Part 13

"Why not?" exclaimed her mother, irritated.

"I can't make Mr. Presbury out," replied the girl. "I understand why he's helping me to this chance, but I don't understand why he isn't making friends with me, in the hope of getting something after I'm married."

Her mother saw the point, and was instantly agitated. "Perhaps he's simply leading you on, intending to upset it all at the last minute." She gritted her teeth. "Oh, what a wretch!"

Mildred was not heeding. "I must have General Siddall looked up carefully," she went on. "It may be that he isn't rich, or that he has another wife somewhere, or that there's some other awful reason why marrying him would be even worse than it seems."

"Worse than it seems!" cried her mother. "How CAN you talk so, Milly! The general seems to be an ideal husband--simply ideal! I wish I had your chance. Any sensible woman could love him."

A strange look came into the girl's face, and her mother could not withstand her eyes. "Don't, mother," she said quietly. "Either you take me for a fool or you are trying to show me that you have no self-respect. I am not deceiving myself about what I'm doing."

Mrs. Presbury opened her lips to remonstrate, changed her mind, drew a deep sigh. "It's frightful to be a woman," she said.

"To be a lady, Mr. Presbury would say," suggested Mildred.

After some discussion, they fixed upon Joseph Tilker as the best available investigator of General Siddall. Tilker had been head clerk for Henry Gower. He was now in for himself and had offered to look after any legal business Mrs. Presbury might have without charging her. He presently reported that there was not a doubt as to the wealth of the little general. "There are all sorts of ugly stories about how he made his money," said Tilker; "but all the great fortunes have a scandalous history, and I doubt if Siddall's is any worse than the others. I don't see how it well could be. Siddall has the reputation of being a mean and cruel little tyrant. He is said to be pompous, vain, ignorant--"

"Indeed he's not," cried Mrs. Presbury. "He's a rough diamond, but a natural gentleman. I've met him."

"Well, he's rich enough, and that was all you asked me to find out," said Tilker. "But I must warn you, Mrs. Presbury, not to have any business or intimate personal relations with him."

Mrs. Presbury congratulated herself on her wisdom in having come alone to hear Tilker's report. She did not repeat any part of it to Mildred except what he had said about the wealth. That she enlarged upon until Mildred's patience gave out. She interrupted with a shrewd:

"Anything else, mamma? Anything about him personally?"

"We've got to judge him in that way for ourselves," replied Mrs. Presbury. "You know how wickedly they lie about anyone who has anything."

"I should like to read a full account of General Siddall," said Mildred reflectively; "just to satisfy my curiosity."

Mrs. Presbury made no reply.

Presbury had decided that it was best to make no advance, but to wait until they heard from Siddall. He let a week, ten days, go by; then his impatience got the better of his shrewdness. He sought admittance to the great man at the offices of the International Metals and Minerals Company in Cedar Street. After being subjected to varied indignities by sundry under-strappers, he received a message from the general through a secretary: "The general says he'll let you know when he's ready to take up that matter. He says he hasn't got round to it yet." Presbury apologized courteously for his intrusion and went away, cursing under his breath. You may be sure that he made his wife and his stepdaughter suffer for what he had been through. Two weeks more passed--three--a month. One morning in the mail there arrived this note--type-written upon business paper:

JAMES PRESBURY, Esqr.:

DEAR SIR:

General Siddall asks me to present his compliments and to say that he will be pleased if you and your wife and the young lady will dine with him at his house next Thursday the seventeenth at half-past seven sharp.

ROBERT CHANDLESS, Secretary.

The only words in longhand were the two forming the name of the secretary. Presbury laughed and tossed the note across the breakfast table to his wife. "You see what an ignorant creature he is," said he. "He imagines he has done the thing up in grand style. He's the sort of man that can't be taught manners because he thinks manners, the ordinary civilities, are for the lower orders of people. Oh, he's a joke, is Bill Siddall--a horrible joke."

Mrs. Presbury read and passed the letter to Mildred. She simply glanced at it and returned it to her step-father.

"I'm just about over that last dinner," pursued Presbury. "I'll eat little Thursday and drink less. And I'd advise you to do the same, Mrs. Presbury."

He always addressed her as "Mrs. Presbury" because he had discovered that when so addressed she always winced, and, if he put a certain tone into his voice, she quivered.

"That dinner aged you five years," he went on. "Besides, you drank so much that it went to your head and made you slather him with flatteries that irritated him. He thought you were a fool, and no one is stupid enough to like to be flattered by a fool."

Mrs. Presbury bridled, swallowed hard, said mildly: "We'll have to spend the night in town again, I suppose."

"You and your daughter may do as you like," said Presbury. "I shall return here that night. I always catch cold in strange beds."