“But she isn’t a rich woman!” cried the poor matchmaker in almost a shriek of remorse. “I might have led you to your ruin. She has gone and given it all away!”
Hurstmanceaux turned quickly to him with animation.
“What do you say? Given what away? Her father’s fortune?”
“Read that,” said Gwyllian. “Oh, Lord, that fools should ever have money, and sensible folks be worn into their graves for want of it!”
What he gave Ronald to read was a column in a leading journal of Paris and New York; an article adorned by a woodcut which was labelled a portrait of Katherine Massarene, and resembled her as much as it did a Burmese idol or a face on a door-knocker. The article, which was long, abounded in large capital letters and startling italics. Its hyperbolic and hysterical language, being translated into the language of sober sense, stated that the daughter of the “bull-dozing boss,” so well known in the States as William Massarene, having inherited the whole of his vast wealth, had come over to America incognita, had spent some months in the study of life as seen in the city of Kerosene, and the adjacent townships and provinces, and having made herself intimately acquainted with the people and the institutions, had divided two-thirds of her inheritance between those who had shared in any way in the making of that wealth, or whose descendants were in want.
She had devoted another large portion of it to the creation of various asylums and institutions and provision for human and animal needs in both Great Britain and Ireland, whilst the valuable remainder had been divided amongst many poor families of County Down. The journal said, in conclusion, that she had purchased an annuity for her mother, which would give that lady double the annual income allotted to her under William Massarene’s will; and that for herself she had kept nothing, not a red cent. The editor added a personal note stating that Miss Massarene had certainly made no provision for her own maintenance, since she had forgotten to endow a lunatic asylum!
The column closed with the total in plain figures of the enormous property which had been thus broken up and distributed. Hurstmanceaux read it in silence from the first line to the last; then in silence returned it to Daddy Gwyllian.
“Isn’t it heaven’s mercy you didn’t marry her!” cried Daddy. “To be sure you would have prevented this. She must be stark staring mad, you know; the paper hints as much.”
“If she had consulted the Seven Sages and the Four Evangelists, she could not have been advised by them to act more wisely or more well,” replied Hurstmanceaux with emphasis. “Good-bye, Daddy. Leave off match-making, or you may burn your fingers at it.”
He went away without more comment, and Daddy stood staring after him with round, wide-open eyes. Was it possible that anybody lived who could consider such a course of action praiseworthy or sane?