by D. Christie Murray.
Originally published in Longman's Magazine (Longman, Green, & Co.) vol.3 #16 (Feb 1884).
Colonel Walker 0. Dodge, when he had once made his pile, was one of the most generous and open-handed of men. If I choose to be generous and open-handed, a friend or two may get a quiet dinner, a glass of reasonable claret, and a good cigar; my wife may have a new dress, my boy a rocking-horse, or a succession of beggars may receive a succession of sixpences. No expanse of generosity in my bosom can lead to larger results than these, but when Colonel Walker 0. Dodge chose to be munificent people heard about it. The Colonel's annual income amounted to something like a quarter of a million sterling. He had one of those prodigious private fortunes which used never to be heard of or dreamed of until the citizens of the United States of America took to raising them. In the Old World a firm or family or a syndicate may make as much money in a single generation—the thing has actually been known—but the private and unaided individual grows the Dollar Tree (Auriferens giganticus) to such height, strength, and luxuriance only on the other side of the Atlantic. The wonderful glistening, rustling tree grew originally--I am speaking of the Colonel's specimen—in Oleoville, Pa., and was now transplanted to a forcing house in New York, where it let fall such a crop of fruit every quarter day that it took quite a little body of men to keep the ground clear, though they swept and shovelled industriously all the year round.
It had more than once occurred to Colonel Dodge that it would be a blessed and joyous thing actually to expend in one year of his life a whole year's income, but he had always been a busy man, and had never found time until lately to think the matter over. He had thought at times of building a magnificent memorial to something, but he could never make up his mind what the something should be, and he had fancied that it would be pleasant to go down to posterity as the founder of a cathedral or some such edifice, but he had been bred a Baptist, and had conscientious scruples. It came to him a year or two ago as a pleasant inspiration to build a yacht, the most magnificent and gorgeous ever put together, and in it, with the society of fifty chosen guests, to make the tour of the navigable globe. He thought that if he laid himself out to do this with real splendour that he might for once in a way go near the fulfilment of his hope.
When Colonel Dodge made up his mind about anything it was not his habit to let the grass grow under his feet, and within four-and-twenty hours of the birth of this fancy he was in conference with a shipbuilder. A week later plans were laid before him, modified, and accepted, and the Colonel and his maiden sister were already discussing the guests to be invited. 'Walker,' said the maiden lady, 'I have a real elegant idea. Suppose we take ten young ladies and ten young gentlemen all in love with each other and all engaged.' The Colonel shook his solemn head at the proposal. 'Wait a bit, Walker,' said the lady. 'There's John and Cecilia, there's Cyrus and Mary, there's Walter and Jane, there's Hiram and Azubah. That's four pairs to start with, Walker, and we've pretty well settled a'ready to ask 'em all. Then there's Clifford and Janet, and Horace and Julia, and then I do declare I'd forgotten James and Sarah, and there's Phil and Clara, and that makes eight. Naow,' said the maiden lady, figuring on her ivory tablets, 'there's eight young ladies with a father and mother apiece, and that's twenty-four; and eight young gentlemen with a father and mother apiece, and that makes forty-eight; and you and me makes fifty, Walker—hold your tongue!—and we'll take Alexander along because the child ought to see the world, and there's luck in odd numbers, and everybody that sets eyes on him's bound to love him.' She paused, a little out of breath, but triumphant and inflexible. The Colonel looked solemn for a moment, and then smiled.
'It is an elegant idea,' he allowed. 'Fanny, you are a remarkable woman. 'Tought to be something like a dream, I fancy, to all them young people, and I take it kindly of Providence to permit one man to have the chance of givin' so much innocent pleasure. I am pleased to have a sister capable of thinkin' out so charmin' a scheme. I don't say it may not have to be modified, but the lines are there. And let me tell you,' pursued the Colonel, with a solemn face and smiling eye—which by the way is a very frequent and very pleasing characteristic of manner in a good American—'let me tell you,' said the Colonel, 'that you are not the only member of our family who is capable of nourishin' a charmin' fancy. I have a sort of fancy of my own.' He nodded sagely as he made this announcement, but nothing the maiden lady could say could induce him to open his mind just then.
