George Barr McCutcheon

“ Society had become the sepulchre of youthful inspirations; she welcomed the resurrection. The exquisite delicacy with which she analysed the cost and computed the interest won for her the warmest regard of her husband's friend, fellow conspirator in a plot which involved the subtlest test of loyalty and honour.
"Yes," said Medcroft simply. "You won't have reason to change your opinion, Brock." He hesitated for a moment and then burst out, rather plaintively: "She's an awfully good sort, demme, she is. And so are you, Brock,—it's mighty decent of you. ”

“ I can see by the way you are looking that you're just crazy to. It's all Roxbury's fault, anyway. Why should he get up and make a speech in London without letting us know? Just see how it has placed us! I think Mr. Brock is an angel to do what he has done for you and Roxbury. Yes, my dear, you will have to confess that Roxbury is a brute—a perfect brute. I'm sure, if you have a spark of fairness in you, you must hate him. No, no! Don't say anything, Edith. ”

“ Edith may have gasped and looked wildly about in quest of help, but her agitation went unnoticed by the new friend. From that momentous hour Mrs. Medcroft encouraged an inordinate regard for the circumspect. She decided that it was best never to be alone with her husband; the future was now too precious to go unguarded for a single moment that might be unexplainable when the triumphal hour of revelation came to hand. She impressed this fact upon her sister, with the result that while Brock was never alone with his prudent wife, he was seldom far from the side of the adorable lieutenant. ”

“ Your serviette, M'sieur—it is damp. Pardon!" He flew away and back with another napkin. "Of course, M'sieur, the Chatham is not the Waldorf," he announced deprecatingly. "Parbleu," beating himself on the forehead, "I forgot! M'sieur does not like the Waldorf. Eh, bien, Paris is not New York, no." Having sufficiently humbled Paris, he withdrew into the background, rubbing his hands as if he were cleansing them of something unsightly. Brock spread one of the buttered biscuits with honey and inwardly admitted that Paris was not New York. ”

“ And you've been married less than a week!"
"Roxbury and I didn't have our first quarrel until we'd been married a year," said Edith reflectively.
"Oh, I say, Edith," exclaimed Brock, with a dark frown, "I'd rather you wouldn't be forever extolling the good qualities of my predecessor. It's very bad taste. Very much like the pies mother used to make."
"Silly!" cried Medcroft's wife, now in fine humour.
"Besides, Rox is an Englishman. It would take him a year to produce a quarrel. The American husband is not so confounded slow. I won't live up to Roxbury in everything." ”

“ She is pretty, don't you think so, dear?"
"She's just like you, Edith," said Constance, who understood things quite clearly.
"Then, in heaven's name, Connie, why are they staring at her so impolitely—all of them?"
"It's because she is so pretty. Goodness, Edith, don't let every little thing worry you. You'll have wrinkles and grey hairs soon enough."
"It's all very nice for you to talk," grumbled Edith. "I'm going mad with loneliness. You have a lover near you all the time—he's mad about you. What have I? I'm utterly alone. ”

“ As he sank, hot and exhausted, into the seat opposite his wife and her sister, the former looked up from her book, yawning ever so faintly, and asked:
"Are you enjoying your honeymoon, Roxbury?"
"Immensely!" he exclaimed, but not until he had searched for and caught Connie's truant gaze. "Aren't we?" he asked of Miss Fowler, his eyes dancing. She smiled encouragingly.
"I think you are such a nice man to have about," commented Mrs. Medcroft, this time yawning freely and stretching her fine young arms in the luxury of home contentment. ”

“ By the way, you'll have to get used to the name of Roxbury. Don't look around as if you expected to find me standing behind your back when she says, 'Roxbury, dear!' I shan't be there, you know. She'll mean you. Don't forget that."
"Oh, I say," exclaimed Brock, halting abruptly, and staring in dismay at the confident conspirator, "will I have to wear a suit of clothes like that, and an eyeglass, and—and—good Lord! spats?"
"By Jove, you shall wear this very suit!" cried Medcroft, inspired. "We're of a size, and it won't fit you any better than it does me. Our clothes never fit us in London. ”

