The Man Upstairs and Other Stories by P. G. Wodehouse (books to improve english .TXT) 📗

the run of the play. He was also obviously attracted by Ruth. And, as he was remarkably presentable—indeed, quite an unusually good-looking young man—there seemed no reason why Ruth should not be equally attracted by him. The world looked good to Mr Warden as he fell asleep that night.

Ruth did not fall asleep so easily. The episode had disturbed her. A new element had entered her life, and one that gave promise of producing strange by-products.

When, on the following evening, Ruth returned from the stroll on the Promenade which she always took after leaving the mont-de-piete, with a feeling of irritation towards things in general, this feeling was not diminished by the sight of Mr Vince, very much at his ease, standing against the mantelpiece of the tiny parlour.

'How do you do?' he said. 'By an extraordinary coincidence I happened to be hanging about outside this house just now, when your father came along and invited me in to dinner. Have you ever thought much about coincidences, Miss Warden? To my mind, they may be described as the zero on the roulette-board of life.'

He regarded her fondly.

'For a shy man, conscious that the girl he loves is inspecting him closely and making up her mind about him,' he proceeded, 'these unexpected meetings are very trying ordeals. You must not form your judgement of me too hastily. You see me now, nervous, embarrassed, tongue-tied. But I am not always like this. Beneath this crust of diffidence there is sterling stuff, Miss Warden. People who know me have spoken of me as a little ray of sun—But here is your father.'

Mr Warden was more than usually disappointed with Ruth during dinner. It was the same old story. So far from making herself pleasant to this attractive stranger, she seemed positively to dislike him. She was barely civil to him. With a sigh Mr Warden told himself that he did not understand Ruth, and the rosy dreams he had formed began to fade.

Ruth's ideas on the subject of Mr Vince as the days went by were chaotic. Though she told herself that she thoroughly objected to him, he had nevertheless begun to have an undeniable attraction for her. In what this attraction consisted she could not say. When she tried to analyse it, she came to the conclusion that it was due to the fact that he was the only element in her life that made for excitement. Since his advent the days had certainly passed more swiftly for her. The dead level of monotony had been broken. There was a certain fascination in exerting herself to suppress him, which increased daily as each attempt failed.

Mr Vince put this feeling into words for her. He had a maddening habit of discussing the progress of his courtship in the manner of an impartial lecturer.

'I am making headway,' he observed. 'The fact that we cannot meet without your endeavouring to plant a temperamental left jab on my spiritual solar plexus encourages me to think that you are beginning at last to understand that we are affinities. To persons of spirit like ourselves the only happy marriage is that which is based on a firm foundation of almost incessant quarrelling. The most beautiful line in English poetry, to my mind, is, "We fell out, my wife and I." You would be wretched with a husband who didn't like you to quarrel with him. The position of affairs now is that I have become necessary to you. If I went out of your life now I should leave an aching void. You would still have that beautiful punch of yours, and there would be nobody to exercise it on. You would pine away. From now on matters should, I think, move rapidly. During the course of the next week I shall endeavour to propitiate you with gifts. Here is the first of them.'

He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it her. It was a pencil-sketch, rough and unfinished, but wonderfully clever. Even Ruth could appreciate that—and she was a prejudiced observer, for the sketch was a caricature of herself. It represented her, drawn up to her full height, with enormous, scornful eyes and curling lips, and the artist had managed to combine an excellent likeness while accentuating everything that was marked in what she knew had come to be her normal expression of scorn and discontent.

'I didn't know you were an artist, Mr Vince,' she said, handing it back.

'A poor amateur. Nothing more. You may keep it.'

'I have not the slightest wish to keep it.'

'You haven't?'

'It is not in the least clever, and it is very impertinent of you to show it to me. The drawing is not funny. It is simply rude.'

'A little more,' said Mr Vince, 'and I shall begin to think you don't like it. Are you fond of chocolates?'

Ruth did not answer.

'I am sending you some tomorrow.'

'I shall return them.'

'Then I shall send some more, and some fruit. Gifts!' soliloquized Mr Vince. 'Gifts! That is the secret. Keep sending gifts. If men would only stick to gifts and quarrelling, there would be fewer bachelors.'

On the morrow, as promised, the chocolates arrived, many pounds of them in a lordly box. The bludgeoning of fate had not wholly scotched in Ruth a human weakness for sweets, and it was with a distinct effort that she wrapped the box up again and returned it to the sender. She went off to her work at the mont-de-piete with a glow of satisfaction which comes to those who exhibit an iron will in trying circumstances.

And at the mont-de-piete there occurred a surprising incident.

Surprising incidents, as Mr Vince would have said, are the zero on the roulette-board of life. They pop up disturbingly when least expected, confusing the mind and altering pre-conceived opinions. And this was a very surprising incident indeed.

Ruth, as has been stated, sat during her hours of work behind a ground-glass screen, unseen and unseeing. To her the patrons of the establishment were mere disembodied voices—wheedling voices, pathetic voices, voices that protested, voices that hectored, voices that whined, moaned, broke, appealed to the saints, and in various other ways endeavoured to instil into M. Gandinot more spacious and princely views on the subject of advancing money on property pledged. She was sitting behind her screen this morning, scribbling idly on the blotting-pad, for there had been a lull in the business, when the door opened, and the polite, 'Bonjour, monsieur,' of M. Gandinot announced the arrival of another unfortunate.