The secret came out though when the yacht was built, and the Colonel's sister broke a bottle of champagne over its bows at the launch and named it the 'Lively Fanny' after a little dingy the Colonel had owned when he was a lad, and had christened and painted with his own hand in affection for his only sister. Perhaps when a man loves his sister as the Colonel did he is cut out for an old bachelor; perhaps when a woman loves her brother as the Colonel's sister did she is cut out for an old maid. People said they were too fond of each other and too much devoted to each other's happiness ever to marry; but perhaps, again, they could each have told a sentimental story had they been so minded, a story which would have involved no treachery to brotherly or sisterly affection, but would yet have shown that once on a time they had been willing to be parted from each other. But they were both middle-aged by this time, and both were grey, and gaunt of build. Neither of them had ever been very pretty to look at, and they were thought to be safe from the blind boy's butt-shaft, as if Cupid shot at none but handsome targets. When the yacht was named, and it became known that the Colonel had had it christened after his sister, Miss Dodge's tall and somewhat grim figure would provoke in the sinful a smile, and disrespectful people would say, 'There goes the lively Fanny!' as the maiden lady stalked gravely along the street, or stepped, with exaggerated angularity of movement, from her carriage. But she and the Colonel both took great delight in the name of the craft, the one because it was a sign of brotherly affection, and the other because it pleased his sister, and since the satire from the populace never came to their ears it never hurt them.
In fulness of time the splendid craft was splendidly fitted, and, crowded with such stores as no craft ever held before, she sailed away with her full complement of pleasure seekers, her little army of servants, her picked crew, her doctor, and her admirable band of musicians. And now, no doubt, it would be a pleasant thing, since we are sailing in extremely pleasant summer weather, to make acquaintance with one or two pairs of lovers, and to linger on deck of a moonlight evening in the company of a pair at a time, marking all the pretty little ways of the lady, and the tender and chivalrous devotion of the gentleman; or (in obedience to that growing spirit of cynicism which a lynx-eyed reviewer has discovered in the present writer) tracing the growth of the canker of unfaithfulness, and showing how Clifford left Janet, and Walter left Jane, and so on, until the whole posse comitatus of lovers changed partners. But the opportunities for sentiment and cynicism must be alike neglected, and you must be good enough to fancy the 'Lively Fanny' at Portrush on the heels of an extremely exciting adventure.
Mr. Dionysius O'Hara, a native of the city of Dublin, had migrated to the land of the Saxon oppressor, and after a residence of some years in London, had made acquaintance with a retired stockbroker, one John William Dodge, of Bayswater, a good old gentleman of the true stockbroking sort, who knew everything that needed to be known about his own business and was more ignorant of everything outside it than is easily possible to conceive. Mr. Dodge had a daughter, a girl with rosy cheeks, and bright eyes, and red lips, and a bountiful armful of waist; a girl with an innocent, affectionate nature, a healthy appetite, a natural laugh, and a very jewel-mine of a heart in the way of home affections. Miss Dodge had a mother, a fat, homely, smiling, sweet-natured old woman, who was a comfortable prophecy of what her daughter would come to in the space of two score years. Mr. O'Hara had been attracted by the charms of Miss Dodge; Miss Dodge had in turn been attracted by the charms of Mr. O'Hara. The retired stockbroker being appealed to, had made strict inquiry into Mr. O'Hara's financial position and prospects, and finding the result of that inquiry eminently unsatisfactory, had requested Mr. O'Hara not to call again. Then had the roses faded from the cheeks of Miss Dodge, and the kindly laughter from her lips, and the merry brightness from her eyes. Then had her natural appetite forsaken her, and the pearly teeth took to biting nothing but the pale lips to keep them from trembling, and to hold down in her father's presence the fountain of tears which played so freely in his absence. Then also had the once comfortable Mrs. Dodge grown mournful, and the wretched Dodge himself had groaned upon his pillow at her grisly talk of early graves.