“ I've already proposed to her five or six times."
"And she—she is undecided?" cried Brock, his eyes darkening.
"No, hang it all, she's not undecided. She's said no every time. That's why I'm up a tree, so to speak."
"Oh?" was all that Brock said. Of course she couldn't love a creature of Freddie's stamp! He gloated!
"'Gad, you're a lucky dog, Roxbury," went on Freddie enviously. "Money isn't everything. You're married to one of the prettiest and most fascinating women in the world. She's a wonder. You can't blame me for wanting your wife as a sister-in-law. ”

“ See here, Connie, we've got some one else to consider as well as ourselves. In order to square it all up for Edith, we must be able to say to these people that we haven't been frivolling—that we are going to be married at once. That will let Edith out of the difficulty, and everything will look rosy at the outset. If we put it off, the world will have said things in its ignorance that she can never refute, simply because the world doesn't stop long enough to hear two sides of a story unless they are given pretty closely together. ”

“ Of course, she was not blind to her husband's infatuation for her sister. Therefore, if she were so cheerful and indifferent about it, it followed that she was not especially distressed; in fact, it suddenly dawned upon him she was not only reconciled but relieved. She had ceased to love her husband! She could be a freelance in Love's lists, notwithstanding the inconvenience of a legal attachment. "She's ripping, too," concluded Freddie, with a certain buoyancy of spirit. "If she doesn't love Medcroft, she at least ought to love someone else instead. ”

“ He went into a long tirade against the unfortunate Seattle-ites, as he called them. "Understand me, Agatha, I don't blame Mrs. Medcroft. If she's having an affair with this chap and can pull the wool—"
"But she isn't having an affair with this chap," cried Mrs. Odell-Carney, her patience exhausted. "She's having an affair with a chap in London—the one who writes—Good gracious! Of course! Why, what fools we are. The real Medcroft is in London, and it is he who is writing the letters. How stupid of me!"
"Aha!" exclaimed he triumphantly. "Of course, she's getting letters from her husband. ”

“ As if precociously providing for an ultimate alibi, the fickle Tootles began to show unmistakable signs of aversion for her temporary parent. Mrs. Rodney, being an old-fashioned mother, could not reconcile herself to this unfilial attitude, and gravely confided to her husband that she feared Medcroft was mistreating his child behind their backs.
"Well, the poodle likes him, anyway," protested Mr. Rodney, who liked Brock; "and if a dog likes a man he's not altogether a bad lot. ”

“ Constance pursued Katherine to her room, where they revelled in the delights of a reunion, gradually coming out of its throes as the hour for dressing approached.
"We dine early, dear," said Constance, "with supper after the opera. I must be off to dress."
"I am so eager to meet Mr. Medcroft. Is he nice?"
"He's the dearest thing in the world," cried the other, her cheeks aglow.
"I'm so glad, on Edith's account. Most of these English matches turn out abominably," commented Miss Rodney, who was twenty, very pretty, and very worldly. "Oh, did I tell you that Freddie Ulstervelt is with us?" ”

“ Even his shrewdest enemy could not have suspected Medcroft of a patience which would permit him to sit quiet in London while the attacks were going on. He found some small solace in the reflection that he could make the end justify the means.
On their return to the Bristol, Brock and Miss Fowler found the fair Edith in a pitiful state of collapse. She declared over and over again that she could not face the Rodneys; it was more than should be expected of her; she was sure that something would go wrong; why, oh, why was it necessary to deceive the Rodneys? Why should they be kept in the dark? ”

“ It mattered little who the girl of the moment might be, she could not hope to or even seek to hold his perambulatory affections. "He's a single example of a great New York class," reflected Brock. "The futile, priggish rich! There are thousands like him in my dear New York—conscienceless, invertebrate, sybaritic sons of idleness, college-bred and under-bred little beasts who can buy and then cast off at their pleasure. They have no means of knowing how to fall in love with a good girl. They have not been trained to it. ”

