"What have we done for Jane Blythe? How can you ask such a question! The girl was left on our hands with scarcely a penny to her name when she was a mere infant. We have done everything—everything, and this is the way she rewards our kindness—our Christian charity! I trust I may never see the ungrateful creature again."
"If there is anything," said the Hon. Wipplinger Towle, with exceeding deliberation, "which I despise on earth, it is the—er—damnable sentiment miscalled Christian charity. It has ruined more persons than gin, in my humble opinion."
After which he took his leave with scant ceremony, Lady Agatha remaining stock still in her chair in a state of semipetrifaction.
An hour later, having recovered the power of speech, she requested her husband to formally forbid Mr. Towle the house; which Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe, on his part, flatly refused to do. Whereupon ensued one of an inconsiderable number of battles between the pair, during the course of which Lady Agatha, having taunted her husband with his inferior lineage, was reduced to tears by being reminded of her own dowerless condition when she condescended from her high estate to wed the rich commoner.
Perceiving his decisive victory, Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe waxed magnanimous to the point of begging the lady's pardon. "It's deucedly bad form to quarrel, Agatha; and what's more it's ruinous to the nerves and digestion," he had concluded sagely. "You've gone off ten years at least in your looks, my dear, from falling into such a rage over nothing at all."
"Nothing at all!" echoed Lady Agatha. "Why, Robert, the man used the most frightful language in my presence. Fancy being told that Christian charity has ruined more persons than gin! And as for the profane adjective he used in connection with that speech, I refuse to soil my tongue with it!"
Mr. Aubrey-Blythe cleared his throat with some violence. "Oh—er—as to that, I've always said that Towle was a clever fellow—a deucedly clever fellow," he observed meditatively. "He's nobody's fool, is Towle; and mind you forget all about this the next time I ask him to dine; for ask him I shall, Lady Agatha, whenever I please; and you'll be careful to be civil to him, madam."
But the Hon. Wipplinger Towle was not available as a dinner guest for several weeks thereafter; the fact being that having duly reflected upon the information conveyed to him by the grateful Susan, he had found that the shoe fitted, had instantly put it on, and had started for America on the trail of Jane.
Fate, as is her occasional custom, was scornfully kind to this elderly Sir Galahad, and he struck a warm scent before ever he had landed from the steamer in the shape of a romantic newspaper story in which figured an elderly French female smuggler, said to be an old hand at the game, and a beautiful and innocent young English girl (name not given). Scornful Fate glued the Honorable Wipplinger's eyes to this spirited account penned by an enthusiastic young reporter, who chanced to be nosing about the customhouse after material, and Mr. Towle, although as devoid of imagination as the average male Briton usually is, nevertheless pictured Jane as the unlucky heroine of the moving tale.
The reporter's richly adjectived phrase—"The slender little maiden, with her true English complexion of cream and roses, lit up by sparkling hazel eyes"—appeared to fit Jane with disconcerting completeness.