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American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section
Fixing It for j
Pi
F. HarnYDcans
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* v
“No,” I
agreed, “it’s not
her fault, it’s her
fortune.”
“Misfortune?”
murmured Mrs.
Veralour, who
never, by any
chance, listens to
what I say,“well,
I don’t know
about that. Still,
. ... As I was
saying, Jimmy
used to come
round and tell
me all about it,
and I promised to
help him.”
“Mrs. Vera
lour,” I said, in-
d i g n a n 11 y ,
“you’re always
matchmaking.
It’s abominable.
You don’t deserve
to be a widow.”
“ I promised to
help him,” re
peated Mrs. Vera
lour, firmly, deaf
to my remark.
“He wanted
rather a lot of
helping,” she added, reflectively
•' V- . 4
“ Then, as soon as I heard her voice, I gave the door a push
he was so awfully
SAW Jimmy this morning,” 1
mentioned, casually.
“Yes?” said Mrs. Veralour.
“ Yes. I think we shall have to
take to calling him James. The
hand of Time seems to have given
him a sudden, fearful blow. He
looked as if he had seen trouble
through a microscope. Has anybody left him money,
do you know? ”
“Money! Good gracious, no.”
“ Poor old chap. Then he must have lost his
little all.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Mrs. Veralour,
tapping her foot impatiently. “Why must it be one
or the other?”
“Well,” I said, “anybody could see it was money
trouble of some sort. He had the appearance of
being a pauper trying to look like a millionaire, or
else a millionaire disguised as a pauper. His clothes
have aged frightfully during the last few days. In
fact you could hardly call them clothes, they were
merely emblems of civilization.”
Mrs. Veralour seemed about to speak, and
then changing her mind, put her hand in front
of her mouth and converted her remark into a
yawn.
“Or else it’s love,” I murmured, gazing dreamily
into the fire.
Mrs. Veralour said nothing. Taking a cigarette
from the box, she tapped it uncertainly on the back
of her hand.
“Of course,” she said, at last, with somewhat
superfluous frankness, "1—1 make mistakes some
times.”
.“If you didn’t make mistakes,” I said, seeking to
console her, “you’d have wings.”
Mrs. Veralour regarded me with the air of deep
suspicion with which she invariably receives my
rare compliments.
I nodded re-assuringly, however.
“What’s the matter with you to-day,” she de
manded; “why this—this graciousness?”
“It was the opportunity for being bright that led
me on,” I explained, apologetically. “I never can
withstand it, even at the risk of giving pleasure. Hut
weren’t you going to tell me something about Jimmy,
and what turned him into a James?”
“ Ve-yes,” she said. “ You know Florence Apple-
ton, don’t you? Oh, but of course you do, she re
fused you once, didn’t she? ”
“ It’s not true,” I cried, “she didn’t refuse me—she
advised me not to. She said she wasn’t suited to
me.”
“Mm,” said Mrs. Veralour. “Well, anyhow,
Jimmy was frightfully gone on her. He worshipped
the very ground she trod on.”
“I can believe it,” 1 declared. “She owned most
of it, didn’t she? How much did her father leave
her?”
“Oh, Jimmy wasn’t mercenary,” said Mrs. Vera
lour, emphatically, “his worst friend couldn’t call
him that.”
“No,” I admitted, “Jimmy was never anything
he ought to be, but to give him his due, he was never
anything he oughtn’t to be."
“He used to come round here every afternoon and
tell me how much he loved her,” she went on.
“What a ridiculous thing to do. It would have
been considerably more sensible for him to have
gone round and told the girl how much he loved
y y
you.
“What?” ejaculated Mrs. Veralour, with a laugh
that was nearly a shriek. “Mr. Blake, what an
extraordinary thing to say.”
“Well,” I said, “isn’t the next best thing to telling
a girl you love her, to tell her you don’t? Especially
a girl so sought after as Florence Appleton. She’d
immediately begin to wonder what was the matter
with him.”
“M'yes,” said Mrs. Veralour, “I suppose she is
inclined to think that every man is in love with her;
but then she’s got such hordes of admirers, it’s really
not the girl’s fault.”
shy. Fancy a man being shy!”
