There were but a few hurried lines this time, and to the effect that his business troubles had been staved off for a period of three months, and that they could therefore return home without any one being the wiser, at present, of the horrible black cloud which hung over their heads.
“Three months’ respite, Queenie!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevalyn, clasping and unclasping her bracelets, laughing and crying in the same breath. “Heaven knows what may take place in that length of time; probably you will have made up with the rich Mr. Dinsmore, and—and be married to him; and then we will be saved. Even if you should fail with him,” she went on, plaintively, “there is the old Widower Brown——”
“Stop, mother!” cried Queenie Trevalyn, a shudder of horror passing over her slender frame. “I love wealth and position dearly, but I would rather die on the street from starvation than marry a man whom I detest as thoroughly as Hiram Brown, octogenarian, miser, hunchback, and pawnbroker.”
As she uttered the words there arose before her mental vision the image of the creature whom her words had described—a shriveled, toothless, horrible being in the shape of a man, who had actually had the audacity to apply to her father for an introduction to his beautiful daughter, “with a view to matrimony,” as his terse communication phrased his intentions.
Mr. Trevalyn had put him off with a plausible excuse for not granting his request at the time; but he dared not openly refuse to permit Hiram Brown the meeting with his daughter which he so ardently desired, some time in the future; for the old money-lender held many of his notes, and he told himself discretion in the matter was certainly diplomacy upon his part.
“Let the matter rest until Queenie and her mother return from their summer outing at Newport,” Mr. Trevalyn had said, “and then I shall be pleased to present you to my daughter, Mr. Brown.”
“What if the girl takes it into her head to fall in love with any of those young bloods there?” the miser had said, in his high-pitched, querulous tones.
“There is not the least fear of that, my dear Brown,” Mr. Trevalyn had declared. “Queenie is only twenty, you know; she won’t be thinking of love or lovers yet, I assure you. She simply accompanies her mother there, who goes for her health.”
But in his secret heart Mr. Trevalyn was only too anxious that his peerless young daughter should capture a wealthy young husband, and save the family from the ruin which he even then saw ahead of them; then he could laugh in old Brown’s face, and defy him to do his worst.
He had been rather sorry that he had confided old Brown’s ambitions to Queenie and her mother, for the latter ever afterward was wont to declare that Queenie could fall back upon the hunchback miser, rather than not marry at all, much to the girl’s disgust, and just anger.