The Garden of Memories

by Henry St. John Cooper

Never in the whole course of his experience, and it had been large, had his lordship had such a request granted with such alacrity and willingness.

"My dear Allan, 'pon my soul now, 'pon my soul, it is very good of you—I take a pleasure, sir, a pleasure in being under an obligation to you, even though it is only a temporary one. You're a good fellow, Allan, a deuced generous, open-handed good fellow and—and I honour you, sir, and your father too, and it's a pleasure and a relief to me, be Gad, to think that my girl has entered your family—a family of—of gentlemen, be gad!"

"Poor old chap!" Allan thought. "It must be hard for a man in his position and of his rank to have to lower himself and demean himself to borrow money—" He sighed, and then smiled in wonder at himself that he should feel so kindly towards Lord Gowerhurst, for whom he had previously felt nothing but aversion and contempt.

But then Lord Gowerhurst was Kathleen's father and for some reason to-day that made just all the difference in the world to Allan. So, having lent Lord Gowerhurst two hundred pounds, Allan resolved that he would say nothing to his own father about it.

Custance claimed Allan that afternoon and when Custance had done with him there was barely time to reach home and dress for dinner, so he did not see Kathleen till they met at the dinner table. And to-night she was looking her loveliest and her best. Even Coombe remarked her heightened colour and tried to pay her a clumsy compliment on her looks and meeting Lord Gowerhurst's cold stare when half way through his speech, faltered and broke down and burst into profuse perspiration.

But Kathleen smiled on him and thanked him and told him in a little confidential whisper, that highly pleased Coombe, that she was getting to be an old, old woman. In less than eighteen months she would be thirty years of age, and though she had not found a grey hair as yet, no doubt she soon would.

"Old, my dear—" said Mr. Coombe, and then blushed crimson, "I beg your pardon——"

"You have nothing to beg my pardon for—Sir Josiah's friends are mine—and if one of them is kind enough to call me my dear, it only proves that he likes me and I like to be liked, Mr. Coombe, by my friends!"

"And so you are, so you are, and as for getting old, never, you'll never be old, you'll be young to the last day of your life, if you live to be eighty, and please God you will!" And Mr. Coombe turned deliberately and stared Lord Gowerhurst full in the face with an expression that said as plain as words—"If you don't like the way I am behaving and if you don't like my paying compliments to your daughter—then you can go to the deuce and go as soon as you like, my Lord, and be hanged to you!"

Among that company of gentlemen Harold Scarsdale was inconspicuous. That he was better bred than Mr. Coombe and Mr. Jobson was obvious, that he could talk a good deal better than any of them Allan at least knew, but it pleased Scarsdale to hold his tongue and keep himself much in the background. From that background he watched Kathleen and the more he watched the less did he seem to understand her.