'Talk of graves!' cried the unhappy stockbroker, 'I wish I was in mine. I shall never be allowed to go to sleep until I get there.'
'Oh, go to sleep, John,' Mrs. Dodge responded with natural and excusable severity. 'If that's what you want, by all means go to sleep. Perhaps it's natural in a father to think of nothing but going to sleep while his only daughter's sinking into the tomb. Oh, certainly, by all means go to sleep, John.'
It is characteristic of human nature always to care most for the unattainable, and now that Mr. Dodge had permission to sleep he did not choose to avail himself of it. He began to think in the silent watches of the night—an exercise to which he had never greatly accustomed himself—and in his mind's eye he saw his hearth desolate, and he anathematised the insinuating O'Hara. He did not in the least relent towards him. What right had a man with no money to fall in love with the daughter of a retired stockbroker? and what pity did a girl deserve who allowed herself to fall in love with a man before she had made sure that he could maintain her in honest competence? But though Mr. Dodge was fortified against sympathy by these reflections, he was not altogether pity-proof, and as he stood before his mirror next morning, staring at his own wrinkles, with a hairbrush in either hand, he turned suddenly upon his wife and spoke.
'My dear,' said Mr. Dodge, 'I have been thinking that Fanny might be the better of a little change, and I have been turning things over in my mind. There's Hackett has a yacht he wants either to let on hire or to sell. Now I think a bit of a sea jaunt might freshen her up a bit and do her good. Perhaps,' he added, facing the situation, 'a little change of scenery might drive that Irish scoundrel out of her mind. If something isn't done you'll drive me out of mine between you.'
With no great hope on mamma's part, and no great willingness or unwillingness on the girl's side, the retired stockbroker made all the necessary arrangements, and before the early summer was three weeks older, Mr. Dodge's family was aboard, and bound for a cruise amongst the Shetland and the Orkney Islands.
For a day or two they were all three mournfully unwell, and when Mr. Dodge found his sea legs and his sea stomach Miss Dodge was still a prisoner in her cabin. At last she came on deck, a woeful sight, a sea-green damsel, and she could be persuaded to take no interest in any earthly thing. She ate less than ever, and the brand-new rosewood piano Dodge had expressly bought for her was left untouched, or the gay tunes the poor sad-hearted young thing tried to play quavered mournfully into silence under her fingers, and she would run back to her cabin and cry there until the solicitous mother followed her. The absent O'Hara had listened to those merry airs, and now their cadences called up the sad phantoms of remembrance.
'John,' said Mrs. Dodge, when the experiment of sea-air had resolved itself into the most dismal and complete of failures, 'it's all a mistake. Fanny doesn't want fresh air. It does her no good. She's breaking her heart over your cruelty.'
'My cruelty?' demanded the miserable man. 'Did you say my cruelty? Go it, Matilda. I am a cruel father, to be sure. That's a cruelty, isn't it?' He indicated the piano. 'This is a cruelty, isn't it?' He indicated the yacht, and the smiling landscape which lay in view through the saloon windows. 'I'm enjoying myself, ain't 1?'
Mrs. Dodge relented a little, and put her stout, wifely arm about his neck.
'You don't mean to be cruel, John,' she said, crying a little; 'but that's how she feels it, poor thing, and she's breaking her heart over it. And if you don't relent, she'll die. The sweetest child—the best—' She could go no further.
