II
“Is this the lady of the house?” inquired the gentleman in the reception-room as Mrs. Derwall appeared upon the threshold.
This question caused her to halt in her progress, and recalled to her mind the fact that she had responded to the maid’s announcement with rather more precipitation than she might under other circumstances have displayed.
“It is,” she somewhat stiffly replied. “But I regret to say that she requires no books to-day.”
“O, please wait a minute!” cried the caller as she started to retire. “I knew I should trip up. I was so sure you would take me for a book agent that I hypnotised myself into beginning like one. But I’m not one. I never was one. I never shall be one. I abominate books!”
He ended almost violently. And as she listened Mrs. Derwall could see very well that he was not what she thought.
“I won’t run away yet, then,” she laughed. “You are too encouraging. I have just estranged a lifelong friend by telling her much the same thing, and I was in danger—well, of caving a little.”
“Dear me! Don’t cave when you have as good ground as that under your feet! What will you do when you get to a real quicksand? I evidently appeared on the scene just in time. I shall give you all the moral support you want. I dare say I can damn and double-damn books in more kinds of ways than you ever dreamed. Life is so amusing that I continually wonder how people can turn their eyes from it long enough to look at a book.”
“How about the Higher Life?” inquired Mrs. Derwall demurely.
“What in the world is that?” demanded the caller, mystified. He looked about the room, much as if he expected to see its legs sticking out from behind the curtains.
“Don’t ask me!” Mrs. Derwall waved it from her. “Ask any other woman but me. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I’ve just refused to go to town with my lifelong friend and find out. There’s a Professor Richard Church, or Birch, or Smirch, or somebody, who tells people at two dollars a head. But it’s not too late for you. The eleven-five train will do you quite nicely.”
“Ah!” ejaculated the caller. “I don’t think I’m in such a hurry as all that.” He still looked rather curiously about, however. “But you frighten me. You frighten me more than I expected. I don’t know whether I shall dare to tell you what I came for.”
Mrs. Derwall, who found that things were going very well, encouraged him.
“Don’t be afraid of me. I am quite harmless. More than that, I am the most helpless of creatures in the face of a determined appeal. What are you—patent medicine? Needles? Charity? Gold mines? I may invest in you yet.”
“But it’s nothing of that kind! It’s just the opposite. I don’t want to take money out of your pocket. I want to put it in.”
“Then you’re the man for me!” cried Mrs. Derwall. “Christmas has gone, and ruin stares me in the face!”
“You reassure me,” smiled the caller. “But don’t go too far. Don’t, for instance, imagine me the attorney of a maiden aunt, come to hand over a handsome legacy. And don’t read pure altruism in my countenance. I——” He began to laugh. “Shall I say it?”
“If it’s respectable,” said Mrs. Derwall. “You begin to make me ask myself questions.”
“It’s only too respectable, heaven knows! But it’s a little unexpected. It will take your breath away. You may scream. You might even faint. One never can tell what ladies will do. Are you temperamental?”
Mrs. Derwall sniffed. There was that in her sniff however, which intimated that she was not unwilling to hear what her visitor had to impart.
“I like that! Do I look so much like the Eternal Feminine? Do your direst and I promise you not to make a scene.”
“Well, then,” said the caller, “I throw the responsibility on you. I came in to buy your house.”
If faces could fall, as literature popularly affirms, Mrs. Derwall’s would have bumped the floor with some force. As it was she treated her interlocutor to a stare in which the surprise he had predicted mingled with disillusion. She therefore stretched the truth.
“Why, I don’t want to sell my house,” she uttered briefly.
The stranger did not appear to be in the least disconcerted.
“So far, so good. I’ve found out, at any rate, that the house is yours to sell. It might have been somebody else’s. And let me congratulate you on your self-control.”
“As a matter of fact, it is somebody else’s—namely my husband’s,” rejoined that gentleman’s consort with dignity.
“O, well, that is a mere detail which does not affect the case,” remarked the caller easily. “Of course the point is whether you would make any objection to his parting with it.”
Mrs. Derwall glanced vaguely about. As a matter of fact, she and Lou had discussed the matter no later than last night. But to have the hypothetical purchaser suddenly materialise made her search her own mind again. Besides, she felt an indefinable resentment against her visitor for having turned out so much less interesting than he seemed to promise.
“What in the world do you want of the place?” she asked at last.
“Nothing improper, I assure you! I merely want to live in it.”
“But why? Have you ever been in it before? Does it hold some romance for you?”
“Romance! Heavens no! What have romance and I to do with each other? I am a married man. I just happened to be passing by, and it beckoned to me. ‘That is the house for me,’ I said, and I walked straight in.”
