Lucian the dreamer

by J. S. Fletcher

‘What an awkward predicament!’ said Lucian, searching every pocket. ‘I don’t know what to do—I haven’t a penny.’

‘Well, you must walk back to Mr. Watson’s and get some money there,’ said Sprats. ‘You will be back in ten minutes.’

‘What! borrow money from a man to whom I have just given it?’ he cried. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that!’

Sprats uttered an impatient exclamation.

‘Well, do something!’ she said. ‘We can’t sit here all night.’

Lucian summoned the proprietor and explained the predicament. The situation ended in a procession of two hansom cabs, in one of which rode Sprats and Lucian, in the other the Swiss waiter, who enjoyed a long drive westward and finally returned to the heights of Islington with the amount of the bill and a substantial gratuity in his pocket. As Sprats pointed out with force and unction, Lucian’s foolish pride in not returning to the Watsons and borrowing half a sovereign had increased the cost of their supper fourfold. But Lucian only laughed, and Sprats knew that the shillings thrown away were to him as things of no importance.

CHAPTER XV

There had been a moment in Sprats’s life when she had faced things—it was when she heard that Lucian and Haidee had made a runaway marriage. This escapade had been effected very suddenly; no one had known that these two young people were contemplating so remarkable a step. It was supposed that Miss Brinklow was fully alive to the blessings and advantages attendant upon a marriage with Mr. Eustace Darlington, who, as head of a private banking firm which carried out financial operations of vast magnitude, was a prize of much consequence in the matrimonial market: no one ever imagined that she would throw away such a chance for mere sentiment. But Haidee, shallow as she was, had a certain vein of romance in her composition; and when Lucian, in all the first flush of manhood and the joyous confidence of youth, burst upon her, she fell in love with him in a fashion calculated to last for at least a fortnight. He, too, fell madly in love with the girl’s physical charms: as to her mental qualities, he never gave them a thought. She was Aphrodite, warm, rosy-tinted, and enticing; he neither ate, slept, nor drank until she was in his arms. He was a masterful lover; his passion swept Haidee out of herself, and before either knew what was really happening, they were married. They lived on each other’s hearts for at least a week, but their appetites were normal again within the month, and there being no lack of money and each having a keen perception of the joie de vivre, they settled down very comfortably.

Sprats had never heard of Haidee from the time of the latter’s visit to Simonstower until she received the news of her marriage to Lucian. The tidings came to her with a curious heaviness. She had never disguised from herself the fact that she herself loved Lucian: now that she knew he was married to another woman she set herself the task of distinguishing between the love that she might have given him and the love which she could give him. Upon one thing she decided at once: since Lucian had elected Haidee as his life’s partner, Haidee must be Sprats’s friend too, even if the friendship were all on one side. She would love Haidee—for Lucian’s sake, primarily: for her own if possible. But when events brought the three together in London, Sprats was somewhat puzzled. Lucian as a husband was the must curious and whimsical of men. He appeared to be absolutely incapable of jealousy, and would watch his wife flirting under his eyes with appreciative amusement. He himself made love to every girl who aroused any interest or curiosity in him—to women who bored him he was cold as ice, and indifferent to the verge of rudeness. He let Haidee do exactly as she pleased; with his own liberty in anything, and under any circumstances, he never permitted interference. Sprats was never able to decide upon his precise feelings for his wife or his attitude towards her—they got on very smoothly, but each went his or her own way. And after a time Haidee’s way appeared to run in parallel lines with the way of her jilted lover, Eustace Darlington.

Mr. Darlington had taken his pill with equanimity, and had not even made a wry face over it. He had gone so far as to send the bride a wedding present, and had let people see that he was kindly disposed to her. When the runaways came back to town and Lucian began the meteor-like career which brought his name so prominently before the world, Darlington saw no reason why he should keep aloof. He soon made Lucian’s acquaintance, became his friend, and visited the house at regular intervals. Some people, who knew the financier rather well, marvelled at the kindness which he showed to these young people—he entertained them on his yacht and at his place in Scotland, and Mrs. Damerel was seen constantly, sometimes attended by Lucian and sometimes not, in his box at the opera. At the end of two years Darlington was regarded as Haidee’s particular cavalier, and one half their world said unkind things which, naturally, never reached Lucian’s ears. He was too fond of smoothness in life to say No to anything, and so long as he himself could tread the primrose path unchecked and untroubled, he did not care to interfere in anybody’s arrangements—not even in Haidee’s. It seemed to him quite an ordinary thing, an everyday occurrence, that he and she and Darlington should be close friends, and he went in and out of Darlington’s house just as Darlington went in and out of his.