Letty was not deficient in shrewdness, and she knew by that time that the standard of values in Virginia and at Newport varied. So she looked at him very hard, and said, sternly:
“I hope you are not telling me a story.”
“Of course not. But really,” here Farebrother became quite serious, “it depends a good deal on how it comes. Last year, for example, I only made three thousand dollars. You see I’ve got enough to live upon without work, and that’s a fearful drawback to people giving me work. I’m an architect, and I love my trade. But I can’t convince people that I’m not a dilettante. I am ashamed to eat the bread of idleness, and yet—here’s a question that comes up. Has any man a right, who does not need to work, to enter into close competition with those who do need it?”
Farebrother was very much in earnest by that time. He saw that these nineteenth-century problems had never presented themselves to Letty’s simple experience. But they were of vast moment to him. Letty fixed her large, clear gaze upon him very much as if he were a new sort of animal she was studying.
“I thought here, where you are all so rich, you cared for nothing except how to enjoy yourselves.”
“Did you? Then you made a huge mistake. Why, I know of men literally wallowing in money who work for the pure love of work. I could work for love of work, too, but I tell you, when I see a poor fellow, with a wife and family to support, slaving over plans and specifications, and then I feel that my competition is making that man’s chances considerably less, it takes the heart out of my work. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll say that I could make three thousand dollars several times over if I went at it for a living—because like all men who work from love, not from necessity, I am inclined to believe in my own capacity and to have a friendly opinion of my own performances. You may disparage everything about me, and although it may lacerate my feelings, I will forgive you. But just say one word against me as an architect, and everything is over between us.”
“I sha’n’t say anything against you or your architecture either,” replied Letty, bringing the battery of her eyes and smile to bear on him with shameless cajolery.
But just then their attention was attracted by a group approaching them over the velvet turf. Sir Archibald Corbin was in the lead, escorting two tall, handsome, blonde young women. They were evidently sisters and evidently English. They had smooth, abundant light hair, knotted low under their turban hats, and their complexions were deliciously fresh. Although the day was warm, and Letty found her sheer white frock none too cool, and every other woman in sight had on a thin light gown, these two handsome English women wore dark, tight-fitting tweed frocks, and spotless linen collars. Behind them walked two men, one a thoroughly English-looking young fellow, while the last of the party so completely fixed Letty’s attention as soon as she put her eyes on him, that she quite forgot everybody else.
He was an old man, small, slight, and scrupulously well dressed. His hair was perfectly white, and his face was bloodless. His clothes were a pale gray, his hat was a paler gray, and he was in effect a symphony in gray. Even the rose at his buttonhole was white. But from his pallid face gleamed a pair of the blackest and most fascinating eyes Letty had ever beheld. It was as if they had gained in fire and intensity as his blood and his life grew more sluggish. And however frail he might look, his eyes were full of vitality. He walked along, leaning upon the arm of the young man and speaking but little. The party stopped a little way off to watch a game of tennis, while Sir Archy made straight for Letty.
“May I introduce my friends to you?” he asked, in a low voice. “Mrs. Chessingham, and her sister, Miss Maywood, Chessingham and Mr. Romaine. Chess is one of the best and cleverest fellows going, and of good family, although he is a medical man, and he is traveling with Mr. Romaine—a rich old hypochondriac, I imagine.”