How kind they had all seemed! Wallace Armstrong was gentleness itself, and there was in his manner towards her a blending of protecting care with playful admiration peculiarly flattering to a girl in her early teens. Her father, too, was unusually indulgent; and, when he got into the fiacre at Wallace's invitation, and drove back with them to the High Town and the Rue Planché, it was quite a triumphal journey, and the arrival at number seven created considerable sensation. Even Bénoîte was almost civil. Decidedly, she told herself, Monsieur le Capitaine had got hold of a rich and foolish young man, to whom gold was as dross—a riche Anglais eccentrique, who might very possibly be coaxed into paying the arrears of monsieur's rent. So that Bénoîte, like every one else, saw everything couleur de rose that evening. And when Laline at last went to bed, after a dinner—a real substantial dinner, with good red wine—her first dinner at a restaurant—and in her new hat, too, with her father and his friend—she laid her head upon her pillow, convinced of her mistake in supposing that Wallace Armstrong was a Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a morose and evil-minded Templar, when in reality he was a Prince Charming!
And, while Laline slept peacefully above, dreaming of triumphal drives, of marvellous new hats, and unlimited bonbons and toys for her friends the children, Mr. Wallace Armstrong and her father, in the shabby smoke-laden salon below, concocted between them the following letter for the delectation of Mr. Alexander Wallace in London,—
"My Dear Uncle Alec,—I can't tell you how grateful I felt at receiving your letter and enclosure. Things were at a pretty bad pass for me and my poor Laline when your unexpected help arrived. I say unexpected, because I know quite well I didn't deserve it; but you have given me another chance, and I mean to profit by it. Unfortunately, I fear that it will be quite a fortnight before my wife is fit to travel. You see, owing to my ill-luck, she has had a rough time of it lately, and she is young—very little more than a child, in fact—and un-used to privations. Happily the doctor, whom I at once fetched in on receiving your kindly help, declares her constitution to be so good that with rest and nourishing food she will be herself again in a very short time. But he strongly recommends me to defer our journey for a fortnight or ten days, at the least. My wife's maiden name was Laline Garth; her mother was a country rector's daughter, and she has been most carefully trained in all womanly virtues, besides being an excellent little cook and housekeeper. She is wonderfully pretty, although very thin, poor child! She is not yet eighteen, and knows next to nothing of the world. In short, she is much, very much too good for me! I am not sending you the receipts you ask for, as at every moment I find some new thing we are in need of. Poor Laline and I haven't even decent clothing yet. You may well say that under the circumstances it was madness to marry. I admit that perhaps it was; but such madness might well be inspired by such a girl as Laline. However, you must see her yourself and judge whether I have over-praised her, and whether among my many faults there may not be counted unto me the saving virtue of knowing and loving a good women when I see one.
"Always your affectionate nephew,
"Wallace Armstrong."
"The difficulty now is," observed Wallace, as he fastened the letter and addressed the envelope, after studying the contents with his mentor and friend, "to coach Miss Laline up in her part of the business. She seems somehow or other to possess a good deal of the awkward George Washington faculty. It will be a delicate matter to make her understand that you were an estimable clergyman, and that you are slumbering peaceful within the tomb."
"The best plan," advised the Captain, thoughtfully sipping at his cognac, "is to warn her that your uncle disapproves of all men connected with the turf, and to beg her to think of me as dead. Of course it is not a particularly pleasant experience for an affectionate father——"
"You are going to be paid for it!" Wallace interrupted, with his usual brutal directness. "It is not as though you were being asked to do anything for nothing!"
"And, by-the-bye, the sum was never fixed," said Garth, resting his elbows on the table and scanning his prospective son-in-law sharply. "I must have all that clearly settled before I make that call with you on the Consul to-morrow morning."
And here a difference of opinion was made manifest which seemed to threaten a serious breach between the worthy pair. Wallace Armstrong was inclined to dismiss his future father-in-law's pretensions with the offer of a pound a week for life, or so long as he should retain his uncle's favour. But Laline's father had prepared a fixed scale of charges, from which nothing would induce him to depart. He was making a great sacrifice, he declared; he was relinquishing the love, companionship, and services of his only living relative, the pride of his heart, the legacy of his lost wife, and, out of sheer kindness and compassion for an old friend in difficulties, he was giving her in marriage to a man who he greatly feared would never make her truly happy.
"And if you should grow tired of her or become unkind to her, where would the poor child fly but to me, her old father, whom she has been forced to consider dead, but who, in his old age, must at least be sufficiently well off to provide her with a home when all else fails her!"
Tears stood in Captain Garth's eyes at his own eloquence, to which the younger man listened quite unmoved.