“Come into my room, then. Obliged to obey the female tyranny of my household, Mr Glyddyr. I’m supposed to be master, but woman rules, sir, woman rules. My daughter does what she pleases with me.”
“Happy man!”
“Eh?”
“I say happy man, sir, to be ruled by such a queen.”
Norman Gartram gave him a keen look.
“Don’t pay compliments, sir—society compliments. We are out of all society. I’ve kept my daughter out of it. Only a tradesman.”
“Lord Gartram’s brother a tradesman, sir?”
“Yes; why not? Why shouldn’t he be? My father left my brother and me with a few hundred pounds a-piece, and the prestige of being nobleman’s sons, sir. I had to consider what I should do—loaf about through drawing-rooms as a beggarly aristocrat, always in debt till I could cajole a rich girl into making me her poodle; or take off my coat and go to work like a man. Be a contemptible hanger-on, too poor to dress well, or a sturdy, hardworking human being.”
“And your choice, sir?” said the visitor, inquiring for what he knew by heart.
“The latter, sir. I bit my nails down to the quick till I had an idea—sitting out on this very coast. I was yonder smoking a bad cigar which my brother had given me. I couldn’t afford to buy cigars, neither could he, but he bought them all the same. I sat smoking that cigar and thought out what I was sitting upon—granite—and went back to the hotel where we were staying, and told my brother what I had thought out. He called me a fool, and went his way. I, being a fool, went mine.”