“ He said it in contemplative delight in what he would do if it were definitely settled. "I can't stand them much longer."
"What great variety of Americans there are," she reflected. "Mrs. Medcroft and her sister are Americans. Compare them with the Rodneys and Mr. Ulstervelt. No, Carney, I'll not start a scandal. The Rodneys would not understand, as you say. They'd tear her to shreds and gloat over the mutilation. No; we'll have her to see us in London. I like her."
"And, by Jove, Agatha, I like her sister."
"My dear, the baby is a darling." ”

“ Hire a nurse, if necessary. You might venture to express an opinion or two on vital topics, in my name. I don't care a hang what you say. I only want 'em to think I'm there. No doubt our enemies will have a spy or two hanging about to see that I am actually off for a jaunt with the Rodneys, but they will be Viennese and they won't know me from Adam. What's the odds, so long as Edith is there to stand by you? If she's willing to assume that you are her husband—"
"Good Lord!" half shouted Brock, leaping to his feet, wide-eyed. "You don't mean to say that she is—is—is to go to Vienna with me?" ”

“ I am so glad you are not dead. It is impossible to release you to-night. Those wretches have the key. How I loathe them! Edith says the hotel is wild with gossip about everything and everybody. It's just awful. Be of good heart, my beloved. I will be your faithful slave until death. With love and adoration and kisses. Your own Constance.
"P.S. Roxbury has not made a sign, Edith is frantic."
Several floors below the relieved and ecstatic Brock, Mrs. Medcroft was soon urging her sister to go to bed and let the story go until daylight. ”

“ There's bound to be a sceptic or two, my dear Constance."
"But there's Roxbury," she protested, her face clouding nevertheless. "He will set everything right."
"The world will say he is a gullible fool," said he gently. "And the world always laughs at, not with, a fool. Alas, my dear sister, it's a very deep pool we're in." He leaned closer and allowed a quaint, half-bantering, wholly diffident smile to cross his face. "I—I'm afraid that you are the only being on earth who can make the story thoroughly plausible." ”

“ Rodney.
"Oh, yes, I know," drawled Mr. Odell-Carney. "You American architects are doing great things, 'pon my soul," he added luminously. Brock stuck his eyeglass in tighter and hemmed with raucous precision. Mrs. Medcroft stiffened perceptibly.
"Oh, but he's Mr. Roxbury Medcroft, the great English architect," cried Mrs. Rodney, in some little confusion. Odell-Carney suddenly remembered. He glared hard at Brock; the Rodneys saw signs of disaster.
"Oh, by Jove, are you the fellow who put those new windows in the Chaucer Memorial Hall? 'Pon me soul! Are you the man who did that?" ”

“ They visited the gardens and the Hofs, the Chateau at Schönbrunn, the Imperial stables, the gay "Venice in Vienna"; they attended the opera and the concerts, ever in a most circumspect "trinity," as Brock had come to classify their parties. Like a dutiful husband, he always included his wife in the expeditions.
"You are not only a most exemplary wife, Mrs. Medcroft," he declared, "but an unusually agreeable chaperon. I don't know how Constance and I could get on without you." ”

“ Charles was the magnet that drew Brock to the Chatham (that excellent French hotel with the excellent English name) . It is beside the question to remark that one is obliged to reverse the English when directing a cocher to the Chatham. The Paris cabman looks blank and more than usually unintelligent when directed to drive to the Chatham, but his face radiates with joy when his fare is inspired to substitute Sha-t'am, with distinct emphasis on the final syllable. ”

“ The Rodneys are my friends, not Edith's. Katherine Rodney was in the convent with me. We see a great deal of each other. I'm sure you will like her. Everybody falls dreadfully in love with her."
"How very amiable of you to permit it," he protested gallantly. "I'm sure I shall enjoy falling in love. Which reminds me that I've never had a sister-in-law. They're very nice, I'm told. It's odd that Medcroft didn't tell me about you. ”