The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lord Loveland Discovers America, by C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Lord Loveland Discovers America Author: C. N. Williamson A. M. Williamson Illustrator: George Brehm Release Date: June 13, 2012 [EBook #39984] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS AMERICA *** Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Lord Loveland Discovers America By C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON Authors of "Set in Silver," "The Princess Passes," "My Friend the Chauffeur," "The Car of Destiny," "The Princess Virginia," etc. With Four Illustrations in Color By GEORGE BREHM A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN Copyright, 1910, by Doubleday, Page & Company Published January, 1910 Copyright, 1908, by The McClure Company TO MINDA "... seeing his namesake's niece struggling with a wind-blown rug, he had tucked it round her feet" CONTENTS PAGE The Discovery of America by Lord Loveland 3 Between Betty and Jim 17 The Inestimable Foxham 21 Lord Loveland Makes a Start 27 The Girl in the Chair 36 Catspawing 43 Guide, Philosopher and Friend 53 Hail to the Land: Goodbye to the Girl 63 Foxham Redivivus 71 The Valley of Disappointment 79 The Discovery of Lord Loveland by America 92 Exit Lord Loveland 109 Shadows 117 A Proposition 127 Introducing Shakespeare 138 Shakespeare's Master 143 The Lights of New York 152 Izzie of the Almond Eyes 163 The Morning Paper 181 A Back Number 189 The Man Who Waits 199 News from the Great World 211 The Marquis of Twelfth Street 219 Through the Telephone 224 Alexander's Busy Day 230 Fire 235 "You're a Man" 248 A Proposal of Marriage 255 "Wanted: Juvenile Leading Man" 266 Show Folks 272 The Dignity and Delight of Being a Juvenile Lead 278 Bill's Star 291 A Mysterious Disappearance 305 Marooned 317 Pirates! 327 The Whole Truth 332 A Protégé of Miss Dearmer 349 Sidney Cremer's Chauffeur 360 In the Car Together 373 The Other Side of the Moon 383 LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS AMERICA CHAPTER ONE The Discovery of America by Lord Loveland "Even the Last Resort has refused me." Loveland broke the news to his mother when he had kissed her. "Miss Mecklenburg?" "Yes. I begin to realise that I'm a sinking ship. The early rats are deserting me—or declining to come on board. Clever little animals!" "You shan't sink," protested Lady Loveland, clasping the pretty hands whence all save the wedding ring and its guard had gone to pay a visit of indefinite length to Messrs. Battenborough. "The idiot, to refuse you—with her nose, too." "She didn't do it with her nose, Mater." "Val, you know what I mean. And after you'd overlooked her being a Jewess!" "Yes, it was kind of me, wasn't it? An Italian Prince has just overlooked it, too. Her engagement to Doriana was announced the morning after she'd offered to be a sister to me. It was the size of her purse, not her nose, which caught his eye. But sooner or later he'll beat her." "I hope so. She deserves it for taking him instead of you. Oh, Val, what a world!" "Don't grouse, Mater. I might have beaten her if I'd got her, and then there'd have been a scandal. I can't stand women with important looking teeth, and noses which throw their other features into perspective. Besides, Lillah Mecklenburg isn't as young as she's painted." "So few women are nowadays, dearest," sighed Lady Loveland, who, in living for her handsome son, did not trouble to live up to the past of her complexion, and whose way of doing her hair was alone enough to show that though lenient to Val's weaknesses, she would not condone those of her sister women. "Oh, Val, it's hard you should have to think of such creatures. But what are we to do?" "That's just where I want your advice," said Loveland, who had come a long way to get it. For the distance from London to the north of Scotland is formidable when birds are out of season. Lady Loveland was flattered that Val should ask for her advice which, when offered gratuitously, he had never been known to take. "My advice!" she echoed sadly. "That's all I can give you now! Although I did hope, dear Boy, I must confess. I—I have been trying for Limericks. It was for your sake, and I hoped to win large sums. I thought of lines all night long, and I did send in some splendid ones, a thousand times better than those for which other people (dreadful people, my dear, with names like Hogson, and Dobbs) have won hundreds of pounds. I gave the editors permission to use my name, too; one would have thought, a valuable advertisement for their papers. But all I've won after the greatest efforts has been fifteen and six—an insult—while these Dobbs and Hogsons—I believe the editors must be Socialists. And—the shillings for the postal orders have counted up into pounds. I am crushed with remorse." "Never mind, dear, you meant it for the best," said Val, who cared more for his mother than for anyone else in the world—except himself. And that he made this exception was largely Lady Loveland's fault, for she had brought him up to believe in but one person of paramount importance, adorning the universe: Perceval George Victor Edward Gordon, thirteenth Marquis of Loveland. "What would a few pounds matter—or a few hundreds even, if you'd won them? The ship's too far under water to be raised with Limericks." "Dearest—is it as bad as that?" "It's as bad as anything can be. Look out of your window at the snow falling. Well, that's nothing to the way it's snowing bills outside my window. If you and I can't think of something to clear the weather, I shall have to chuck the army. And even if I do, the bills will still keep on snowing." "What horrible creatures tradesmen must be," said Lady Loveland, whose opinions had come down to her crusted and spider-webbed from the cellars of the Stone Age. "To think that we'd have had power of life and death over them if we'd lived a few hundred years ago. I wish those times could come back." "The world at large doesn't agree with you." "It oughtn't to be at large," replied Lady Loveland, without the smallest idea of a joke. "It's reached