Hulbert Footner

“ With an unquestioning faith, quite foreign to his old self, he had yielded up the direction of his affairs to Jacob Cleaver and his daughter, and confessed to enjoying quiet days and peaceful nights for the first time in several years.
In the skillful hands of Cleaver order was already issuing out of chaos; what had seemed as complicated as a nightmare had suddenly become a simple matter of arithmetic; such is the magic of a great reputation. And Marjorie had been concerned in it all ”

“ It contained a brawny young man in his shirt-sleeves, who stared curiously up at the yacht's deck. The Algonquin was naturally a mark for the curiosity seeker, so Marjorie merely wrapped herself in her mantle of unconsciousness, and returned to the magazine. What was her astonishment, presently, to see the head of the young man rising above the deck on the starboard side, and looking over the rail she perceived that he had coolly tied his boat to the grating. There happened to be no steward near, so Marjorie arose in some indignation, prepared to repel boarders on her own account. ”

“ You see, I've transplanted them to New York, and they don't seem to take root; they're lonesome for the lack of friends. Now Daisy, she's too proud-spirited to put up with second-class people. She wants the best, and I want her to have 'em. So there you are!”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Marjorie.
“Have mother and Daisy on the boat here with you until the end of the season. Introduce such of your friends to them as may be convenient, and let them stand or fall by their own merits. ”

“ This means recognition; it means getting right to the top without any tiresome, struggle or humiliating rebuffs! If I were friends with Marjorie Varick I could know whomever I pleased and go wherever I wanted! It would be heaven!”
“This lord-fellow—” grumbled Cleaver. “Mind you, I don't want any truck like that in the family. There's a real man waiting for you, and he'll be along here directly. John Fenner wouldn't thank me if I let you get your head turned.”
“Lord Kendal is engaged to Miss Varick,” said Daisy. ”

“ Later she found they differed in no important respects from the people she knew; her mother had had friends like old-fashioned little Mrs. Cleaver; and an able, forceful man like Jacob Cleaver is much the same East or West. Daisy, with her high finish, was more embarrassing to Marjorie, but she had wit enough to distinguish an excellent girl under the polish.
“Miss Varick, I hear you think I'm rude”
Dinner was served in the teak-wood saloon in the forward deck house, while the Algonquin, running under half speed, poked her slender nose through Hell Gate and into the Sound. ”

“ And then he told her in his level, unemotional voice, what the financial world knew already, or guessed, that his affairs were hopelessly involved. The panic had caught him, like many others, wholly unprepared, and at a cruel disadvantage in that he was old and proud, and would neither confess his errors nor accept assistance. Throughout that terrible time when the strongest clung to each other he had essayed to stand alone ”

“ She was prepared for round abuse or scorn—one could not tell about this extraordinary young man. Great was her surprise, therefore. when he bent his stubborn neck and traced an imaginary line on the deck with his foot.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said in a low voice and with a kind of humility in which there was something very proud—Marjorie understood the combination—“my people were gentlefolk, but I have lived in mining-camps since I was a boy. You see, I recognize something better than that life when I see it; that makes me conscious of my defects—and rough. ”

“ Marjorie returned.
“Fancy becoming the wife of a mine superintendent in Nevada after having had a taste of this!” continued Daisy waving her hand about the deck. “It's all my father's doing anyway. He thinks there's no one like John Fenner, naturally, because he's just such another as himself.”
Marjorie pricked up her ears. After the past two weeks, for a man to resemble Jacob Cleaver was a strong recommendation to her. ”

“ He actually seems to hate the amenities of life, the things leisure and cultivation and ease bring. I can't understand it!”
“I can,” said Marjorie, gently; “it's pride—mistaken, of course, but very human!”
“Really!” exclaimed Daisy. “I didn't expect you to stand up for him!”
Marjorie was distressed to find herself blushing.
“Not at all!” she said with wholly unnecessary energy. “The young man is nothing to me; indeed, I thought him excessively rude!”
V
John Fenner came every evening thereafter to call on his fiancée. ”

“ The words “poverty” and “ruin” had no direct significance to her, but all her life this proud old man, in her girl mind, had represented Jove, and to hear him confessing to weakness and defeat brought her world about her ears. ”

“ Half an hour later, when he returned, their heads were still close together; he went below, and Marjorie and her father had the deck to themselves until it was time to dress for dinner. It was their first intimacy; like many another father and daughter, they had never become acquainted.
More than once in his talk Mr. Varick mentioned Jacob Cleaver, the multi-millionaire from Nevada who, he said, bade fair to quadruple his fortune by reason of the misfortunes of the New York crowd. ”

“ Marjorie suddenly leaned over and kissed her father.
“Pater, dear, I have a plan,” she said hopefully. “All your good-for-nothing daughter has learned in the world are the social graces. I'm going to try to realize on them!”
II
In the supremely gorgeous state apartments of New York's latest and most gorgeous hotel, the suite for which Jacob Cleaver was reputed to be paying nearly a thousand dollars a week, sat the quaint, little, old fashioned figure of his wife, regarding an open letter in her hand with a perplexed and anxious expression ”