A Fool and His Money

by George Barr McCutcheon

He still smiled. "A little remote from Britton, isn't she?"

I think I glared. What right had he to meddle in Britton's affairs?

"I am afraid your fancy draws a rather long bow, Mr. Pless," said I, coldly.

He was at once apologetic. "If I offend, Mr. Smart, pray forgive me. You are quite justified in rebuking me. Shall we return to our own ladies?"

Nothing could have been more adroit than the way he accused me in that concluding sentence. It was the quintessence of irony.

"I'd like to have your opinion as to the best way of restoring or repairing those mural paintings in the dome of the east hall," I said, detaining him. It was necessary for me to have a good excuse for rummaging about in the unused part of the castle. "It seems too bad to let those wonderful paintings go to ruin. They are hanging down in some places, and are badly cracked in others. I've been worrying about them ever since I came into possession. For instance, that Murillo in the centre. It must be preserved."

He gave me another queer look, and I congratulated myself on the success of my strategy.

He took it all in. The mocking light died out in his eyes, and he at once became intensely interested in my heaven-sent project. For fifteen or twenty minutes we discussed the dilapidated frescoes and he gave me the soundest sort of advice, based on a knowledge and experience that surprised me more than a little. He was thoroughly up in matters of art. His own chateau near Buda Pesth, he informed me, had only recently undergone complete restoration in every particular. A great deal of money had been required, but the expenditures had been justified by the results.

Paintings like these had been restored to their original glory, and so on and so forth. He offered to give me the address of the men in Munich who had performed such wonders for him, and suggested rather timidly that he might be of considerable assistance to me in outlining a system of improvements. I could not help being impressed. His manner was most agreeable. When he smiled without malice, his dark eyes were very boyish. One could then forget the hard lines of dissipation in his face, and the domineering, discontented expression which gave to him the aspect of a far greater age than he had yet attained. A note of eager enthusiasm in his voice proved beyond cavil that if this sprig of nobility had had half a chance in the beginning he might have been nobler than he was to-day. But underneath the fascinating charm of manner, back of the old world courtliness, there lurked the ever dominant signs of intolerance, selfishness and—even cruelty. He was mean to the core. He had never heard of the milk of human kindness, much less tasted of it.

There was no getting away from the fact that he despised me for no other reason than that I was an American. I could not help feeling the derision in which he held not only me but the Hazzards and the Smiths as well. He looked upon all of us as coming from an inferior race, to be tolerated only as passers-by and by no means worthy of his august consideration. We were not of his world and never could be.