a pretty pass when Worms who make boots and uniforms and——" "And sell wine——" "Oh, if you like——" "And jewellery——" "Very well. Admit the jewellery——" "And motors. I've wasted a good deal of substance in riotous motor-cars, Mater." "Oh, I suppose men of your position have some right to enjoy their lives? As I was saying, it's come to a pretty pass when Worms who make or sell what every gentleman must have—things that ought simply to come, like the air you breathe—can turn and rend an officer of the Guards, a peer of the realm, without fear of being crushed." "If I'd chosen to be a kind of secret advertising agent for tradespeople, I might have been dressed and wined for nothing, motor-carred too, perhaps," said Loveland. "I know some fellows who do go in for that sort of thing. But I'm hanged if I could. I'd rather blow out my brains decently." "Oh, my darling, don't speak so wildly," implored his mother. "There must be resources we can call upon—if we could only think of them." "I have called on several people's resources, without any good coming of it." Loveland grinned faintly, though he was in the depths of depression, and had suffered from insomnia for at least a week, between eight and ten in the morning, when so popular a young man should (in his own opinion) have been dreaming of last night's pleasures, instead of worrying how to pay for them. "There is surely a last resort," went on Lady Loveland. "Miss Mecklenburg was mine—and she's failed me—thank Heaven!" "There must be something else." "Something still worse?" "Don't be flippant, dearest. I can't concentrate my thoughts when you are. Ah, if we could have let Loveland Castle as well as we did twelve years ago!" "It's crumbled a lot since. And we're too poor to repair ourselves, let alone our castles." "You at least don't need repairing," said his mother, gazing at her son with admiration. "You're the handsomest young man in the Kingdom." Loveland laughed, though he believed her. As a child he had been kissed by all his mother's prettiest friends, because he was so absurdly beautiful, and so precocious. If he had been a plain or stupid boy he might have grown up to be an estimable young man, as Marquises go. "Why don't you say, 'in the world'?" he asked. "I'm not a woman to exaggerate, dearest. All the Lovelands have been good-looking. One has only to go into the picture gallery at the Castle to see that——" "Yes. As we can't sell their portraits." "If we could, your father would have done it when he sold the Town house. But you will be so confusing, Val. My argument is, that as you're the best looking and the cleverest——" "I don't know a blessed thing, my dear ladyship. Never had any education. You ought to have sent me to Eton, instead of coddling me up with tutors and——" "You didn't think so then. I remember well when it was proposed, you flung yourself on the floor and howled." "So of course that settled it." "Why, yes. You generally settled things like that. You had such a determined way, dear. But you were born knowing more than many studious, uninteresting young men have forgotten. Then, your South African career! It was like a romance. You, who had been crammed, oh, ever so little, for Sandhurst, and then left there to go to the war when you were a mere child, hardly nineteen—so brave! And then, the Thing you did on the battlefield! Of course you ought to have had the Victoria Cross, but as it was, the newspapers rang with your praises, and I was besieged for your photographs to publish. That deed alone would have made you a personage of consideration, even without your rank." "I've told you lots of times, Mater, the whole thing was a sort of accident. I couldn't bear the chap. If I'd stopped to think, I don't believe I'd have run back a step to drag him out from under fire. But I was there, hauling him away, before I knew what I was doing." "Yes, you have told me—and other people. But no one believes you. How could they? They see it's your modesty." (Lord Loveland's mother was perhaps the one person on earth who would have attributed to him this quality.) "And as for disliking the young man whose life you saved at the risk of your own, of course that proves you all the more noble. Everybody must see that." "Oh, well, it's a jolly good thing for me if they do," said Val, mechanically passing his hand over the scar on his forehead, which became him like a hall mark or a halo. It, together with the South African brown that never quite faded, had made him still more ornamental in the eyes of the pretty young married women with whom he was popular. Also in the eyes of girls, who liked to dance and flirt with Lord Loveland, even though they preferred to marry Dukes and Princes. "But what are you working up to so elaborately, Mater?" "To your Prospects. There's no young man so liked and wanted everywhere." "Oh, I'm fair at polo: I can ride straight, and shoot a bit," said Loveland with a pretence at self-depreciation he was far from feeling. "I get asked to all the amusing house parties. But you know as well as I do, that stopping at such places is a lot more expensive than swaggering about at the most expensive hotels in Europe." "I know, dearest," sighed the devoted lady who by industrious spoiling had made him what he was. "I was only going on to say that you are a personage of importance; never think you're not. As for the two or three wretched girls who have hurled themselves at the heads of princes, when they might have had you—why, our English heiresses are growing disgustingly conceited and ambitious, quite unmaidenly, and let them regret their mistakes—you needn't. Val, you want my advice. Well, I've had an inspiration, I do believe, a real inspiration. Why don't you go to America?" "To try ranching?" "Good Heavens, no, my son! To try marrying. In America you'll succeed brilliantly. Why not run over and see what there is?" She spoke as if to see meant to have, notwithstanding certain failures nearer home. But Loveland's sense of humour, which had a real existence, did not always bestir itself when his own affairs were in question. When things come too close to the eye, one