The Earl’s face glistened. “He’s in the Standard Oil Company!” he whispered, impressively.
This fact created an atmosphere of dignified solemnity for itself. The two men looked at each other gravely for a while, saying nothing. Then the Earl, with a contemplative air, refilled his glass.
“She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he said, earnestly; “and I think she will marry me.”
“Physical beauty and Standard Oil do make an alluring combination,” remarked David philosophically; “but——”
“Oh, there are no ‘buts,’” Drum-pipes insisted. “She’s as fine in mind and temper as she is in body. I’m very particular about intellect, as you know, and I’ve studied her closely. She has a very sound brain, Davie—for a woman. But how on earth did you come to stumble upon them?”
Mosscrop did not explain. “The thing that impressed me about her, curiously enough,” he said, with tranquil discursiveness, “was her extremely democratic aversion to our ranks and hereditary titles. She and her father seem to be the most violent anti-aristocrats I ever knew.”
“Yes, that is a trifle awkward,” the Earl admitted. “I don’t think it’s more than skin-deep with the old man, but Adele—that’s her name, as beautiful as herself, isn’t it?—she’s tremendously in earnest about it. That has rather queered my pitch—I haven’t told them, you know, about the title and all that. They know me just as simple Mr. Linkhaw.”
“‘Simple’ is so precisely the word,” commented Mosscrop.
“Well, what was I to do?” the other protested in self-defence. “I was travelling under that name in Kentucky—went there to look at a big sale of thoroughbreds, you know—and met the father, and then I met the girl, and they had me to their house in the country—a magnificent place, by George—and she had so much to say against the classes here, and took such a strong position against titles and all that—why, I would have been a juggins to tell her at the start; and after, it gradually occurred to me that I wouldn’t say anything at all, but just go on and win her as plain Mr. Linkhaw. Then I could be sure I was being loved for myself alone, couldn’t I?”
“Your sentimentality is most touching,” said David; “but I fear it will cost you heavily.”