'Have it your own way, said the cruel father. 'Marry her to any blackguard she chooses to take a fancy to. I won't have it said I killed my child.' He had to gulp a little, and though he tried to bluster, perhaps he loved the pale-cheeked little thing his daughter, and longed to see her natural roses bloom again. The end of it all was that they put about and ran into Belfast harbour, and thence wired to Mr. O'Hara, requesting him to join them; and the little Fanny, learning the reason of their change of course from her mother—who, by the way, had promised to keep it a secret and could not—began so to blossom again, and to smile again, and to play and sing so sweetly her old gay ditties, that Mr. Dodge blamed his own precipitancy in yielding, more than a little. In a brief space, Mr. O'Hara having contrived to raise the wind, came over and was taken aboard the yacht, and carried away north, the happy maiden sailing with him to the land of love's full summer. But papa began to have all manner of base suspicions, not understanding, in his dull male mind, how the sudden change from sickness to health had come about, and growing inclined to think that a pretence had been played upon him.
That Dionysius loved Fanny was beyond a doubt. Where is the son of Erin who would not love the daughter of a retired stockbroker, himself being impecunious? Or where, for that matter, is the son of Erin who can resist the soft influence of feminine charms when they are brought near to him? Let no wrong be done to Mr. O'Hara's susceptibilities. He would have loved any woman who had a prospect of two thousand a year, as Miss Dodge had, and he could have loved Miss Dodge herself without a penny if he had been a millionaire and could have felt that he could afford it. To embrace a pretty girl and two thousand a year in prospective, and present free quarters in a yacht admirably found and fitted—to do all this by putting an arm round one willing and yielding waist was pleasant, and Mr. O'Hara was easily pleased. He talked beautifully, and he was full of poetry. 'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll,' and 'O'er the glad waters of the deep blue say,—nobody recited those verses with finer emphasis or sweeter expression, Everything was gay and bright and beautiful, until at evening, an hour out from Portrush, a slight haze came on, and that majestic yacht, the 'Lively Fanny' of New York, ran straight into Mr. Dodge's small craft and cut her down.
There was.a prodigious sounding of fog-horns immediately, and boats were lowered with all possible expedition. The big yacht, after describing a liberal are, got back to the little one and took her in tow; but Mr. Dodge's hired vessel only survived until everybody had been got aboard Colonel Dodge's ark of refuge and most of the valuables had been removed, when she gave a lurch and went down in twenty fathoms of water. I am not casting any imputation on Mr. O'Hara's manliness when I record the fact that he was dry and that Mr., Mrs., and Miss Dodge were all wet through; and it is a fact that Mr. O'Hara magnificently kicked the insolent sailor who declared that he was too frightened to get into the boats, and clung to the wreck in a panic of alarm until the large vessel came alongside.
Mr. O'Hara's dryness gave him an advantage which the others lacked, and while Mr. Dodge and his womenfolk were hurried below to change their dripping garments, Mr. O'Hara remained on deck and distributed his card with an air of great importance—Mr. Dionysius O'Hara, Barrister-at-Law, Pump Court, Temple,' from which fact sprung up a habit aboard the 'Lively Fanny' of alluding to the wrecked ladies and Mr. Dodge as 'Mr. O'Hara's party.' He expressed himself to the Colonel with much politeness, but told him regretfully that the wreck of the yacht must be made the subject of a Board of Trade inquiry, and the Colonel responded by declaring his intention of paying for the whole shoot, by which Mr. O'Hara understood that he was ready to make good all damages, and to estimate them liberally. The Irish barrister was the centre of interest on the deck and in the saloon that night, and all vied with all in paying courteous attention to the stranger. Now it goes without saying that everybody had heard of Colonel Dodge, and that the voyage of the 'Lively Fanny' was a matter of public news and interest, her various places of call being specified by special telegram to the London journals and most of the provincial organs. So that when the Colonel presented Miss Dodge to the gentleman who had been so strangely added to the ship's rating, Mr. O'Hara at once knew that he stood in the presence of a lady who was probably a better match than nine in ten of the heiresses of Europe, and he gazed upon her as a man looks upon that which is too good to be attainable. Yet—is the female heart absolutely unassailable when its owner has come to forty year? Is a plain and rather grim-looking woman any less likely than a pretty one to find love-making pleasant? Mr. O'Hara's experiences had been wide and varied, and his impudence was monumental. A woman's heart naturally pines for love—this was his philosophy—a plain woman is likely to meet with less of it than a pretty one, and therefore to value it the more highly when found—a middle-aged woman is always pleased to think herself still capable of inspiring a grand passion. If he could only secure a footing he would dare it, he declared to himself, though he was not such a fool as to drop the steak whilst he plunged into the stream in search of its reflection.