“Why not, somebody’s got to be. What did you
do? I suppose you praised him up to the skies to her.”
Mrs. Veralour looked at me with an air of mild
amusement.
“My dear Mr. Blake, is your grandmother still
alive?”
“Eh? Yes. Why?”
“Oh, I was only wondering where you got all your
old fashioned ideas from. Of course, I didn’t praise
him. I ran him down. I used to go round and tell
her most frightful stories about him. I warned her
against him. Once you warn a girl against a man
you’ve wasted your time. It’s like putting a ‘ Dan
gerous’ notice up on a sheet of ice: everybody goes
to see why it was put there.”
“Oh,” I said, weakly, “I have had many a ducking
myself.”
“The best reputation a man can have,” she pur
sued, “is not to have one. The worst of it was,
Jimmy wouldn’t live down to his reputation.”
“And so,” I mused with wonderful insight, “you
planned to put a ‘Dangerous’ signal round about
Jimmy.”
“If you get to be clever, my dear Mr. Blake, you
will lose your last claim to popularity; yet I must
admit you have fathomed my aim.” Mrs. Veralour
was now too interested to yawn.
“Fancy Jimmie in the ‘Dangerous’ class,” I
chuckled.
“ Every man has some dangerous element about
him; the trouble is, so few of them recognize this;
why even you might become almost dangerous—
“ You flatter me, dear Mrs. Veralour,” I inter
rupted.
“All men must be flattered, but to get back to
Jimmy, it seemed he couldn’t even play at being
dangerous,” and Mrs. Veralour sighed.
“That must be very disheartening,” 1 said, sympa
thetically, “ when you’re doingyour worst foraman.”
“Yes, it was. Really, 1 think it was her money
he was afraid of.”
“Coward.”
“M’yes. Still, I suppose it is humiliating for a
rich girl to tell you she can never be a poor man’s
wife. However, I got him at last to promise that he
would propose if I contrived a good opportunity for
him.”
She paused for a reflective moment.
“You know the summer house in the garden,
don’t you?”
“I do,” I said, “and you know I do.”
“Yes, you do, don’t you?” she smiled. “I had a
spring lock fixed on the door. You know, one of
those that you can only open from the outside.”
“I know. I begin to see the end of this story.”
“Mm,” she said. “That’s the worst of being so
bright, nothing comes as a surprise. Well, after I
had the lock put on, I invited them both round to
lunch. Of course, I asked a lot of other people, so as
not to arouse her suspicions. They all came; one
or two girls and a lot of men—most of her horde in
fact. After lunch we all went out on the lawn.”
“Do get on, Mrs. Veralour, you’re like a feuilleton
writer on space rates. There are some things one
takes for granted.”
“I’d told Jimmy what he’d got do to.”
“Get the girl in the summer house, and then you’d
come along and snap the door on them?”
“Yes. Don’t you think being locked in a summer
house together was a good opportunity?”
“I think so. He could lead up to a proposal by
saying how he wished they could never get out
again. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
“Yes; only nothing quite so silly as that. I was
going to give them half an hour to themselves, but
after about ten minutes all the men commenced to
drift away in search of her, and I was afraid they’d
take her away from pcor Jimmy. So I hurried along
to the summer house at once.”
“Go on,” I urged, “quicken the action.”
“I listened for a minute to make sure they were
really in there, and then as soon as I heard her voice,
1 gave the door a push.”
“Congratulations. A tip-top scheme, jolly well
carried out.”
“Well, I do think so," asserted Mrs. Veralour, in
a tone curiously defensive. “ 1 1 still think so.”
“Why, of course. You don’t mean to say, when
you opened the door later on, they weren’t engaged? ”
“Oh no, they were engaged all right.”
“Good.” I paused for a moment, struck by a
sudden thought. “But look here, what was old
Jimmy looking so absolutely wretched about when I
saw him this morning?”
Mrs. Veralour hesitated, and then pulled herself
together.
“It wasn’t he in the summer house with her, after
all,” she said.