CHAPTER XVI
Jardine, after one moment of stultified amaze, felt as if the floor were sinking beneath his feet. In the sudden revulsion of his rage his head whirled, and he saw the room and the people go round and round in concentric circles. But for the chair he grasped he might have fallen. He was grateful that the interest produced by the announcement so superseded the surprise which his demonstration had occasioned that for a time he escaped notice, and was afforded an interval for the recovery of his composure.
"I am well acquainted in Glaston," one of the coterie observed. "I have never had the pleasure of meeting you there, Mr. Dalton, but I have often heard of you from my relatives, the Rickson family. Happy to make your acquaintance," and he offered his hand.
Some further informal introductions and atoning hand-shaking ensued with the discovery of mutual friends, all a trifle conscious and awkward, however, and there was a very general feeling of relief when Mrs. Laniston, perceiving the "lapse into barbarism," as she called it, at an end, broke into vivacious comments with her tactful perception of the least nettling phase of the disclosure.
"How perfectly delightful—such a romantic incident—an unexpected legacy—a windfall. But—since from the nature of the case it must be to a degree public—may I ask were not you two strangers when you met to-day in the stage?"
Mr. Dalton, in younger and slimmer years might have been an acceptable "ladies' man." He beamed with most responsive urbanity upon Mrs. Laniston, and was quite willing to permit a little harmless gossip to annul the impression of the violent methods by which the announcement had been elicited.
"I had not the most remote idea that he was the legatee. I had been looking for him—advertising in fact in every medium that I thought might meet his eye for the last four months. I heard by an accident that he was in Colbury as the manager of a little street fair."
There was a distinct sensation among the heavy-weights, financial and social, upon this mention. A sort of dismayed surprise usurped the genial satisfaction in more than one face in the coterie. Mr. Dalton seemed rather to rejoice in the effect he produced, to shatter thus their well-bred nerves. He looked around the circle, expansively smiling, before he went on: "When the train came in this morning I found that the Fair had collapsed, closed, and departed. Not disposed to a wild-goose chase I sent telegrams in every direction which I thought he might take. I concluded to await results, and preferred a sojourn at the Springs to the little town."
"The subtleties of the professional legal mind are past fathoming, I know," said Mrs. Laniston. "But I cannot understand by what keen insight, by what unclassified faculty of discrimination you could say to yourself as you toiled up the mountain beside an absolute stranger 'This is the legatee I am hunting for.' Why, among your fellow-travellers, did you select this Mr. Lloyd, instead of Mr. Jardine or my son Francis Laniston?"
Mr. Dalton twinkled appreciatively as he listened to this. "I have a mind to appropriate those compliments, madam—you have doubtless heard that the profession is not overscrupulous in taking advantage of a concession. But the fact is that the young gentleman's extraordinary personal appearance first gave me a clue to his identity. His mother took a fifteen thousand dollar prize in an international beauty show."