XXIII
Fanny looked after the disappearing figures. “They seem kind of worried, don’t they?” she said to Guy.
“Oh, you’re always imagining things,” Guy replied, with masculine impatience.
“You say that just because I’m so much cleverer than you are. At school the girls used to call me the barometer. I could always tell just how they felt.”
“Well, if you only knew how I felt at this moment!” Guy exclaimed, ruefully.
Fanny seized both his hands. “Are your hands feverish and clammy? And do you feel cold chills running down your back? That’s the way they feel in novels.” She began to jump up and down, as she always did in moments of excitement. “Now, what are you going to say? Tell me, quick. He’ll be here in two minutes. He said he was coming right down. ’Sh! Here he comes now.”
“This is the most infernal town,” cried Jonathan Wallace, pulling down his cuffs. “If I lived here I’d go crazy from insomnia.” He looked down at Fanny with the resentful air that even the best of fathers sometimes like to assume with their children. “Didn’t you say someone wanted to see me?”
“Yes,” Fanny replied, with a nervous laugh. Then she added, satirically, patting Guy on the back: “This gentleman. I think I’ll get away. Bye-bye, little one.” She danced out of the room, waving her hand to the young fellow, who stood, awkward and flushed, trying to think of something to say.
“Well, sir?” Jonathan Wallace walked toward Guy with his right hand thrust into his coat front. At that moment he appeared especially formidable. Guy noticed that his red face, with its large, hooked nose, made him look curiously like a parrot.
“Well—er—you—that is—” Guy began. Then he lapsed into silence. “I wanted to ask you something,” he blurted out.
Wallace cleared his throat; a faint twinkle appeared in his left eye. “Well, what is it?”
“The fact is, sir, I want to ask—well, to aska favor of you.” Perspiration stood on Guy’s forehead.
“Young man, I hope you haven’t got into any money difficulties? Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if you had. In this political business of yours, you people seem to do nothing but spend money. By Jove! I sometimes think it would pay the country to rent out the Government to a firm of contractors. Well, what is it? Don’t be afraid of me; I’m not half so bad as I sound. If you’ve got into trouble, perhaps I can help you out.”
“Thank you, sir, you’re very kind,” Guy replied. “I appreciate it. But it isn’t that.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” Wallace said, in a tone of relief. “Well, that’s all right, then.” He acted as if the interview were ended. He had the air of thinking Guy no longer remained in the room.
Guy laughed awkwardly, as if to emphasize his presence. “It’s something a good deal more serious.”
“Oho!” Wallace looked interested.
“It isn’t your money I’m after. It’s Fanny.”
“Fanny! My little Fanny?” asked Wallace, in a tone of amusement and surprise.
“Yes, sir, your little Fanny,” Guy replied, boldly. “I’m in love with her.”
“Well, that’s not anything remarkable, after all,” said Wallace. “I believe most of the boys down home are. She always was a great hand for the boys. They like her easy way with them, I suppose. Well, I’m very glad you like Fanny. I’m sure it’s a compliment to the whole family. You must see a lot of pretty girls during the Winter.”
“But I want to marry her,” Guy insisted. He did not like the old gentleman’s manner, and yet, oddly enough, it reminded him of Fanny’s.
“Oh, you do, do you?” Wallace held his right hand over his lips. “Well, that’s a pretty serious matter, isn’t it? I thought perhaps you were just feeling your way round. Lots of boys down home like to talk to me about Fanny. They’re just trying to get the lay of the land, I suppose. But I generally laugh at ’em, an’ I tell ’em she’s hardly out of her pinafores yet. You see, by the time she gets through college——”
“Through college?” Guy gasped.
Wallace gave the young fellow a severe look. “Yes. Why not? Don’t you believe in college education for women? Well, I declare, you college fellows are pretty selfish! You get plenty of education yourselves, but you——”
“Oh, I don’t care anything about that,” Guy interrupted. “Let them have all the education they want. But Fanny doesn’t want to go to college. She only wants——”
“Eh? What did you say she wanted?” Wallace asked, shrewdly.
“She wants me,” said Guy, with as much modesty as he could display.
“Oh, she does, does she? How do you know that?”
Guy was very modest now. “Because she told me so.”
