Mrs. Weldon

“ It wasn't his self-pride that was injured; that had become so battered there was little of it left; but he had set his whole heart on winning this girl and felt that he could not give her up.
Anger toward Weldon was prominent amongst his emotion. ”

“ She cut the motors to idling speed and the vibrating mesh slowed down. I glared at her through it. God, she was lovely—as lovely as an ice sculpture! The kind of face you'd love to kiss and slap, kiss and slap....
"You came here with a preconceived notion, Mr. Weldon. I'm a businesswoman, not a monster. I like to think there's even a good deal of the altruist in me. I could hire only young people, but the old ones have more trouble finding work. ”

“ Weldon could have wrung its neck. It was worse than a clock. Webb sighed regretfully and raised his heavy lids. As the old snakish glance reached him Weldon felt the old net-like sensation, the old baffled rage.
"I'm sorry, Weldon, but I can't let it go. It's no use—you can't afford it. It's all like a house you build out of cards, you see, and you can't slip out one without the whole thing caving in. Whatever I pull out I have to explain. How do you suppose I got you your fifty thousand, back there? You know I've never had much money—to call money. ”

“ Many estrangements are caused by trifles so intangible that we can scarcely locate them at all.
At first the girl was very unhappy at the alienation, but soon schooled herself to forget her former admirer. Arthur Weldon, for his part, consoled himself by plunging into social distractions and devoting himself to Diana Von Taer, whose strange personality for a time fascinated him.
The business could not hold young Weldon's vacillant temperament for long; neither could Diana. As a matter of fact his heart, more staunch than he himself suspected, had never wavered much from Louise. ”

“ Listening to what Weldon had said, wanting to remain judiciously skeptical but finding herself increasingly unable to disbelieve him—that had been like a slow, continuous shock. She wasn't yet over it. Her thoughts wouldn't follow the lines she set them on but veered off almost incoherently every minute or two. For the first time in her adult life she was badly frightened—made stupid with fear—and finding it something she seemed unable to control at will.
Her gaze shifted back helplessly to the table and to the dull-blue concave viewplate which was the diex projector's central section. ”

“ Webb, impossible. I have paid well for my position here."
"And a good move, too," said the other heartily. "You stand well, Weldon; none better."
"I have never been what you would call ambitious," Weldon went on, more passionately, now. "When you yourself asked me why I demanded no more than the ten—the fifty thousand, you remember my answer. I knew that it would buy me a good, respectable interest out here, assure me of a position I had every capacity to sustain honourably and efficiently, and give me the leisure and climate that I wanted. I shall never be a rich man—by your standards. ”

“ Weldon's music was not printed, and is now unknown, with the exception of Juno's song, 'Let ambition fire thy mind,' the air of which was adapted by Arne to the opening duet of 'Love in a Village.' On June 6, 1701, Weldon was sworn in a Gentleman extraordinary of the Chapel Royal. ”

“ Contrary to his usual mood when on picket, Weldon had no sense of loneliness, that night. Reaching away from him on either hand was the huge enclosing wall of humanity, pacing to and fro on picket duty, guarding the blockhouses, patrolling the wire fences between. Every man was alert to his duty; every nerve was taut with the consciousness that somewhere within the cordon was the leader who heretofore had escaped them, that each man was a link forged in the endless chain which was stretched around the invisible enemy. ”

“ Some opposition to the engagement originated, therefore, with the friends of the young lady, 41though she, passionately enamoured, was at first fixed in her choice, and firm to her professions of affection. “The gentlewoman,” says Sir Anthony Weldon, “loved him so well as, could all his friends have made for her great fortune but a hundred marks jointure, she had married him presently, in despite of all her friends, and, no question, would have had him without any fortune at all.” ”

“ Louise, who had read Diana's quick glance with the accuracy of an intuitionist, felt a sudden suspicion and dislike for Diana now dominating her. Behind all this was a mystery, which shall be explained here because the reader deserves to be more enlightened than the characters themselves.
Arthur Weldon's nature was a queer combination of weakness and strength. He was physically brave but a moral coward. The motherless son of a man wholly immersed in business, he had been much neglected in his youth and his unstable character was largely the result of this neglect. ”