He feigned ignorance of Colonel Dodge's financial position, and he attached himself to Miss Dodge from the first moment. When somebody amongst a knot of the more elderly of the Colonel's guests started playfully the question as to the time of life at which a woman is most charming, Mr. O'Hara boldly declared for the time between thirty-five and forty, and supported his position with Irish eloquence.
'Spring has its beauties,' he said, 'but summer is lovelier; and approaching autumn is lovelier still. At five-and-thirty a true woman has entered upon the full possession of her charrums. If she is beautiful she was never so beautiful as at that happy time, and if mere outward beauty has been denoyed her, her heart and mind are at their best, her nature has roypened and solidified.'
He said much more to the same effect, and if the men smiled and took it for an Irishman's good-tempered and flattering way of saying things pleasant to the people in whose society he happened to find himself, you may be pretty sure that middle-aged ladies thought none the worse of him for these opinions.
'For me own part,' said Mr. O'Hara, 'though I am an oydoloyser of the six, oy denoy that a woman's chief charrum is her beauty or her youth. The chief beauty of a woman is her intuitive understanding and her power of sympathy. Ye foind these in the young, to be sure, but undeveloped. Forty is the true marriageable age. At forty a lady knows her own mind.'
There was a general laugh at this, and everybody admitted that Mr. O'Hara was a gay and agreeable fellow, with a considerable gift of conversational fluency. Addressed to nobody in particular it passed lightly enough, and Miss Dodge, descending to the ladies' quarter, was particularly well pleased with the barrister's conclusions. Before retiring to rest she made a call upon Mrs. and Miss Dodge, and spoke amongst other things of Mr. O'Hara's gaiety. The simple elderly lady and she struck up an immediate friendship, and the story of Mr. O'Hara's devotion was told. Miss Dodge the younger lay asleep, looking exceeding pretty with her flushed face and brown hair on the white pillow under the softened light of the lamp, and Miss Dodge the elder was naturally interested in her story. The identity of the younger lady's name with her own also appealed to her sense of interest and curiosity. The Dodges of Oleoville, Pa., were of old English origin, and the same fountain head may have been found for the English and American branches of the family.
The yacht lay at anchor, with the Giant's Causeway, like a great pier, stretching out to sea in the near distance, and the wild Antrim coast lying beautiful in the solemn moonlight, and all aboard whose business it was to sleep slept well and tranquilly with the exception of Mr. Dodge, whose spirits were perturbed by the loss of the yacht and the singular behaviour of Mr. O'Hara. Taking it all together, he thought so ill of Mr. O'Hara's courage on the one hand, and his politeness on the other (perhaps Mr. O'Hara might have inquired after Mr. Dodge's well-being if he had remembered to think of it), that he meditated a formal quarrel with him in the morning, and was prepared to brave wife and child in the cause of justice. The barrister knowing nothing of this went to sleep and dreamed of dollars, and the little Fanny, so lately shipwrecked, dreamed of Mr. O'Hara. When she awoke rosy and happy in the morning she scarcely knew what to blame for dashing her high spirits, but somehow they were as flat as palled soda water, and just as impossible to stir into renewed brightness. It would be too silly to be jealous of an old lady like the other Miss Dodge, a lady old enough to be her mother, and yet Dionysius did certainly devote himself to that withered maiden with a wonderful assiduity. Perhaps it was a manifestation of that politeness on which his countrymen so much plume themselves, and Dionysius indeed urged as much when the Colonel's sister once or twice led him to the poor little waiting Fanny, and after a little while he strayed away again and took anew to paying compliments to his hostess, and throwing admiring glances at her, and behaving altogether in a way eminently likely to flatter the feelings of any susceptible virgin lady of forty summers. Mr. O'Hara's Irish blandishments were not without effect upon Miss Dodge's mind, as was proved by a little conversation she held with her brother the Colonel that afternoon.
