IV
Like many another man before him, Cousin Ronald was ill-served by his own impatience. Ordway had come, intending to hand the letter over as a gift of no importance, but being asked to name his price put ideas into his head. He reflected. He reflected so long that Cousin Ronald grew still more impatient.
“I have been practicing the strictest economy,” he announced. “I may say that I have endured something not short of actual discomfort, sir, in order that I might be in a position to meet any—er—reasonable terms—”
There was a knock at the door. It was Cousin Winnie.
“Your dinner!” she whispered. “It’s ready!”
Cousin Ronald did some quick reflecting himself. If the young man could observe their strict economy for himself—
“Mr. Ordway, sir,” he said, “will you favor us with your company at a very simple meal?”
“Thank you!” Ordway replied. “I’d be pleased to.[Pg 425]”
This dinner had, in Cousin Ronald’s eyes, a sweet, old-fashioned charm. A fire burned now upon the hearth; the board was set out with Wedgwood and with Sheffield plate. And Cousin Ronald positively recreated Mme. Van Der Dokjen, describing her just as she had been, here in this very room.
But Ordway was not moved. He did not give the Wedgwood or the plate anything like the attention he gave to the economical dinner, and the late Mme. Van Der Dokjen was, to him, of very inferior merit to the living Lucy. All the time Cousin Ronald discoursed, Ordway was thinking of Lucy, deprived of electricity and of all the other privileges she so richly deserved.
“It’s a darned shame!” he thought. “The old skinflint thinks more of that letter than he does of his own family. A darned shame!”
When the meal ended, Cousin Ronald suggested that Lucy sing, accompanying herself upon the spinet—an art she had recently acquired. He believed that this would soften the heart of the rapacious young man.
It did. It did, indeed. To the sweetly jangling spinet she sang some gentle old song. In firelight and candlelight—
The young man, watching her and hearing her, was quite as much moved as Cousin Ronald could have desired—but in the wrong direction.
Her song ended, Cousin Ronald and Ordway withdrew to the study, Cousin Winnie and her child to the kitchen. Twenty minutes passed; then Ordway reappeared. With a curtsy almost old-fashioned, Lucy went with him to the door, even across the threshold.
The wind slammed the door behind her, and for a few minutes she stood in the porch, talking to the young man. Cousin Winnie, in the kitchen, heard them; they were discussing a new play. Lucy said yes, she did like the theater, but she didn’t go very often now. And she had heard “The Maddened Brute” spoken of as a wonderful play—a really big thing. Cousin Winnie missed a little here, owing to her duties; the next thing she heard was Lucy saying good night to Mr. Ordway.
It had been a very brief conversation, but Ordway, as he walked to the station in the windy dark, imagined that she had said a great deal. He thought, somehow, that she had told him what a miserable existence she led in the historic cottage. What a darned shame!