“ As he reached the street a man—an ordinary servant, to judge from his appearance—ran into him full tilt, and when they recoiled from the impact the fellow with a muttered curse raised his fist and struck young Weldon a powerful blow. ”

“ Between two ticks of the clock, it might be, Weldon saw himself leaping to the window, pouring water from the inner lavatory, calling for brandy, Loosening tin-collar. So vivid was this vision that it seemed he must be doing all this, actually, and he stood vacant-eyed, staring at the dead man. Once he tried to take a step, but his very muscles seemed paralyzed, and a voice, steady as the clock, seemed to tell him:
"How senseless! The man is dead. Dead. You know it. Let him alone. Think what to do. How can you escape? Think! Think!" ”

“ Then he introduced me to the coroner.
Mr. Weldon was a man of about forty years, [Pg 85] intelligent, forceful, not in the least the mournful type so often seen among undertakers. He was rather careless in speech, but I did not ascribe it to lack of education. He had rather a Semitic countenance, and a very deep, manly voice.
“Of course the first thing is to drag the lagoon,” he said. “We’ve got to have a body before we can hold anything but a semblance of an inquest—and of course thet’s where the body is. ”

“ Yes, this girl would do very nicely, both as a wife and as a banker. Assuredly the game was well worth playing, as Diana had asserted. He must make it his business to discover what difficulties must be overcome in winning her. Of course Arthur Weldon was the main stumbling-block; but Weldon was a ninny; he must be thrust aside; Diana had promised to attend to that.
Never in his life had Charles Connoldy Mershone been in earnest before. After his first interview with Louise Merrick he became in deadly earnest. ”

“ Weldon told his story again. They had talked of business. The president had put his hand in his pocket. Handkerchief, probably. Had experienced some shock and fallen, dead-weight, on his bent arm. As you see him now. Unable to lift him. Notified Mr. Dupont immediately. Nothing more.
"Dear, dear!" said Mr. Webb. "As quickly as that! Hard on you. Nothing handy, I suppose; only window up and water and such things?"
For the life of him Weldon could not help the slow red in his face. He glanced at the window: it was locked. For Heaven's sake, why lie? He was no murderer. ”

“ She even has one sacred teacup, set up on a high shelf ever since the day that Baden-Powell used it."
Weldon smiled.
"Miss Dent is a hero-worshipper," he commented.
"So are we all, in certain directions. Moreover, most women like their heroes to have a little personality. One can't make one's admiration stick to a blank wall of impersonal perfection."
Weldon's mind moved swiftly backwards to two blue, black-fringed eyes glowing out from a dust-streaked face. ”

“ Weldon would occasionally pause to watch the women, but they only responded to her notice by a long stare or by a hideous grimace; a kind of natural instinct made them hate a white skin, and they had no spark of commiseration for the stranger who had been brought among them; Halima, however, was a marked exception, she grew more and more devoted to her mistress, and by degrees, the two became able to exchange many sentences in the native dialect. ”

“ One felt really sorry for this rich, fat man. How ludicrously he resembled his caricatures!
"I really wish you would wait for Mr. Webb, Mr. Weldon," Dupont assured him, "it would be a great convenience. You could tell him just how it happened, you know. Just. You see, your being there, you know...."
"Of course I will stay, if you desire it," Weldon answered gravely, wondering if he could keep awake. His eyeballs fairly dragged down. The tall clock's tick confused itself with his thoughts: one, two! one, two! one, two! ”

“ We haven't time for much else. I hope you will remember that you came out here, not to fuss the girls, but for the fuss with the Boers."
From his seat on the edge of the bed, Weldon eyed him amicably.
"Don't preach, Carew," he answered coolly. "It doesn't do my soul any good, and it only renders you a bore. It has always been a clause of my creed that two good things are better than one."
Nevertheless, in spite of his haste to unpack his calling clothes, it was full three days later that Weldon turned his face eastward in search of the home of Ethel Dent. ”