'Walker,' she said, 'that Irishman's a thoroughpaced bad lot.'
'What's the matter with him?' inquired the Colonel.
'He's engaged, against her father's wishes, to marry that pretty little girl, Walker,' said the lady; 'and do you see how he's behavin'? Have you remarked his conduct?'
'No!' said the Colonel. 'What's he doing?'
'Well, Walker,' said the maiden lady, with a slight blush, 'I am getting a little case-hardened, I allow, but I do feel a bit ashamed for all that. He's making eyes at your dollars, Walker.'
Now be it said that the Colonel was familiar with this complaint, and was disposed to give it less ready credence than he had once been. Not that he ever professed to doubt it, but he thought sometimes that his sister had grown a little too suspicious of the politeness of the male sex.
'I'll lay an eye upon him,' said the Colonel, and he did so. Miss Dodge presented herself on duty where two or three young ladies were busy with sketchbooks, pencil, and colours, transferring the Giant's Causeway and his scenic accessories to paper, and one young gentleman had an easel set up and a square yard of canvas on it, and a wonderful shining assortment of new tubes of colour, and palettes and brushes as yet stainless. The little Fanny was smiling near him, for Dionysius was at her elbow, and the sun shone again as it does in such conditions for tender-hearted young ladies. But the sunshine without and within was doomed once more to be clouded, for the polite Dionysius lost not a moment in sliding to the side of the lady with the dollars. The lady of the dollars received him with unexpected gentleness and affability, and little by little she moved away from the knot of loungers who surrounded the amateurs of art, Mr. O'Hara following and growing more openly complimentary as he followed. She smiled at his compliments, at some of them she turned her head away;—the poor little Fanny at a distance felt her heart sink and sicken when the dollared lady coquettishly smote Mr. O'Hara with her fan. The Colonel, with his back against the mainmast and a cigar between his lips, smiled outright as he watched the pair together, but his sallow face took another expression when he happened to glance at the little girl and saw how pale she grew and how woebegone the pretty face was.
It was a halcyon day for Mr. O'Hara, and the brightest hopes warmed his impressionable heart. He was so thoughtful and considerate as to cast some of his own joy upon the little Fanny, for when her elderly namesake had withdrawn, he devoted himself to his fiancée as warmly as ever.
'Dion,' said the girl in tremulous affection and anger, 'why do you pay so much attention to that old woman?'
'Me dorlin', cried Mr. O'Hara, in tenderest accents, 'I trust I am a gentleman. I hope that me future wife will love me none the less that I denoy meself the charrum of her society in order to be polite to an elderly and unattractive lady whose brother is compelled to entertain the party to which I belong, under circumstances so peculiar, and so likely to be disagreeable to him unless they are softened by the ameliorations of gentlemanly conduct.'
What could any little girl say to that? She felt that she had a right to be happy again, and confessed that she had been foolishly jealous. She owned in her affectionate simple way that she should be jealous of anything or anybody who came between her and her Dion, and her Dion answered sympathetically that he knew the value of her affection and appreciated its tenderness.
'At the pace he's goin',' said the Colonel's sister to the Colonel, 'it won't take him long to do the distance, Walker, and that's a fact.'
'I don't think it will,' said the Colonel in reply.
