Every one has read the story of that marriage; goodness knows, the papers made the most of it, as is their custom. Young Ed., who knew much more of the world than did his father, expected stern opposition, and, knowing the unlimited power unlimited wealth gave to the old man, he did not risk an interview with his parent, but eloped with the girl. The first inkling old man Druce had of the affair was from a vivid sensational account of the runaway in an evening paper. He was pictured in the paper as an implacable father who was at that moment searching for the elopers with a shot gun. Old Druce had been too often the central figure of a journalistic sensation to mind what the sheet said. He promptly telegraphed all over the country, and, getting into communication with his son, asked him (electrically) as a favour to bring his young wife home, and not make a fool of himself. So the errant pair, much relieved, came back to New York.
Old Druce was a taciturn man, even with his only son. He wondered at first that the boy should have so misjudged him as to suppose he would raise objections, no matter whom the lad wished to marry. He was bewildered rather than enlightened when Ed. told him he feared opposition because the girl was poor. What difference on earth did that make? Had he not money enough for all of them? If not, was there any trouble in adding to their store? Were there not railroads to be wrecked; stockholders to be fleeced; Wall Street lambs to be shorn? Surely a man married to please himself and not to make money. Ed. assured the old man that cases had been known where a suspicion of mercenary motives had hovered round a matrimonial alliance, but Druce expressed the utmost contempt for such a state of things.
At first Ella had been rather afraid of her silent father-in-law, whose very name made hundreds tremble and thousands curse, but she soon discovered that the old man actually stood in awe of her, and that his apparent brusqueness was the mere awkwardness he felt when in her presence. He was anxious to please her, and worried himself wondering whether there was anything she wanted.
One day he fumblingly dropped a cheque for a million dollars in her lap, and, with some nervous confusion, asked her to run out, like a good girl, and buy herself something; if that wasn't enough, she was to call on him for more. The girl sprang from her chair and threw her arms around his neck, much to the old man's embarrassment, who was not accustomed to such a situation. She kissed him in spite of himself, allowing the cheque to flutter to the floor, the most valuable bit of paper floating around loose in America that day.
When he reached his office he surprised his son. He shook his fist in the young fellow's face, and said sternly—
"If you ever say a cross word to that little girl, I'll do what I've never done yet—I'll thrash you!"
The young man laughed.
"All right, father. I'll deserve a thrashing in that case."
The old man became almost genial whenever he thought of his pretty daughter-in-law. "My little girl," he always called her. At first, Wall Street men said old Druce was getting into his dotage, but when a nip came in the market and they found that, as usual, the old man was on the right side of the fence, they were compelled reluctantly to admit, with emptier pockets, that the dotage had not yet interfered with the financial corner of old Druce's mind.
As young Mrs. Druce sat disconsolately in her drawing-room, the curtains parted gently, and her father-in-law entered stealthily, as if he were a thief, which indeed he was, and the very greatest of them. Druce had small, shifty piercing eyes that peered out from under his grey bushy eyebrows like two steel sparks. He never seemed to be looking directly at any one, and his eyes somehow gave you the idea that they were trying to glance back over his shoulder, as if he feared pursuit. Some said that old Druce was in constant terror of assassination, while others held that he knew the devil was on his track and would ultimately nab him.