is apt to lose the point of view. And Loveland did not laugh at his mother's suggestion. "Oh, girls!" he said, distastefully. "Why go there for them? Plenty come over here to collect us." "Ye—es. But think of the competition. There are still unmarried Dukes. It's so annoying, there always seem to be Dukes, and foreign semi-Royalties who might better stop in their own countries than prowl about ours, seeking what they may devour." "That's what you propose my doing in the States." "Oh, that's different. The Americans would be the foreigners, not you." "They don't look on themselves in that light." "Let them look at you—the girls I mean—in any light, there, on their native heath, where practically no competition can exist. For who ever heard of an American heiress marrying an American man?" "I suppose it must happen sometimes," said Val. "It's never in the newspapers. No, dearest, I believe that is why, according to statistics, there are so many more men than women in the States. The girls marry our men. And really some of them are quite presentable." If any one of three or four beautiful and charming Duchesses had heard the tone in which old Lady Loveland said this, she would have laughed or sneered, according to her mood. "Do you know many Americans, Val?" his mother went on, thoughtfully. "Hardly any except Jim Harborough, and—er—his cousin who has married Stanforth." (This was another instance of a misguided young woman who preferred a Duke to the Marquis. Therefore she remained nameless between mother and son.) "Mr. Harborough would, I suppose, give you letters of introduction to the Right People over there?" "Oh, yes, I suppose he would. He doesn't approve of me; but he couldn't refuse letters to his wife's cousin." "Doesn't approve of you, indeed! What impertinence! But perhaps he's jealous, and thinks you were once in love with Betty. I feared it myself before she paid that visit to the States which turned out such a success. Just as I'm sure yours would, if you went." "I never was in love with Betty. First cousins are a bit too near to be interesting. One's generally known them since the stage when they were silly over dolls. Besides, Betty looks too much like me. I don't care for yellow-haired, blue-eyed girls." "It's just as well you didn't care for Betty. Such a marriage would have been disastrous. But she's a sweet girl, and must have made a good many friends in the States. There was the young woman Mohunsleigh married, for instance. I believe he met her through Betty. Oh, Val, you really ought to go over. I'm sure you'd be the greatest success." "Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea," Loveland patronized his mother's inspiration. "Of course Harborough and Betty would both give me letters. If I had to marry—horrid bore, at my age!—and could afford to choose, I'd take an English girl of the right sort. But Americans are a lot better than English ones of the wrong sort; middle class mushrooms who've shot up in a night—on the strength of Pale Pills for Pink People, or Corsets, or Disinfectants. If a man's a beggar he must be content with the wine and wives of the country where he begs. American girls, no matter what they've sprung from, seem adaptable; and anyhow, people are tolerant of any queer ways they may have." "That's true," agreed Lady Loveland, who had never in her life spoken to an American girl, but was now eager to become Dowager for the sake of a desirable one. "If you went to New York—or somewhere—you'd see enough girls to feel you were picking out the best. Oh, you would virtually have a clear coast! And judging from novels I've read, everybody in American society would be fighting for the honour of entertaining you, racking their brains to get up the most wonderful spectacles for your amusement." "They wouldn't amuse me," said Loveland, in the blasé way he had cultivated since he came back a wounded hero of nineteen, in the last year of the South African war. "I should be there purely on business." But though he spoke like a tired man of forty rather than a happy and healthy one of twenty-six or seven, he was beginning to lean towards his mother's advice. He could easily get long leave. He had a couple of months due to him. During a tour of inspection in the States he would be free from all the bills that flesh is heir to, as he would have no settled address, until the "business" that took him over was settled. After that, when his engagement was published in the papers, tradesmen would hold their hands. "It oughtn't to take you many weeks," Lady Loveland was reflecting aloud, "if you went at the right season, and to the right place." "The Season is different for different places over there, Betty says," remarked Loveland, who now, having discovered America as a spot worthy of note on the world's map, was ready to explain it to his mother. "How odd!" exclaimed Lady Loveland, to whom all things were odd, and scarcely proper, if they were not as in Great Britain. "But oh, of course, you only mean that they go to one place to shoot at a certain time, to another to hunt at a different time, as We do——" "Not exactly that, I think," said Val, getting out of his element. "I believe it's something to do with the thermometer. Betty went in summer, and was obliged to stop at Newport. One reads things about Newport." "Yes. Though I forget what," replied his mother, dismissing Newport. "But in the States there must be heiresses abounding in great quantities everywhere, as all American girls appear to be rich in more or less degrees. They flock to Europe from towns with the most extraordinary names. I don't know why it's happened to stick in my memory, but I know there was one—Oshkosh, or something truly awful of that sort. A young person from there, with millions, actually millions, married the Marquise de Merpoule's third son, if you remember, a most unprepossessing youth, whose face looked like an accident." "I hardly think I should have to go as far afield as Oshkosh, wherever it may be," said Loveland, glancing at his double in the mirror—where was reflected also the worn furnishing of his mother's drawing-room. With