“ They were aged even beyond their years, while for Mattie and I time had seemed to stand still.
We went to “meeting,” now held in a beautiful little church, instead of the old school house. The boys I had played with in my youth were there, grown into men, many of them old before their time. When I looked around I could see in every bent back, knotted hand and furrowed brow what I might have grown into, and shuddered. Father probably understood my thoughts, for on the way home, when I told him what money I had made, he said, “I am not sure, Jim, but perhaps you are right. ”

“ At twelve-thirty the next day, Eveley and Miss Weldon entered the small waiting-room of Rudder’s café. Nolan was already there. They waited fifteen minutes for Timothy, and then a messenger came down to them with a note. Mr. Baldwin was so sorry, but business was urgent, and they must go right ahead and have luncheon without him. He would telephone them later in the evening if he could come up.
Sally Weldon pursed her lips a little, but she smiled at Nolan. “Can you beau us both, Mr. Inglish? We think we are mighty lucky to have half a beau a piece on working days. ”

“ Weldon glanced curiously at the mild, unimportant brother-in-law. He was always thought of and mentioned in his capacity of brother-in-law. Why should he think of Webb? Common-sense answered, why not? He was immeasurably the head of them all. Opening the door to discover if there were yet any disturbance in the bank, he confronted Potter, a fat, red-faced, many-millioned man, who puffed excitedly by him.
"Terrible thing, isn't it, Dupont? Great shock to you. Naturally. Has—has Webb been informed? Quite right, quite right." ”

“ They tend only to weaken..."
And yet this man had a reputation for cleverness—nay, it was no empty reputation. Did not Weldon know what he could do, know better than any living man? And yet, how he babbled! Hark, here was his own name.
"You inform me, Mr. Weldon, that you have been ten years in the employ of the bank, a gratifying but by no means unusual record. Our cashier, you know, is now in his twenty-third year, if I am not mistaken. Yes. Was it to inform me of this only that you requested this interview?" ”

“ Annie Dawson and Kate Jackson are beauties, but are too full of frivolity and coquettishness, while Lizzie Cleopatra Moore (that is her full name) is broad-shouldered and masculine in build, and has pronounced views on the equal rights question.
“No. None of these ladies have the qualities I wish my wife to possess.
“But who else do I know?
“By jove, I have it.
“Miss Mattie Higbie, of course; the girl I made the subject of my first and only practice as a corn doctor. ”

“ Let them mind their kettles and leave me to mind the enemy."
"And if they won't let you go back?"
"Then I'll ship myself straight down to Cape Town, and take service with Captain Frazer. He can fight with the best of them, and he knows I'm a man. It's riding at his heels I'll be, henceforth and forevermore."
Turning, Weldon looked long into the jovial Irish face, and at the hunchy figure that joggled to and fro in the saddle, with no heed to the rhythm of his horse's pace. ”

“ The girl stood aside to let Carew pass her by.
"She is good to everybody," she assented quietly. "I hope Mr. Weldon won't think of going away until he can be moved with perfect safety. It is really no trouble to have him here, and the nurse is very capable." ”

“ Weldon was clerk of the kitchen to James I and afterwards clerk of the Green Cloth. He was knighted in 1617, and accompanied James to Scotland in that year, but was dismissed from his place at court for his satire on the Scots. He took the side of the parliament in the Civil War. The dedication to Lady Elizabeth Sidley (first printed in the second edition) states that the work 'treads too near the heeles of truth, and these Times, to appear in publick'. According to Anthony à Wood she had suppressed the manuscript, which was stolen from her. Weldon had died before it was printed. ”

“ Dr. Weldon is a man of modest bearing, and is always listened to with respect by the house. He is connected with the Methodists; his wife, whom he married in 1877, being Marie, eldest daughter of Rev. G. W. Tuttle, at that time stationed in the Stellarton—Pictou county, N.S.—circuit.
McNicoll, David, Montreal, General Passenger Agent, for the territory east of Port Arthur of the Canadian Pacific Railway, is still a young man, though his position is one of large responsibilities. ”