“You happen to be talking about questions I have been greatly interested in. I have thought a good deal at times of the position of the holders of large estates they cannot afford to keep up. This special instance is a case in point.”
G. Selden felt himself in luck again. Reuben S., quite evidently, found his subject worthy of undivided attention. Selden had not heartily liked Lord Mount Dunstan, and lived in the atmosphere surrounding him, looking about him with sharp young New York eyes, without learning a good deal.
He had seen the practical hardship of the situation, and laid it bare.
“What Mr. Penzance says is that he's like the men that built things in the beginning—fought for them—fought Romans and Saxons and Normans—perhaps the whole lot at different times. I used to like to get Mr. Penzance to tell stories about the Mount Dunstans. They were splendid. It must be pretty fine to look back about a thousand years and know your folks have been something. All the same its pretty fierce to have to stand alone at the end of it, not able to help yourself, because some of your relations were crazy fools. I don't wonder he feels mad.”
“Does he?” Mr. Vanderpoel inquired.
“He's straight,” said G. Selden sympathetically. “He's all right. But only money can help him, and he's got none, so he has to stand and stare at things falling to pieces. And—well, I tell you, Mr. Vanderpoel, he LOVES that place—he's crazy about it. And he's proud—I don't mean he's got the swell-head, because he hasn't—but he's just proud. Now, for instance, he hasn't any use for men like himself that marry just for money. He's seen a lot of it, and it's made him sick. He's not that kind.”
He had been asked and had answered a good many questions before he went away, but each had dropped into the talk so incidentally that he had not recognised them as queries. He did not know that Lord Mount Dunstan stood out a clearly defined figure in Mr. Vanderpoel's mind, a figure to be reflected upon, and one not without its attraction.
“Miss Vanderpoel tells me,” Mr. Vanderpoel said, when the interview was drawing to a close, “that you are an agent for the Delkoff typewriter.”
G. Selden flushed slightly.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, “but I didn't——”