Nick Baumgarten was the first to resume wholly normal condition of mind.
"Well, I guess after you've told us about her there'll be no kick coming from any of us.Of course there's something about you that royal families cry for, and they won't be happy till they get.All of us boys knows that.But what we want to find out is how you worked it so that they saw the kind of pearl-studded hairpin you were.""Worked it!" Selden answered."I didn't work it.I've got a good bit of nerve, but I never should have had enough to invent what happened--just HAPPENED.I broke my leg falling off my bike, and fell right into a whole bunch of them --earls and countesses and viscounts and Vanderpoels.And it was Miss Vanderpoel who saw me first lying on the ground.
And I was in Stornham Court where Lady Anstruthers lives --and she used to be Miss Rosalie Vanderpoel.""Boys," said Bert Johnson, with friendly disgust, "he's been up to his neck in 'em.""Cheer up.The worst is yet to come," chaffed Tom Wetherbee.
Never had such a dinner taken place at the corner table, or, in fact, at any other table at Shandy's.Sam brought beefsteaks, which were princely, mushrooms, and hashed brown potatoes in portions whose generosity reached the heart.Sam was on good terms with Shandy's carver, and had worked upon his nobler feelings.Steins of lager beer were ventured upon.There was hearty satisfying of fine hungers.Two of the party had eaten nothing but one "Quick Lunch" throughout the day, one of them because he was short of time, the other for economy's sake, because he was short of money.
The meal was a splendid thing.The telling of the story could not be wholly checked by the eating of food.It advanced between mouthfuls, questions being asked and details given in answers.Shandy's became more crowded, as the hour advanced.People all over the room cast interested looks at the party at the corner table, enjoying itself so hugely.
Groups sitting at the tables nearest to it found themselves excited by the things they heard.
"That young fellow in the new suit has just come back from Europe," said a man to his wife and daughter."He seems to have had a good time.""Papa," the daughter leaned forward, and spoke in a low voice, "I heard him say `Lord Mount Dunstan said Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel were at the garden party.'
Who do you suppose he is? "
"Well, he's a nice young fellow, and he has English clothes on, but he doesn't look like one of the Four Hundred.Will you have pie or vanilla ice cream, Bessy?"Bessy--who chose vanilla ice cream--lost all knowledge of its flavour in her absorption in the conversation at the next table, which she could not have avoided hearing, even if she had wished.
"She bent over the bed and laughed--just like any other nice girl--and she said, `You are at Stornham Court, which belongs to Sir Nigel Anstruthers.Lady Anstruthers is my sister.I am Miss Vanderpoel.' And, boys, she used to come and talk to me every day.""George," said Nick Baumgarten, "you take about seventy-five bottles of Warner's Safe Cure, and rub yourself all over with St.Jacob's Oil.Luck like that ain't HEALTHY!".....
Mr.Vanderpoel, sitting in his study, wore the interestedly grave look of a man thinking of absorbing things.He had just given orders that a young man who would call in the course of the evening should be brought to him at once, and he was incidentally considering this young man, as he reflected upon matters recalled to his mind by his impending arrival.
They were matters he had thought of with gradually increasing seriousness for some months, and they had, at first, been the result of the letters from Stornham, which each "steamer day" brought.They had been of immense interest to him--these letters.He would have found them absorbing as a study, even if he had not deeply loved Betty.He read in them things she did not state in words, and they set him thinking.
He was not suspected by men like himself of concealing an imagination beneath the trained steadiness of his exterior, but he possessed more than the world knew, and it singularly combined itself with powers of logical deduction.
If he had been with his daughter, he would have seen, day by day, where her thoughts were leading her, and in what direction she was developing, but, at a distance of three thousand miles, he found himself asking questions, and endeavouring to reach conclusions.His affection for Betty was the central emotion of his existence.He had never told himself that he had outgrown the kind and pretty creature he had married in his early youth, and certainly his tender care for her and pleasure in her simple goodness had never wavered, but Betty had given him a companionship which had counted greatly in the sum of his happiness.Because imagination was not suspected in him, no one knew what she stood for in his life.He had no son; he stood at the head of a great house, so to speak--the American parallel of what a great house is in non-republican countries.The power of it counted for great things, not in America alone, but throughout the world.As international intimacies increased, the influence of such houses might end in aiding in the making of history.
Enormous constantly increasing wealth and huge financial schemes could not confine their influence, but must reach far.
The man whose hand held the lever controlling them was doing well when he thought of them gravely.Such a man had to do with more than his own mere life and living.