And then, shaking her like an electric shock, came a voice that she knew—the pleasant voice of Mr Vince.

The dialogues that took place on the other side of the screen were often protracted and always sordid, but none had seemed to Ruth so interminable, so hideously sordid, as this one.

Round and round its miserable centre—a silver cigarette-case—the dreary argument circled. The young man pleaded; M. Gandinot, adamant in his official role, was immovable.

Ruth could bear it no longer. She pressed her hands over her burning ears, and the voices ceased to trouble her.

And with the silence came thought, and a blaze of understanding that flashed upon her and made all things clear. She understood now why she had closed her ears.

Poverty is an acid which reacts differently on differing natures. It had reduced Mr Eugene Warden's self-respect to a minimum. Ruth's it had reared up to an abnormal growth. Her pride had become a weed that ran riot in her soul, darkening it and choking finer emotions. Perhaps it was her father's naive stratagems for the enmeshing of a wealthy husband that had produced in her at last a morbid antipathy to the idea of playing beggar-maid to any man's King Cophetua. The state of mind is intelligible. The Cophetua legend never has been told from the beggar-maid's point of view, and there must have been moments when, if a woman of spirit, she resented that monarch's somewhat condescending attitude, and felt that, secure in his wealth and magnificence, he had taken her grateful acquiescence very much for granted.

This, she saw now, was what had prejudiced her against George Vince. She had assumed that he was rich. He had conveyed the impression of being rich. And she had been on the defensive against him accordingly. Now, for the first time, she seemed to know him. A barrier had been broken down. The royal robes had proved tinsel, and no longer disguised the man she loved.

A touch on her arm aroused her. M. Gandinot was standing by her side. Terms, apparently had been agreed upon and the interview concluded, for in his hand was a silver cigarette-case.

'Dreaming, mademoiselle? I could not make you hear. The more I call to you, the more you did not answer. It is necessary to enter this loan.'

He recited the details and Ruth entered them in her ledger. This done, M. Gandinot, doffing his official self, sighed.

'It is a place of much sorrow, mademoiselle, this office. How he would not take no for an answer, that young man, recently departed. A fellow-countryman of yours, mademoiselle. You would say, "What does this young man, so well-dressed, in a mont-de-piete?" But I know better, I, Gandinot. You have an expression, you English—I heard it in Paris in a cafe, and inquired its meaning—when you say of a man that he swanks. How many young men have I seen here, admirably dressed—rich, you would say. No, no. The mont-de-piete permits no secrets. To swank, mademoiselle, what is it? To deceive the world, yes. But not the mont-de-piete. Yesterday also, when you had departed, was he here, that young man. Yet here he is once more today. He spends his money quickly, alas! that poor young swanker.'

When Ruth returned home that evening she found her father in the sitting-room, smoking a cigarette. He greeted her with effusion, but with some uneasiness—for the old gentleman had nerved himself to a delicate task. He had made up his mind tonight to speak seriously to Ruth on the subject of her unsatisfactory behaviour to Mr Vince. The more he saw of that young man the more positive was he that this was the human gold-mine for which he had been searching all these weary years. Accordingly, he threw away his cigarette, kissed Ruth on the forehead, and began to speak.

It had long been Mr Warden's opinion that, if his daughter had a fault, it was a tendency towards a quite unnecessary and highly inconvenient frankness. She had not that tact which he would have liked a daughter of his to possess. She would not evade, ignore, agree not to see. She was at times painfully blunt.

This happened now. He was warming to his subject when she interrupted him with a question.

'What makes you think Mr Vince is rich, father?' she asked.

Mr Warden was embarrassed. The subject of Mr Vince's opulence had not entered into his discourse. He had carefully avoided it. The fact that he was thinking of it and that Ruth knew that he was thinking of it, and that he knew that Ruth knew, had nothing to do with the case. The question was not in order, and it embarrassed him.

'I—why—I don't—I never said he was rich, my dear. I have no doubt that he has ample—'

'He is quite poor.'

Mr Warden's jaw fell slightly.

'Poor? But, my dear, that's absurd!' he cried. 'Why, only this evening—'

He broke off abruptly, but it was too late.

'Father, you've been borrowing money from him!'

Mr Warden drew in his breath, preparatory to an indignant denial, but he altered his mind and remained silent. As a borrower of money he had every quality but one. He had come to look on her perspicacity in this matter as a sort of second sight. It had frequently gone far to spoiling for him the triumph of success.

'And he has to pawn things to live!' Her voice trembled. 'He was at the mont-de-piete today. And yesterday too. I heard him. He was arguing with M. Gandinot—haggling—'

Her voice broke. She was sobbing helplessly. The memory of it was too raw and vivid.

Mr Warden stood motionless. Many emotions raced through his mind, but chief among them the thought that this revelation had come at a very fortunate time. An exceedingly lucky escape, he felt. He was aware, also, of a certain measure of indignation against this deceitful young man who had fraudulently imitated a gold-mine with what might have been disastrous results.

The door opened and Jeanne, the maid-of-all-work, announced Mr Vince.

He entered the room briskly.

'Good evening!' he said. 'I have brought you some more chocolates, Miss Warden, and some fruit. Great Scott! What's the matter?'

He stopped, but only for an instant. The next he had darted across the room, and, before the horrified eyes of Mr Warden, was holding Ruth in his arms. She clung to him.

Bill, the fox-terrier, over whom Mr Vince had happened to stumble, was the first to