A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

Mary hastened to congratulate him. "My dear Julius, what delightful news! I am so pleased! What is it you want to ask me? Do you want to marry her from here, perhaps? You know I'll be only too glad to do anything I can!" It would not matter a bit now the girls were both married, and James had decided long ago that any marriage would be better for Julius than this trailing about. They both believed that responsibility sobers a man.

He shook his head. "Thanks, old girl!" he said. "It isn't that. It's rather difficult to explain. You see—well—now she's going to get married Milly wants to make a break with it all. She doesn't want everyone to know that she's been on the stage and we've been engaged all these years. She says it makes it look as if we weren't getting on, and it makes her feel old, do you see? So the idea is that we've only been engaged since the spring, and her name isn't Milly, it's Esther. She's dropping her old name; you see, it was sort of half a stage name. Well, what I wanted to know was, could you play up to that? You can't think how it would please her! She's rather a sensitive little woman you see, and she can't bear being crossed. Just to call her Esther and to talk as if we'd only met this spring—she'll tell you all about her father and all that— Of course I know it sounds ridiculous, but actresses you know, well they have their whims and there you are!" His anxiety, by this time, was unconcealed.

Mary laughed. "Why shouldn't I if it will make her happy? Of course I will!" She felt herself very tolerant, very sympathetic towards people who were hoping to be happy. Poor old Julius! If after all these years he still wanted his Milly why shouldn't she help to make things easy for him?

Julius breathed deeply, leaned back, and crossed his legs. "You always were a bit of a brick, Mary!" he told her. "You can't think what a load that's taken off my mind! Not that you're likely to meet Esther for a bit; we're going to be married in Liverpool, and then we're off south for the honeymoon. But I just thought I'd put it to you at once!" His look was now as cheerful as his smile. It had been as a matter of fact an awkward moment. Since he had first told his sister of his romantic engagement to Milly Milns that lady's name had come in useful for several young women who had replaced her in his affections although he had never been engaged to them. Running up north or down west to see Milly had been a delightful reason for not being always where one was expected to be. Now that he was engaged again, this time in a business-like fashion, to Miss Esther Moss, he would have dropped the legend of Milly, if he had not, only six weeks before when there had seemed no chance of the excellent Esther's yielding to him, accepted a cheque from Mary to give poor little Milly a rest by the sea after a serious illness. It was only fair to Mary, he thought, that she should believe she was getting something for her money. Otherwise she might feel that the rest by the sea had been wasted. That would be a pity, for though Esther besides her charms had a satisfying income he had found her, so far, the sort of woman who manages her own affairs. For that matter he wasn't a man who would care to depend altogether on his wife.

"How is James getting on with the reconstruction of the business?" he asked now. "He seems pretty cheery about it. I offered him my help—for nothing, too—but he said he had got it all practically arranged!"

"The reconstruction?" Mary asked, puzzled by his change of subject. Julius stared at her. "The reconstruction of the business—turning it into a public company. You can't mean to say that he hasn't told you yet."

Mary interrupted him. She didn't want Julius to think that James kept her in the dark. "Oh, yes, of course he told me—I'm rather stupid about these things—what does a reconstruction of that sort exactly mean, Julius? What is it? What effect does it have?"

Julius grinned. "Well, it's a way of making money, that's what it is. Suppose I have a business that's making twenty thousand a year and is worth £250,000 and I want to make a little money out of it! Well, I have articles written about it to say how good it is and puff it up a bit, and I explain that if only I had £100,000 or so to extend it a little it would soon be making forty thousand a year and it would be worth £500,000. And with luck I get a lot of people to buy it from me at that valuation, and give me a salary as well as managing director and off I go and put the money into gilt-edged securities. And there I am you see, very comfortable, nothing to do but keep the shareholders quiet for a year or two until something turns up trumps. Not that James is the sort of man to take them in," he added, determined to do the handsome thing even though James had refused to make him a director of the new company.

Mary thought this over for a moment. "You sell it for more than it's worth," she said.

Her brother demurred. "For what I can get—perfectly square and above-board—legitimate business. Of course it depends a lot on how the shares are placed on the market. That's what I said to James when I saw him the other day—" His face clouded a little at the memory of his interview with James.