There is nothing so killing as moonlight when you want to make love, and the insinuating O'Hara was fully aware of Luna's favourable influences. Mr. Dodge had not yet exploded, but was nursing his wrath to keep it warm, and O'Hara knew no more than that he was grumpy, a condition so common with the retired stockbroker in his relations with his daughter's lover, that Mr, O'Hara disregarded it. If Mr. Dodge were grumpy Colonel Dodge was wonderfully suave and smiling, and his sister was gay and at times languishing. They had music on deck that evening in the moonlight, and Mr. O'Hara did his insinuating utmost.
There are undoubtedly men in the world to whom it would not have been easy to slip away from the side of the confiding little woman who clung to Mr. O'Hara's arm, and looked up to him with so tender and timid a smile, but he found no difficulty in it. It was but to say 'Excuse me for a moment, me heart's delight,' and to slip away to the place where the elder Miss Dodge stood expectant of him, leaning her hard elbows on the rail of the vessel and looking at the reflection of the moonlight as it danced and shimmered in the water. The little Fanny stood and watched with a misgiving of which she was more than half ashamed. Surely she could trust her Dion after their interview of that afternoon, and all the kind and reassuring words he had spoken. He had called the wealthy Miss Dodge 'an elderly and unattractive lady,' and though the little Fanny was rather disposed to like the wealthy Miss Dodge, the words had been sweet to her. Naturally she wanted her Dion to think poorly of all womanly attractions but her own. After what he had said to her she would never, never, never be jealous any more. But why did he stay so long, and why did he lean in an attitude of so much tender interest over the figure of the lady? She would not be jealous, Jealousy was a wicked passion surely, and surely there was nothing wicked in this sick sinking at the heart.
Meanwhile Dionysius, not greatly caring to know what emotions troubled the childish breast of his fiancée, made warmer and warmer love to the elder Miss Dodge's dollars.
'Oi am afraid,' said the insinuating young man, 'lest ye should catch cold, Miss Dodge. Shall we paece the deck for a whoile?'
There was so tender an interest in the tone that the speech, simple as it was, spoke volumes to Miss Dodge's ears, The vessel swayed ever so little, and when Dion offered the lady his arm as a support there was no reason apparent in the world against her acceptance of his aid. The little Fanny stayed behind with her heartache, and there was shadow beneath the topgallant forecastle. The promenaders paused there, and somehow by cunning accident Mr. O'Hara's hand touched the hand that rested on his arm. Miss Dodge made no motion of resentment, and the gentleman dared to allow his fingers to rest fora little time. Still Miss Dodge made no motion of resentment, and the thrill of assured victory shot through his heart as he took the bony digits gently and drew them further through his arm. It was scarcely worth while to finesse any longer, and he took to kissing the hand with ardour.
'Mr. O'Hara!' said the lady, 'you alarm me.'
'Loveliest of women!' returned Mr. O'Hara, and, with Irish fervour, set an arm about her waist, and kissed the hand anew. Miss Dodge trembled a little and escaped him. 'Ye floy,' said the gentleman, 'loike the startled fawn.'
'I must leave you,' said the lady. 'If you value my regard, Mr. O'Hara, don't follow me.'
''Tis a bitter sentence,' said Dionysius, 'but to hear you is to obey you.' He knew that the style of love-making he employed was a little antiquated, but then so was the lady, and the dégagé style could never have won her. Miss Dodge went below, and Dionysius felt himself a conqueror, and sunned himself in the most splendid auriferous dreams.
The rapidity of his success astonished him, and might have led him to have doubts of its reality if he had not had experience of easy conquests. It was not that an elderly maiden lady permitted her waist to be squeezed or her hand to be kissed. That was common enough in his varied knowledge of the sex, and he had kissed more hands and squeezed more waists than I should like to mention. The thing that astonished him was that a lady so susceptible and so prodigiously well to do had never been carried by love's assault before this.