a pang he saw the sorry background and forgot himself for a moment in thinking of Loveland Castle—a very noble, dull palace, all marble, gold plate, portraits and precedence when in its prime; echoing sadness now, until such time as the heir might redeem it with some fair lady's dollars. The murmur of those echoes depressed him, as did the white whirl of snow veiling the windows of the shooting lodge whither Lady Loveland had retired to live upon nothing, that he might have something. But his mother was happy in prophetic thoughts of a future, when Val should have saved his own and the family's fortunes. "Of course you won't need to go to Oshkosh," she said. "Very likely they'd have small-pox or Red Indians there. I only meant that if there could be millions in a town with such a name, what must there be in others more important and easier to get at?" "I'll stick to the important ones that are easy to get at." "That means you are making up your mind to go?" "It's practically made up—thanks to you, Mater. I believe in quick decisions." "How like your father! After selling the house in Grosvenor Square, he made up his mind in ten minutes to go to Monte Carlo, and——" "Don't compare that decision with this, for Heaven's sake. It wouldn't be lucky." "No, dearest," said Lady Loveland meekly, her delicate nose reddening with reminiscences. "Well then, it's quite settled. I feel it's for the best. And I can trust you to bring me a daughter-in-law to be—well, not to be ashamed of." "I'll promise you anyhow she shan't disgrace you by her manners, or me by her looks, after I've gone so far to get her." "Why, you might find something that would do, on the ship, which would save so much time and trouble!" exclaimed Lady Loveland, brightening. "You could marry immediately on landing. And yet—perhaps it would be foolish to do anything irrevocable until you'd looked to see what there was in New York. You mustn't be reckless when so much depends upon prudence. Still it would be wise to sail on a good ship, where you might meet millionairesses. That would be only an ordinary precaution." "It wouldn't be an ordinary price," said Loveland. "We must manage it somehow—and a good cabin. You owe that to your position." "I owe so much already, I may as well owe a little more." "Val, dear, I asked you not to joke. It confuses me. And I need to concentrate all my ideas upon one point. Let me see. Yes! The pink pearls!" "The pink what?" asked Loveland, startled. "I still have them. The double rope, you know." "I know. Another beastly heirloom." "Still, one can pawn heirlooms. Your bride can redeem it—and the other things. I've always saved the pink pearls for a great emergency. This is a great emergency. Battenborough ought to give seven or eight hundred. And though seven or eight hundred, as you say, wouldn't go far among the debts, they might send you to America and back." "I'll have to throw a few sops to Cerberus, if I want new clothes to impress the American girls," laughed Val. "That brute Deedes won't give me so much as a waistcoat unless he gets something on account." "Pay him something," said Lady Loveland. "Pay what you must. Keep what you can—for yourself. As for me, I want nothing." "Except a rich daughter-in-law," finished her son, his spirits rising though the snow still fell. After all, it was only October, and there was sunshine elsewhere. In America perhaps it was now shining on his bride to be! "I'll write to Betty about the letters," he said, "after you've given me some tea." CHAPTER TWO Between Betty and Jim One of Loveland's most easily detected virtues was his careless habit of telling the truth. He had never lied, or even fibbed whitely, as a small boy, an idiosyncrasy which had often seriously inconvenienced his mother and other relations whose pet failings or economies he had ruthlessly exposed. But Lady Betty Bulkeley had always maintained that this bold truthfulness of her cousin's was the result of inconsiderateness rather than nobility of soul. She said (and she ought to have known, as she had been acquainted with him since she was two, and he eight, years old) that he did not bother to think of polite fibs, simply because the feelings of others were not for him of enough importance to seem worth saving at the cost of mental effort. Besides, according to Betty, Val took an impish delight in shocking people. As for blurting out the truth about his own affairs, the habit sprang from that impishness, in idle moods, and a sublime indifference to public opinion in serious states of mind. Now, in his letter to Betty asking for introductions, he made no attempt to cover his real intentions with the roses of pretty fiction. He let it appear plainly that he thought his cousin, having visited America and snatched a millionaire from the matrimonial grab-bag, ought gladly to help him succeed in the same game. "The wretch!" said Betty, in the midst of reading Loveland's brutally frank letter to Jim, her American trophy, "I believe he has the impudence to think I married you for money! I'd like to shake him, and box his silly, conceited ears." "They may be silly and conceited, but they're exactly the shape of yours, darling, so I couldn't find it in my heart to box them, no matter how much good it might do their owner," said Jim Harborough, who had been Betty's husband for nearly a year, and was joyously watching her triumphs as a young married woman. Naturally Betty kissed him for this speech, as they were at breakfast alone together, the servants banished. "Well, anyway, we won't give him the letters," she said when she had gone back to her own place—not far away. "Won't we?" asked Jim, with a thoughtful air. "No, certainly not," returned Betty. "I like your country-women, and I won't deliberately let Loveland loose to prey upon them." "I 'guess' they can take care of themselves," said Jim, putting on his Yankiest accent. "I don't know. Some of them might fall in love with him," suggested Betty doubtfully. "He's awfully good-looking, with a kind of winning, boyish way, and—a voice that's far too nice to express him, really. One often feels too lenient