"Of course I am disappointed that Irene, with her face and style, has not done any better; but you cannot expect much after one passes twenty. Mr. Darcy has improved certainly, and Irene is not as exclusive as we older girls were. It is a great pity she did not go out to Gertrude."
For George Eastman, with a cat-like propensity, always came down on his feet. He was now at the flood-tide of prosperity—on other people's money. Mrs. Eastman was regal in velvets, sables, and diamonds, queening it at St. Petersburg. Some day there might be a crash again, but they would be well out of the way.
Miss Lawrence would have no diamonds, and no show; but she was dazzling in her radiant loveliness; and, if Jack was not handsome, his superb manliness redeemed him. Hope Mills took a holiday. All Yerbury went, it seemed; and those who could not get in remained outside for a glimpse.
Sylvie and Fred leaned over the registry in the vestry-room. In a bold hand the bridegroom had written, "John Beaumanoir Darcy."
"A compliment to Irene's pride," laughed Sylvie. "The most aristocratic name of them all!"
The old house was brightened up a bit before the young couple returned. Gentle Mrs. Darcy wondered how it would be between the old and the new love; but she remembered with charity, that she had taken the fresh young love of another Darcy, and was content with her day.
The young people brought a new atmosphere with them, but it did not clash with the old. Jane Morgan was planning a home for herself. One of the cut-up farms had been put together again; and she had taken a five-years' lease at a low rate, to try a prudent and sensible scheme of philanthropy. Maverick had been intensely puzzled by Jack's love-affair, and could not yet account for it satisfactorily, but watched them both with a kind of amused interest, and dreamed of the deft, dainty little fairy down at his aunt's.
I suppose I ought to say that Mrs. Jack Darcy vied with her husband in all good works,—in schools and clubs, and plans for everybody's improvement; but it was not her forte. He was too well satisfied with her love for him, her music, her enchanting ways, to wish her any different; and I think he would have been jealous, with that exclusive, tender, adoring jealousy, that cannot endure its choice treasures lavished upon others. She was kindly and generous in a stately, queenly fashion; but what between Jack, who was a more importunate lover than ever, and the baby born at Larch Avenue, she had her hands quite full.
The five years of mutual copartnership drew to a close. Their young engineer had not blown up the mills; Bob Winston did not go off at the last moment with the balance at the bank; Jack Darcy had not falsified accounts: but it came out just as everybody had predicted that it would! "If your men were honest and honorable, co-operation could not fail of success. It was the simplest of all schemes," said "The Evening Transcript."
The two offices were thrown into one by the sliding-doors, and the workmen and women assembled in their holiday gear. Jack Darcy was really struck with the change in their faces and the general demeanor. They had a brisk, cheery, self-reliant air: there was a certain neatness and respectability about which they used not to care in the old times. The boys of five years ago were grown men, and there wasn't a sturdier one among them than Barton Kane.