He gave a short laugh and then returned to his list.
She leaned back in her luxurious chair and dreamed. They really had something wherewith to purchase the title.
CHAPTER XVIII
TO SEE YOU ONCE AGAIN
Mr. and Mrs. Westbury had gone to Wrexford Grange. Laverne was glad to have a few days to herself. At first she wrote a long homesick letter to Miss Holmes. Already she was tired of her new life. Yet more than a year had passed—three years more and she would be free. But how long it looked!
After Uncle Jason's tender love she was cruelly hurt by her father's indifference. He was deeply immersed in business and proud of his successes. Indeed, why should he not be? He was shrewd enough to take no honor in coming up from the ranks. He preferred to have his patrons think he had always been quite high on the ladder of fortune. Making money was now his chief enjoyment, his one ambition. Laverne was a pretty enough girl, but not the sort that drew men irresistibly to her side. His wife was much more attractive. And then Laverne brought some remembrances that he wished strenuously to forget, that he had once dismissed from his mind. He had made a little romance of it for his wife's ears, and he had a vague fear that Laverne might recall some disagreeable fact that it would not be so easy to disavow. She never had, but he was not sure how much might linger in her memory.
There was always a gulf between the father and the child. He had demanded her mostly to please his wife, the rest to satisfy a little grudge against Jason Chadsey that he had happened to possess himself of the episode not at all to his, Westbury's, credit. From the bottom of his heart he wished Chadsey had come back in time to marry Laverne. It had been a most unfortunate step for him, he reasoned.
Laverne had been in a way fascinated by Mrs. Westbury's protestations of affection. She had appealed to all that was sweetest and finest in the girl's nature, all these years she had been studying men and women on the emotional side, she was not capable of any intellectual analysis. And though she could assume so much, at heart she had very little faith in her fellow beings, as she measured them mostly by herself. An attractive young girl would draw young people, and she sunned herself in the enthusiasms of youth, they were a tonic to her. She did not mean to grow old, but she had a quality rare in the people who cling to youth, she made no silly assumption further than to use all the arts and aids that she persuaded herself were quite as necessary as a good diet to conserve health. She enjoyed her world, her wealth, her little elusive pretexts and inventions, and was amused to see how easily people who pretended to discrimination were ensnared.
At first Laverne had been a new toy, a plaything, a puppet that she could draw in any fashion that she thought best. But presently she was amazed at the child's utter honesty, her shrinking from dissimulation, the surprise at some things she read in the clear eyes. It had been pleasant, but now she was tiring of her toy. Would she be the sort of girl who would draw lovers to her feet and dismiss them with a wave of her fan?
There was marriage, of course. This was really her first season. The daughter of a rich man would not lack offers. She wished she was a little less cold, self-contained, indifferent.
And now a new scheme had presented itself. Why should not Laverne be Lady Wrexford? If her father became the virtual owner of Wrexford Grange, why would it not be a fine dowry? And they could manage that Lord Wrexford should be judicious in expenditures. It might be best that the entail should not be meddled with.