with Val, as if he were one of one's own pet weaknesses come alive and walking about." "As for his looks, he's more like you than your own brother is," said Jim, "eyes, dimples, curly hair and all; so you wouldn't want me to hate him, would you? And as for his voice, it's occurred to me that maybe it expresses something in his real self—the hidden self that he and nobody else knows anything about—the self he's never had a chance to develop or find out, because his mother and other people have spoiled him from his babyhood." "That's very subtle of you, Jim, as well as very kind—and like you," said Betty. "I wish I could think it's true, as he's my cousin. But thank goodness, I for one never spoiled him. I scratched his face once when I was a small girl, and I'm glad. I wish it had left a mark." "It would have been even a more honourable scar than the one South Africa gave him. But I admit, he is rather an unlicked cub,—at present. I pity the girl who falls in love with him—as he now is." "Always was and probably ever will be, Loveland without end," finished Betty, flippantly. "The cheek of him, expecting me to ask you for letters, so that he can go over to your country and do his best to make some nice American girl miserable for life—and spend all her money. I shall punish him—since I can't do anything worse—by telling him exactly what I think of him." "There are other ways of punishing him—more fitting to the crime, perhaps," remarked Jim, thoughtfully. "What ways?" "Giving him the letters." "Jim!" "And then—and then—well, a lot depends upon whether he's a born egoist, or merely a made one. I haven't quite worked out the idea yet. It's simmering—it'll soon begin to boil." Whether Jim Harborough's idea had already boiled or not, at all events that same afternoon a fat envelope went out by post, registered, and addressed to The Marquis of Loveland, Cragside Lodge, Dorloch, N. B. In it there were at least ten letters of introduction, all to names the bare mention of which had power to raise the circulation of Society papers in America, or create a flutter in Wall Street. Each envelope enclosed in the big one was left open, so that Loveland might acquaint himself with the terms in which his cousins described him to their millionaire friends. Perhaps he was slightly aggrieved that they did not paint him in more glowing terms, or dwell upon the honour conferred on the recipients of the letters. But there was no real fault to find, and—as Jim would perhaps have said—it was "up" to Loveland to make his own impression. On the whole, Val was satisfied with what he had got, and condescendingly wrote two lines of thanks to Betty. CHAPTER THREE The Inestimable Foxham Times were bad, said Battenborough, the polite and popular pawnbroker; therefore Lady Loveland got only six hundred pounds on the pink pearls. Two hundred were sprinkled about among Val's creditors, like pepper out of a pot, where such seasoning was necessary. A hundred more were spent outright, with heartburnings, upon obstinate tailors, hatters and hosiers, who would not tail, hat nor hose, except upon instalments of ready money. Fifty pounds were apologetically retained by Lady Loveland, who grudged every penny to herself and especially to her servants. Another fifty a little more than paid for a cabin almost worthy of his lordship on the big ship Baltic. Fifty and some vague dust of gold and silver went into Val's pocket for current expenses; and the remaining hundred and fifty condensed into the form of a letter of credit. Of course there ought to have been more, much more. But there would have been less had not Loveland's man, Foxham, given notice at the last moment. This inestimable person assured his master that nothing but the most urgent necessity could have induced him to take such a course. He suffered poignantly, Foxham intimated with proper respect, in the idea that another must perform for his lordship those services which had been his pleasure and duty; but Foxham's grandfather had died (even valets have grandfathers) leaving a tidy sum; and as there were peculiarities in the will, Foxham would lose his chance of inheriting if he left England. Loveland privately thought it almost equivalent to lèse majesté that his man should desert him for such a selfish trifle as private interest. But he would have scorned to retain a servant who wished to leave him; besides, there were advantages in losing even such a treasure as Foxham before the two passages were taken. Val had learned from a friend that, if you sent your valet second class, you were not able to command his services on shipboard. This seemed a disgusting waste of money, and ought to be protested against in The Times, or somewhere. On the other hand, he could not afford a first-class fare for Foxham. "I dare say I can get some fellow over there, if everything goes well," said he. "Meanwhile I shall save money on old Fox. He hasn't opened his mouth about wages. Jolly impudent if he had, because of course he knows I'll pay up when its convenient. And anyhow, a hundred and fifty in the letter of credit is the least I can rub along with, on the other side. I must 'look sharp' as Harborough says, and pick up the right girl, so as to get everything in shape as soon as possible, or I may find myself in a mess." "Don't imagine anything so horrid, darling," said Lady Loveland, anxious to prop up her son's spirits as well as his credit. "Think only of the best. But I'm sorry about Foxham. He turns you out so perfectly." "Oh, I learned to shift for myself like a regular navvy in South Africa," Loveland consoled her. "A chap has to keep clean and have the right folds in his trousers, whatever happens; and I worried along somehow without disgracing the family. I can do the same now, though it'll be a bore, especially till I get used to it again." Thus the pink pearl money was apportioned, a little here and a little there, and made to go as far as possible. Foxham stopped with his lordship till after the return to London, doing the final packing, and all his ordinary work as usual, without a greedy word as to arrears of wages. Perhaps