, Bates, if I had dreamed how things were going here I would never have stayed away twenty years. I was shocked when I saw my sister--"

"That's it, Miss Ocky, that's it!" In his eagerness he was oblivious to his breach of good form in interrupting. "It's not myself I'm blowing off steam about. It's Miss Lucy. You can guess how I've felt through these years, watching her change into what she is. It has hurt me, Miss Ocky, for when all is said and done, I'm Miss Lucy's man as I was her father's before her--not Simon Varr's! You remember what she was like before you went away--always bright and happy and full of fun and singing around the house. We used to call her the Queen of Fairyland--"

"My memory is excellent, Bates. You needn't harrow me further."

"And look at her now," continued the old man relentlessly. "A poor meek woman that never dares to call her soul her own, faded and lifeless as the flowers I throw out of the vases, looking twice her age--"

"I hope she's well out of earshot, Bates."

"And it's all the fault of that man!" said the butler pa.s.sionately, his eyes shining with anger and indignation and his usual careful diction sacrificed to the greater need of plain speech. "It's him that has done it with his sneerin' mockin' ways that would bring an angel to tears--his penny-savin', snivelin' meanness that grudges her every cent she spends, just as though he'd had a dollar to call his own before she lifted him out of the gutter where he belongs. 'Twould have been kinder if he had up in the beginning and struck her over the head and been done with it instead of wearin' her down to skin and bones by his naggin' and growlin' and snarlin'. And how do you think I've felt, Miss Ocky, while I stood by all these years and watched it goin' on unable to lift a finger to her help? 'Tis only once and again, when he has her near to tears at the table, that I'm able to drop a plate or joggle his elbow and him drinkin' coffee the while, and so distract his attention."

He paused for breath. Ordinarily Miss Ocky would have been vastly entertained by this sketch of Simon's attention being distracted, but she was in no mood for amus.e.m.e.nt at the moment. Her eyes were hard, and if she deliberately kept her comments pitched on a semi-humorous note, it was more to pacify and soothe the old butler than anything else.

"I gather you don't care for Mr. Varr," she said.

"Does any one, Miss Ocky?" he retorted more calmly.

"You used a curious expression a moment since," she said, ignoring a question she deemed purely rhetorical. "You spoke of yourself as 'Miss Lucy's man.' Just what did you mean, Bates? I know you don't use words just because you like the sound of them."

"You don't miss anything, do you, Miss Ocky?"

His set face softened as he regarded her with a look almost of affection. "No, you were never one to miss anything! I'll tell you what I meant, though I've never breathed a word of it even to Miss Lucy, bless her!"

"There are a lot of things you could tell me," said Miss Ocky, "and I hope some day you will. Go ahead with this one, first."

"It dates back. I could make a long story of it, but I won't. You might say it goes back to the time I took service with your father and mother. I was in trouble, mortal trouble, when they took me in, Miss Ocky, and they gave me a home and comfort and--and security. That last is a great thing in a hard world, as I guess you know. The only way I could repay them was by being a 'good and faithful servant,' as the Bible puts it, and I had reason to believe that they both came to be glad of the day they showed kindness to a less fortunate human."

"What was your trouble?" she asked quietly, for this was her first intimation that his advent to the household had been marked by anything out of the ordinary. "My father never mentioned it."

"He wouldn't--and it doesn't belong with what I've started to tell you now, Miss Ocky." He glanced at her apologetically. "I'm telling you how I know they were glad to have me. When your mother was dying, Miss Ocky, she had me called in for a word with her. She thanked me for the service I'd given and said she hoped I would always stay with your father as long as he needed me--'which will be to the day of his death,' she said.

"The same thing happened when his time came. I was in and out of his room a dozen times a day while he was ill, and once he stopped me and told me a few things he had on his mind.

"'It's a queer thing, Bates,' he said. 'Here I am dying with scarce a relative to my name, and I'm leaving two daughters to face the world alone. They'll have money, but they won't have an older person to help them over the rough places.' I could see he was worried. 'Of course,'

he said, 'Miss Lucy is going to marry that young fellow, Varr. I'm not so fond of him as she is, though I've nothing against him that would stop the match. It's her I'm thinking about. She will have this house when I'm gone and she is married--and I want her to have you.' Well, Miss Ocky, to tell you the truth I started to say something about hoping that _you_ would set up housekeeping and find a place for me, but he wouldn't listen to me for a minute. You know how quick he was.

'I'm competent to judge my own children!' he snapped at me. 'Ocky can stand on her own two legs as long as she has 'em and will get along nicely on crutches after that. It's Lucy that may need help.' He looked at me very sharp--you have his eyes, Miss Ocky. 'I'm a dying man and this is the last thing I'll ever ask of you,' he said. 'I don't pretend that you owe me anything, but I'll ask you as a favor to promise me you'll always stand by Miss Lucy.'

"There couldn't be two answers to that. I promised."

"And you've kept your promise faithfully. You've stood by."

"That's all I have done, though," grumbled the old servant morosely.

His troubled gaze sought hers. "I've just--stood by."

"Well, you couldn't very well do more. I think it is greatly to your credit that you didn't leave the house long ago."

"I've been tempted often enough, Miss Ocky, but there's been the thought in the back of my head that some day I might really be able to help Miss Lucy in an hour of need." His hands closed nervously. "But for that I'd have left, no fear! I've stood so much from him that now I _hate_ him! Do you know, Miss Ocky," his voice dropped to awed confession, "when he was so sick of pneumonia awhile back I just hoped and hoped and hoped our troubles were near an end!"

"It would have been more practical to have left a window open on him, but I suppose the nurse would have stopped that." Miss Ocky's voice was an amused drawl. "Did you try prayer, Bates?"

"_Prayer_! Good gracious, no, Miss Ocky!"

"It's effective sometimes." She seemed to muse. "Of course, if you were only practiced in witchcraft you could make a wax image of him and then stick pins in it until he curled up and died--"

"Good gracious, Miss Ocky, but you've brought back some terrible ideas from those foreign parts!" He was smiling, now, to show that he had caught her mood and understood she was poking fun at him. The ceremony of the blowing off of steam was nearly concluded. "If you ask me, I don't believe that even witchcraft could hurt Simon Varr. It was only the other day I heard him tell Miss Lucy that he'd increased his life insurance and that the doctor had told him he was good for a century-mark."