"Give her my love," said Ben, "and tell her most certainly to do it. And tell her to come and see me when the funeral's over."
XXXVI
"May I come in?" asked the bronzed, soldierly-looking man, as he opened the door of Ben's room, having brought his handsome face and easy charm to break down, with their usual success, Jan's opposition.
"My dear Cecil!" Ben exclaimed, rushing into her brother's arms, "what brings you here? I thought you were in Paris."
"So we were," he said, "but I had to leave in self-defence. Yvonne was ruining me. We were to have stayed there a month, but I should never have got away at all if I hadn't put out all my strength and insisted on coming now.
"The clothes that child buys!" he continued. "We're heading straight for Queer Street. I see that you solve domestic problems; well, if anyone ever asks you for advice as to marrying a foreigner, tell them not to. The answer is in the negative. Foreigners are all right in their place, but don't marry them."
"Poor Cecil!" said Ben.
"No, it isn't as bad as that," he said. "Yvonne and I get on very well. But she's a foreigner, and once a foreigner, always a foreigner. They never get to understand. I can't make her realize that I'm not rich. She thinks that all Englishmen must be rich. She has plenty of relations in the French Army—naturally—and they are poor enough, but an English officer must necessarily be wealthy. Nothing that I can say or do has any effect. I show her my accounts; but I might just as well be exhibiting a bridge score. She has no idea of money or figures whatever. And if by any chance a glimmering that I may be telling the truth enters her brain, she says 'Ah, but your father is rich. Some day he will die—he is an old man—and then you will be rich too.' They're so practical, the French. They go straight for what they want, and what she wants is her father-in-law's death. But, as a matter of fact, as I have told her, judging by the governor's general appearance to-day, he is far less likely to peg out than I am. He's as skittish as a two-year-old on stepmother's money; and he and Yvonne are as thick as thieves. They're at some function or other together to-day—Ranelagh, I believe. Thank God you can't buy clothes at Ranelagh!"