this was due to an angelic disposition; or perhaps he guessed the motive of his master's errand, and was willing to speculate on the result. But Loveland took the man's devotion for granted, without going too deeply into causes. On getting back to his quarters near Wellington Barracks, Val was somewhat surprised to receive a visit from Harborough, who had never come to call on him before. "So you've got your leave, I hear, and are sailing for my blessed country in a few days," Jim remarked. Loveland replied that this was the case, and happened to think of thanking Jim for his letters of introduction. Harborough answered casually that that was all right; and went on to say that he had read in a paper, or heard from a man, that Loveland had taken his passage on the Baltic. "Yes," said Val. "I wanted to go over on a good ship." "Well, the Baltic's a ripping one—couldn't be a better," Jim admitted. "But I should have thought you'd have the curiosity to try the newest thing." "The Mauretania?" said Loveland. "Don't suppose I could have got a passage on her for the next three or four trips across." "Perhaps you couldn't," said Jim. "But I can get you one." "Why, she sails tomorrow, doesn't she?" asked Val. "Yes," said Jim, "but you can go on her if you like, with a good cabin too, all to yourself." "My passage is paid for on the Baltic, and my name's on her passenger list," said Loveland. "Well, it's too late to have your name printed on the Mauretania's passenger list, or perhaps to get back your money for the Baltic," said Jim, "but that needn't stand in your way. You won't have to pay for your cabin on the Mauretania. It's going begging. A friend of mine who can't sail has given his ticket to me, to do with as I like; but as he's a man whose movements make things in Wall Street jump up and down like a see-saw, he doesn't want it known that he's got to stay behind because he's seedy. That's all. If you want to go in his place, go, and say nothing till you get on the other side. By that time he'll be on his way, on a following ship. At least, that's what he hopes." "Do you mean, that if I want to cross in the Mauretania, I must pass under your friend's name?" asked Loveland, beginning to look haughty; for though he was tempted by the offer, he did not think that another man's name was worthy of his wearing even for five days. He would as willingly have appeared in Bond Street in a second-hand, ready-made coat. "Oh no, nothing of the sort," answered Jim Harborough, smiling his pleasant smile. "What I meant was, don't go advertising the fact that you've got Henry VanderPot's cabin because he's not well enough to sail. All you'll have to do is to swagger about as if you'd meant to be a passenger on the Mauretania from the beginning of things." Loveland was prepared to do any amount of swaggering, though he did not say so to Jim, or indeed acknowledge it to himself. He replied that, if this were the only condition, he would accept the ticket, and instruct Foxham (as he would not have time himself) to try and sell the passage which he had paid for on the Baltic. "Fox'll have several days to do it in, and I'll tell him if he brings it off, there's ten per cent for himself," said Val. "Meanwhile I'll be enjoying myself on the Mauretania." "Meanwhile you'll be enjoying yourself on the Mauretania," echoed Jim. "I suppose there are sure to be a lot of millionaires on board?" suggested Val. "Sure to be, even at this time of year." "With pretty daughters?" Loveland's tone and air in making this addition were so conceited that Jim would have wanted to kick him if he had not looked so ridiculously like Jim's own adored and beautiful Betty. Besides, the scar showed white on the brown. This had been a brave boy. Jim was inclined to believe that he was worth reforming. "With pretty daughters," Harborough repeated, his tone quiet though his eyes showed a danger signal. "However, be prudent. Don't make up your mind too soon. The best fish aren't always caught in the deep sea. One waits to have a look round the markets." Loveland grinned. "Thank you for the tip. I won't forget." "Not likely that you'll hold yourself too cheap, eh?" Jim could not resist that one dig, in spite of the scar, and Betty's laugh in the blue eyes between their black fringes. But Val did not see the joke, as he assuredly would if it had been aimed at anybody else. Jim having married into the family, ought to uphold the family pride, and Loveland doubted not that he did. "Rather not," he returned patronizingly. "You needn't be afraid, my dear chap. Very kind of you to think of me for this cabin. And though it's a bit short notice, that can't be helped. Foxham will get me off somehow." "You'll hardly have time to let people know your change of plan," said Jim. "But of course if you don't mind a little expense you can Marconi to Lady Loveland from the ship." "Of course," assented Lady Loveland's son, who would not have thought of the attention had it not been suggested to him. "But it will hardly be necessary." "Perhaps not," said Jim. CHAPTER FOUR Lord Loveland Makes a Start Loveland's only experience of sea life, except for a little yachting, had been in going out to, and returning from, South Africa; but he had learned to take care of himself on shipboard, and though his name was not on the passenger list of the Mauretania, his deck chair was soon placed by an attentive steward in a sheltered corner nearly amidship. This advantage was secured by a tempting tip, a tip out of all proportion to the giver's resources: but then, there were many people on the Mauretania who came on board more like clients returning to a hotel where they had been known by the management for years, than passengers travelling on a new ship; and Loveland did not intend to be defeated in an unequal competition. He wanted the best of everything on this trip, and felt that money would be well spent in obtaining it. He always did feel this when he had any money—or credit—to spend. Possibly he might have economized coin by parading his title, but though spoiled and conceited he was also a gentleman, and while he might trade