“But what do you see in it?” demanded Mrs. Derwall, casting her eye once more about.
“I see everything you don’t,” responded the caller quickly. “To say nothing of a very agreeable hostess, it’s just the right size, it’s just the right colour, it’s in just the right place. How did you happen to build it so exactly for me?”
“We didn’t!”
“Madam, you surprise me. You exhibit every symptom of a lady who has lived to repent of her architectural errors. If you bought the house outright, as I hope to do, I should not expect that you would even listen to me. As it is, however, I have hopes of prevailing upon you to let me have it.”
“I have nothing to say about it,” replied Mrs. Derwall with an air of finality. “You will have to see my husband.”
“Of course! And I shall be delighted to do so at the earliest possible moment. But in the meantime, in order that I may do so with the more intelligence, would you mind showing me the premises?”
Mrs. Derwall laughed in spite of herself.
“Gracious! How persistent you are! You are perfectly welcome to look around. Only mind: I don’t exhibit as to a prospective buyer; I show as to a visiting friend. I have no more idea of getting up and moving out and going all through the torment of architects and builders and strikes and heaven knows what, than I have of——”
“Of going to Professor Murch’s lectures,” suggested the caller with a smile.
“Yes. Thank you. I couldn’t think of anything impossible enough. Will you come this way? This is the reception-room, you see. There is a library on the other side of the hall.” And without further ado she led the way through the rooms.
Having recovered her poise, and perhaps with a new appreciation of her companion’s qualities, Mrs. Derwall proceeded to enter into the spirit of the occasion—as she well knew how. They had a very lively time of it. They went upstairs. They went downstairs. They explored every cupboard and cubbyhole. They examined the plumbing. They criticised the colour schemes. Mrs. Derwall expatiated on all the disadvantages of the house. Her visitor seized unerringly upon every advantage. And so at last they completed in the cellar their round of inspection.
“This is the very nicest part of the house,” sighed Mrs. Derwall. “It’s so dry and comfortable and cosy that I often wake up in the night and wish I were in it!”
The visitor turned solemnly upon her.
“Madam,” he began, “its qualities are such that I am completely undone. Such a laundry, such storerooms, such coal-bins, never were on sea or land. I shall not draw a peaceful breath until they are mine. Believe me, madam; never, never in this world. You will do me an irreparable injury if you refuse to sell me this house. You don’t care two pins about it. I do. Sell it to me, then. It is small, but I shall give you sixteen thousand dollars for it. Now, this minute.” And drawing a cheque-book from his pocket he uncapped his fountain-pen. “What name shall I put down?”
Mrs. Derwall was too much surprised by the suddenness of his onslaught to answer.
“Isn’t it a fair price?” inquired her companion. “If you don’t think so I am sure we shall have no trouble in coming to terms.”
“Yes,” uttered Mrs. Derwall slowly. “But——”
The stranger cut her off.
“Of course I have no idea of trying to force you to do what you don’t want. So far as that goes, however, I fancy that you’re pretty well able to take care of your end of a bargain. But it strikes me as rather a good deal for you. You can recoup yourself for Christmas, and then you can go to Palm Beach or Cairo or Zanzibar or somewhere for the bad part of the winter, while I am freezing here.”
“Why, when would you want to come in?” asked Mrs. Derwall.
“Let’s see.” He began calculating on his fingers. “To-day is Thursday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday—I want to come in Monday. Next Monday. That will give me time to get settled before Wednesday.”
Mrs. Derwall all but shrieked.
“Why, my dear man, have you lost your mind? I never heard of such a thing in my life. It would take me from now till then to get ready if I began this minute. And I have a week-end party on and couldn’t begin to touch a thing till Tuesday at the very earliest. I like your blandness!”
He was imperturbable.
“My dear lady, you can do it perfectly well. I have done it myself a dozen times. All it needs is a little generalship. You just arrange things beforehand—with squads of packers and cleaners to follow each other. You could clear out Windsor Castle in a day, that way. Of course I divide the expense with you. Come, what name shall I write?”
Mrs. Derwall hardly heard him through. She collapsed upon a soapbox, and she laughed until her visitor began to scratch his head.
“You ridiculous man!” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “I declare, you deserve the house! A man who knows what he wants to that degree! Who in the world are you, that you suavely propose to me to move out in a day? It’s like carrying off the roof from over my head! Go on! You shall have it in spite of everything. I don’t know what my husband will do to me, but it’s not often given one to be sublime. Louis N. Derwall is the name. L-o-u——”
And off she went again. By the time she came back the cheque was ready for her. She took it with a certain eagerness, for she was not without her curiosities. But after one glance she suddenly sobered. She eyed the paper some time without saying a word. Finally, however, she looked up at the signatory, who stood quizzically watching her.