“M’m!” said Wallace. The old gentleman’s mouth grew tight again. Then he said, with a sly glance at Guy: “How much money have you got?”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Guy explained, helplessly, his face turning scarlet.
“What’s your income? Are you prepared to support a wife?”
“I—I expect to be—in time.”
Wallace smiled, smoothing his thick, white hair. “Well, Fanny was never much of a hand to wait for anything, I can tell you that. How much money do you make?”
Guy shifted his position. “Well, not much atpresent. In fact, it is hardly worth speaking of.”
“Any prospects?” Wallace persisted, mercilessly.
“I don’t exactly know,” Guy replied, feeling that things were going very badly.
“You don’t know whether you have any prospects or not?” Wallace exclaimed.
“The fact is——”
“Eh?”
“My affairs are rather mixed up just now.”
Wallace looked indignant. “And yet you want to marry my daughter! Well, I like your nerve, young man!”
Fanny suddenly stood between them. She had evidently been listening at the door. “That’s just what I like, too, dad. But it doesn’t seem to be cutting any ice now.” Then she turned to Guy. “I’m ashamed of you! After all our practicing, too! Now look here, dad,” she went on, putting her hand on her father’s shoulder. “I can’t live without Guy.” She whispered to the young fellow: “See how much better I do it.” “In fact,” she went on, in a loud voice and with a languishing glance, “I should die without him.”
Wallace pulled down his waistcoat. “Well, goahead and die!” he said, doggedly. “It would be money saved for me.”
Fanny’s face assumed a look of reproach. “Isn’t it awful to hear a father talk like that? Now, dad, you’ve always blamed me for not being a boy, though everybody knows boys are the most expensive things. Think of the money they spend in college, and all it costs to get ’em out of scrapes! Now, here’s a son for you all ready-made, with his wild oats sown and ready to buckle down to hard work.”
“Look here,” said Wallace. “What does all this mean, anyway?”
“It means,” said Fanny, imitating her father’s tone, “it means that you’ve got to give this young man a job.”
“What?”
“You’ve got to give him a job!” Fanny repeated, loudly.
“A job?” Wallace echoed, still mystified.
Fanny nodded vigorously. “M’m—h’m!”
“Where?” Wallace asked, glancing vaguely round the room, as if searching for a spot where Guy might be safely employed.
“In the factory,” said Fanny, decisively.
Wallace pointed toward Guy, who stood lookinghelpless and foolish. He felt as children do when their mothers discuss in their presence their appearance and their infantile diseases. “What? Him?” Wallace asked.
“Yes,him,” Fanny declared, resentfully. “Now don’t you go and make fun of your future son-in-law, dad.”
Wallace was still struggling with astonishment, either real or assumed. “In the factory?”
“Yes,” said Fanny, lifting her eyebrows.
Wallace faced Guy. “You’re willing to soil those white hands of yours, sir?”
Guy laughed and blushed, instinctively putting his hands behind him. “Oh, yes,” he replied. “Glad of the chance.”
Wallace still appeared incredulous. “And take ten dollars a week for the first year?”
Fanny dashed toward Guy and threw her arm protectingly across his shoulders. “What?” she exclaimed, indignantly. “My precious! Ten dollars a week!”
“I’ll take anything you think I’m worth, sir,” said Guy, over her head.
“With his intellect, and all he learned at Harvard!” Fanny protested. “Never, dad! You must give him twenty-five, or I’ll cast you off!”
“If you show that there’s any good stuff in you, I may give you fifteen after three months,” said Wallace.
“Thank you, sir,” said Guy, humbly.
Fanny dropped her arm, clasped her hands and, with lowered head, she walked toward her father. “Will you give us your blessing, sir?” she asked.
“I’ll send you to bed if you don’t behave yourself,” Wallace replied. Then he went on, with a warning gesture: “And let me tell you one thing. There’s to be no engagement between you two people for a year. Do you understand that?”
Fanny looked crestfallen, but in a moment she brightened. Guy bowed respectfully. He seemed glad to accept any terms that would secure Fanny for him. He hadn’t expected such luck as this.
“Perhaps it’s just as well,” said Fanny philosophically, as her father started to leave the room. “He couldn’t afford to buy a ring, anyway.”