Now whilst he ogled and sighed and the lady yielded to his blandishments, he evolved a scheme so safe and easy that he laughed to think of it. He knew very well that the Colonel might be in the way, and he knew very well that if once he committed himself to the Colonel's sister, Mr. Dodge would only be too glad for a chance to withdraw his daughter. There was just a risk of losing both, but in the identity of the names of the two ladies he thought he saw a way of perfect safety. I wish it were in my power to give you the letter (which was a masterpiece in its way), but unluckily the Colonel burned it. That night Dionysius sat down and penned an epistle which might fall into the hands of either lady and seem addressed to herself, and in it he begged for the companionship of the most charming of her sex on the trip to the Causeway next morning, when he had something to say on which the whole happiness of his future depended. Now, if he were too precipitate with the dollared lady (you must remember how brief was the time in which he had to move and how delicate his position was whilst he was aboard the same yacht with his two innamorate), and if the dollared lady should show his letter to the Colonel, it would be pretty easy to declare that it had been intended for the younger; and if, on the other hand, the recipient of the letter was pleased with it—as he thought she would be—he was pleasantly provided for for life.
He found the elder Miss Dodge's own woman, and he tipped her with a sovereign and bade her give the letter he had written to Miss Dodge—not to her mistress, for he must be able, in view of possibilities, to declare that he was unacquainted with the woman's special position—but simply to Miss Dodge. The woman smiled and took the tip and the letter. She had taken many tips and many letters, as it happened, for Miss Dodge's dollars were not for the first time approached that evening, and she gave the billet to her mistress.
* * * * * * *
'I'll kick him overboard this minute!' said the Colonel.
'Not yet, Walker,' said the maiden lady. 'It's addressed to Miss Fanny Dodge, and there's not a word in it that mightn't have been written to the other Miss Fanny Dodge, and that's where the scoundrel has the pull. But you see that projectin' point of land this side the Giant's Causeway, Walker?' The Colonel nodded. 'You can boot him there, if you like to follow and to be sure that there's no mistake.' The Colonel smiled and lit a fresh cigar.
* * * * * * *
'I should take it as a particular favour,' said Colonel Dodge to Mr. Dodge, 'if you and your wife and daughter would accompany me upon this little trip, sir. I think I shall have something of unusual interest to show you.'
* * * * * * *
'You really meant the note for me, Mr. O'Hara?' said the maiden lady blushing. If she did not blush she hid her face behind her fan, and that did as well. She certainly had some sign of emotion to screen.
'Can ye doubt it, madam?' said Mr. O'Hara. 'Oh, let me throw the cold conventions to the wind—let me call ye Fanny!'
'Who could have fallen in love so soon as you profess to have done?' she asked. 'How am I to believe you?'
'Cruel beauty!' cried Mr. O'Hara; 'why do ye doubt me? I loved you from the hour I first beheld ye.'
'I reckon you may come down now, Walker,' said Miss Dodge.
'I reckon I may,' said the Colonel's voice in answer, and as Mr. O'Hara turned with a startled jump, he saw a gaunt figure rise on the rock below which all his ardours had been poured into the dollared lady's ears. The Colonel came leisurely down the uneven stony slope.
'I suppose I may come as well,' said Mr. Dodge, the retired stockbroker, in accents which belied the mildness of his words.
'Ladies,' said the Colonel, 'you had better withdraw. This is a case in which no impression can be hoped for without the aid of gutta percha.'
* * * * * * *
It was one thing to think that Dionysius was true and breaking his heart in absence, and another to know that he was a shameless money-hunter who had been deservedly chastised. An honest young gentleman on the Stock Exchange—he may be something of a phenomenon, but there he is—with a good heart, a decent income, and an unexceptionable moustache, has long since found a way to console the little Fanny, and when the two were married the other day, the bride received as a wedding present such a parure of pearls as no retired stockbroker ever gave his daughter in this world. This was a token of friendship and goodwill from an elderly maiden lady, of whom Mr. Dodge never speaks except as the 'Lively Fanny.'