“Professor Richard Murch?” she asked.
“The same!” responded that personage, with an elaborate bow.
“The Professor Richard Murch who lectures to ladies about Browning and the Higher Life?”
“The very one. And if I don’t hurry I shall be late for the lecture you refused to go to. Will you come now?”
She did not answer at first. She looked him slowly up and down for as much as a minute. Then she rose, leisurely crossed the cellar to the furnace, opened the door, and threw in the cheque. After which she looked back over her shoulder.
“No thank you, professor. And that’s what I think of you and your cheque. Good morning.”
She turned her back on him again. She took up a shovel. She made for the coalbin.
At that Mr. Murch, who had hitherto said nothing, started across the floor.
“Permit me, Mrs. Derwall. You may not care to sell me so admirable a furnace, but you will, at least, allow me to stoke it this once.”
The offended matron tossed her head.
“By no means, Mr. Murch. I wouldn’t think of letting you soil your poetical hands. Remember your ladies. They pant for you. As for me, I am quite able to look after my own furnace, thank you. I am not a disciple of the Higher Life, you know. I make pies instead of reading poetry. And when it comes to shovelling coal, I dare say I am rather more expert than you are.” With which she emptied her shovel through the furnace door.
“Madam, it pains me to contradict you” remarked the professor, who had kept a critical eye upon this manœuvre. “I am only too well aware that my other offences are gross enough. But Truth and Honour alike compel me to confess that I can shovel coal better than that!”
Mrs. Derwall’s wrath had hitherto maintained lofty heights. But she now began to break down. She betrayed the first signs of a womanly irritation. She snorted contemptuously. “I’d like to see you! I bet you can’t.”
The professor held her eye.
“Do you mean it?” he asked.
“I do mean it, Mr. Murch!” rejoined Mrs. Derwall with some spirit. “What’s more, I’ll stake the house on it. If you can throw three shovelfuls into that furnace without dropping one coal or once hitting the side of the door, I’ll take another cheque from you.”
The lecturer to ladies smiled.
“That’s a sporting proposition, Mrs. Derwall. But as evidence that I have no wish to get your house from you again under false pretences, I will thank you for your courtesy and wish you a very good morning.”
“Come, come, Mr. Murch!” cried Mrs. Derwall derisively. “You don’t back out like that. I want to see how well you acquit yourself. Here’s the shovel. And if you fulfill the terms it is yours—with the house.”
He took the shovel which she handed him. He looked at her a moment, to give her time to retract. He got out his fountain pen again and started to rewrite his cheque.
“Seventeen thousand, did we say?” he inquired.
Mrs. Derwall chuckled on her soap box.
“I don’t take bribes, Mr. Murch. Why not make it fifteen? Cheques are cheaper than houses.”
He made it fifteen, and he presented it to Mrs. Derwall. Then he turned to the furnace. And he put in two shovels full of coal so quickly and so neatly that Mrs. Derwall saw her house slipping from under her feet. But before filling the shovel the third time Mr. Murch faced her.
“By the way,” he said. “Do you happen to know a Mrs. Hopp?”
Mrs. Derwall stiffened.
“Yes. She was here when you came.”
“Dear me! Why did you send her away? I really came out here, you know, to buy her house. I—I hear she wants to sell it. Would you advise me to look at it?”
Mrs. Derwall examined her cheque reflectively.
“Do you lecture as well as you shovel coal, Mr. Murch?”
“Goodness no!” he replied. “I worked my way around the world, once, as a stoker. But I make more money out of Browning. I fancy I make more than he did. Don’t you think, though, that I’d better take a look at your Mrs. Hopp? As you say, cheques are cheaper than houses.”
Mrs. Derwall re-examined her cheque.
“She isn’t there. You’re keeping her waiting in town while you snatch my house from over my head. She——”
A heavy tread sounded on the cellar stair. There descended into view a large and florid gentleman who gazed with some surprise, first at the well-dressed stranger who stood in front of his furnace, toying familiarly with his coal shovel, then at Mrs. Derwall, seated on her soap box as it were in her boudoir, conversing with the same.
Mrs. Derwall rose to the occasion.
“O Lou!” she cried. “Don’t you think a cheque in the hand is worth two in the f-ush? We start for Zanzibar Monday night. I’ve found you a buyer for the house. Mr. Murch, Mr. Derwall.”
And she handed Lou the cheque.