upon his position for the matrimonial market, would not flaunt it gratuitously. He considered he would be giving value for value: taking a girl's dollars and making her a Marchioness: but he thought too much of himself to "put on side." When the deck-steward politely asked if he wished to use a visiting card as a chair-marker, Val told him to write the name of Loveland on a slip of paper or a luggage label; anything would do. So the steward did as he was bidden, ignorant that he served a "lord." Loveland did not feel that he needed cheap advertisement. It would soon leak out that he was a personage, and, sure enough, it did. When he had discreetly explained to the purser his possession of Mr. VanderPot's cabin, the news of the change went round from steward to steward, and was promptly "spotted" as a tit-bit by the greatest gossip on the ship, who happened to inhabit the stateroom opposite. Major Cadwallader Hunter (a retired major, of course; he would not have had time to develop his qualities while on the active list) was told that he had Loveland for a neighbour, and looked at the cabin door with kindling interest. Being himself, he had studied the passenger list, as a collector of antiques is wont to study the announcements of sales. He could have rattled off by heart all the names worth rattling, and he was certain that Lord Loveland's had not been among them. Major Cadwallader Hunter was an American of a type laughed at by the best of his own countrymen. He knew his Burke and Debrett better than many an Englishman even of that middle class which can afford to be ignorant of no detail concerning the aristocracy. He was aware that there existed a Marquis of Loveland who was young and unmarried; he knew all about his family connections, and he wondered how such an important gentleman had strayed on board the Mauretania unheralded. "I suppose this fellow must be the Loveland, of course," he said to himself. "But why not be published frankly on the passenger list? Can there be a secret?" At this moment Loveland walked out from his stateroom, having come below for pipe and tobacco-pouch. He caught Major Cadwallader Hunter staring at his door, and gave him a brief yet supercilious glance. To some men it would have seemed an offensive glance, but Major Cadwallader Hunter was not to be easily offended by a man he wished to know. He disappeared into his own cabin, by way of proving that he was a neighbour, not a Paul Pry; but a few minutes later he was on deck, ambling amiably from one group of acquaintances to another, and dexterously avoiding detrimentals. Cadwallader Hunter aspired to be a leader of society. He was one of those strange beings—heraldic, rampant, disregardant—who are born snobs, in spite of good birth and good breeding. Therefore he was not a genuine article (since no snob can be genuine) but had moulded himself into a thing of airs and affectations. Nevertheless he managed to impress most second-rate people, and some who were first-rate. Those who did not live in New York believed him to be of consequence in that city, and the Paris Herald always reported his comings and goings. He was a thin, well- groomed man, of middle age, with a heart-hiding smile, a high nose and a high voice; gold-rimmed eyeglasses giving glitter to pale, cold eyes; a waxed moustache; a carefully cultivated "English accent," and a marvellous fund of scandalous anecdotes concerning everyone about whom it was worth while to be scandalous. He had at least a bowing acquaintance with all the richest Americans on board, and he mixed with his greetings here and there a careless "Do you know we have Lord Loveland on the ship—the Marquis of Loveland? Such a good-looking young man. One of the oldest and most distinguished peerages in England; family of soldiers since the dark ages, though the less said about some of them since the days of the Georges the better. This boy not so bad as some of the old boys before him. Not to be despised by débutantes, eh? Do I know him?——" (As a matter of fact, Cadwallader Hunter could count his acquaintances in the British peerage on the fingers of one hand, and have a thumb to spare; for it is the genuine, unaffected, typical Americans, or else the heavily gilded and diamond-incrusted ones whom English people like to know. But this question was bound to come. He had led up to it, and was prepared.) "Do I know him? Why, in a way we're connections by marriage. You must remember pretty Lady Betty Bulkeley who took us all by storm a year or two ago—sister of the Duke of Stanforth? Jimmy Harborough, whom she married, is I believe a forty-second cousin of mine: and Lady Betty and Lord Loveland are related. So you see——" And for fear that they should see—something that he did not wish them to see—he pottered away to "get at" Loveland before anyone could possibly have the chance to find out that they two were strangers. Meanwhile Loveland had not been wasting time. He thought that Jim Harborough's hint about "deep sea fish" was a wise one, wiser than he would have expected from Harborough. Still, there was no harm in keeping his eyes open; and having kept them open from the first moment after coming on board, he had discovered several very pretty girls. With a certain amount of eagerness, rather as one looks at one's cards when beginning a new rubber of bridge, he glanced over the passenger-list, hoping that some of the names might be identical with those on his letters of introduction. But there were no such coincidences, and he, unluckily, was too ignorant of American society to know which of his fellow passengers were most important. However, he made up his mind that one of the first things to do, was to find out. Sure of his chair, on which the name of "Loveland" already appeared in the steward's handwriting, he paced up and down and all round the deck, pipe in mouth and hands in pockets. It was a November day, of Indian summer warmth. The huge ship felt no impulse from the waves which fawned upon her sides, and Loveland, who had been bored by the necessity to leave his native land, began suddenly to feel happy, quite boyishly happy. A great many other people were parading up and down also; pretty girls, walking alone, or with parents, or accompanied by youths with whom they intended to flirt during the voyage. Shrewd-faced men, with eyes good-natured yet keen, and an air of solid importance which might mean millions; handsome, prosperous-looking women whom Loveland guessed to be Newport and New York hostesses pleased to welcome prowling Marquesses; and besides these, numbers of vague persons whom to meet once was to forget twice. After half an hour's walk, Val had selected two girls from the "rosebud garden" which, he felt, bloomed for his benefit in this mammoth, floating flower-bed. There were so many attractive ones, that it was difficult to choose, yet Val did not doubt that he had weeded out the best; and he hoped that, of the pair, one might be the principal unmarried millionairess of the Mauretania. There could hardly have been a greater contrast between girls than between these two whom Lord Loveland had mentally set apart for himself, as a man picks out the most becoming neckties from a box on a shop counter. One, who walked the deck with an elderly man whose likeness of feature proclaimed him her father, was very tall, almost as tall as Loveland, who could be a six-footer when he took the trouble not to slouch. She was slender in all the right places, and rounded in all the right places, her waist being so slim that she seemed held together only by a spine and a lady-like ligament or two; which means faultlessness of figure according to fashion-plate standards. She had burnished auburn hair, and magnificent yellow-grey eyes rimmed with dark lashes. Her nose was aquiline, her mouth red and drooping at the corners, a combination which made her profile closely resemble a famous photograph of the Empress Eugenie in the prime of loveliness. A number of the nicest looking people who came and went on deck seemed glad to claim acquaintance with this girl and her handsome father; but though they were warmly greeted again and again, the girl maintained a cool dignity not unworthy of Betty Bulkeley's mother, the Duchess of Stanforth. Val said to himself that the Mater would be pleased with a daughter-in-law of this type, and that such a girl would never make her husband ashamed. He could not imagine falling in love with her hard brilliance; but then he wasn't going to America to fall in love. His intentions were strictly businesslike. And this girl was bound to be admired everywhere. She would look an ideal hostess, entertaining house parties at Loveland Castle, when her money had restored it to all and more than its ancient splendour. Loveland's second choice might have been his first, for some reasons, and in fact she was his first by impulse; only she did not look as obviously an heiress as the other. Neither was she so obviously a beauty; yet her charm leaped at the beholder with the briefest glance, especially if that beholder were a man; leaped at him through his eyes, and thrillingly through his nerves, in a mysterious, indescribable, curiously interesting way. She was not very tall, and she was a slim slip of a creature, not in the least like a fashion plate, but suggestive of soft natural curves, even in her navy-blue tailor-made frock. If she had been stage-struck, and had asked for a chance in the chorus, a theatrical manager would have found himself giving it to her, he hardly knew why, more because she said she wanted it than on the strength of her voice, or form, or features. Then, having yielded so far to her magnetism, he would have said to himself, "She isn't striking enough for the front row, or even the second. She must go into the third." And there she would have gone docilely. Yet the critics and all other men with eyes would have picked her out; and presently she would have been more noticed than the beauties in the front row. By and by, when there arose a little part with a few lines to speak, she would have got it; and at last, in some way or other, it would have been she who was making the "hit of the piece." Lord Loveland did not say anything of this sort to himself, but he felt a faint electric shock of interest every time they passed and repassed each other; though after the first she did not look at him, with the big brown eyes that surely had the prettiest, most bewitching lashes ever seen. Really, they were charming eyes. If nothing else were actually beautiful about the girl, her eyes undoubtedly were exquisite. They were very soft, and no man could look into them even for half a second in passing without realizing deliciously that they were a woman's eyes; yet they were not coquettish, except for that piquant effect of the curled lashes. They were full of sympathy and intelligence, and gazed frankly, sweetly out at the world, as if they could understand, and laugh or cry at things which other, commonplace eyes would never even see. For the rest, she had the clear, colourless skin which shows every change of emotion, a sensitive mouth, not too small for generosity; in the firm little chin, a cleft which meant a keen sense of humour; and a slightly impertinent nose which might mean anything or nothing. Loveland felt that it would be interesting to know this girl, even if she were not an heiress, but he hoped that she might prove to be one, because it would be hard to learn the wisdom of ceasing to know her if she turned out as poor as himself. The difficulty in judging these American girls, Val began to think as he watched the charming review, was that they all looked like millionairesses. They walked as if they were so used to being young persons of importance, that they graciously waived the fact of their own greatness: which means, that they had the air of goddesses, or princesses at the least. They were all dressed perfectly, and groomed perfectly. Their frocks fitted perfectly, and every detail of their toilets was perfect, from the buttons of their English gloves to the toes of their American boots. So how was a man to judge which were the ones, and which the other ones? Val made up his mind at last that he would walk no more, but woul...