Eleven o'clock next morning found me on her doorstep, a bunch of red roses in my hand, and there, to my vast surprise, I was joined, as the maid admitted me, by Dewbury himself, also bearing a bouquet―a mass of orchids, any single bloom of which must have cost as much as all my roses put together. He appeared no less surprised to meet me, and his greeting could hardly have been more thorough in its surliness. It came to me then―as, indeed, it might have come to any fool―that Dewbury was in love with Jessie. And still I did not see light.
"She was all smiles to receive us. She took his bouquet first―he took excellent care that she should―and gushed over that costly collection of rare petals. Then she took up mine, and buried her face in the roses.
"I love roses," she vowed. "They are so warm, so sweet, so―so generous. I could surround myself with roses. Couldn't you, Mr. Dewbury?"
"I daresay," he temporised, writhing visibly.
"A rose always appeals to me as a flower with a soul―a great soul. Do you never feel like that towards it?"
"I am afraid I have never thought about it," he grunted.
"Haven't you," said she with as much horror as though he had confessed to never attending church. "Ah, but then you are not a poet," she added―which after all was not a great discovery.
"Indeed no," said I, seizing the opportunity to balance matters with him. "Mr. Dewbury follows no such useless vocation. He is no dreamer―not he. He is a utilitarian; believes in being useful in the world and all that; manufactures things."
St. Lawrence on the gridiron must have experienced sensations of positive delight when contrasted with Mr. Dewbury's feelings at that moment. Jessie took pity on him, and putting down the roses began to extol the beauty of the orchids until the smiles returned to his face.
We stayed half an hour and left together. But before we left Jessie slipped a note into my hand.
As we walked away from the house, Dewbury turned to me.
"Miss Willoughby seems to be a great friend of yours," he said sourly.
I nearly blurted out that we were "sort of brother and sister." But intuition came to the rescue.
"Oh, dear, yes," I assented, "Dear girl, Jessie, is she not?"
He looked at me in silence, and I thought there was a good deal of unnecessary contempt in his glance. Then he put up his hand to stop a passing hansom, and without displaying the manners to ask me whether he could give a lift, he bade me good morning.
When he was gone I opened Jessie's note. It suggested that I should get myself a stall at the Haymarket that night. She would be there with her cousins, the Sutfields, and she urged me to go up to their box. All this I did, and, standing behind Jessie's chair after the first act, I saw Dewbury's glowering eye raised to us from the stalls.
Two days later I again took tea at her studio. There was more or less the same crowd, and the by now inevitable Mr. Dewbury. Of course I was beginning to see light, and when I perceived that she really did like Millie's uncle―and, after all, I daresay that there was a great deal about him that was likeable and presentable―I understood what a thoroughly good sort Jessie was, and how deeply I stood in her debt.
It was a Saturday, and as I was leaving the studio, she audibly promised to meet me at Paddington at eleven o'clock next morning. Dewbury could not fail to hear and to gather, of course, that a day up the river had been planned. I left him there, and went out to dine with some friends that night. When later I got home there was a wire from Jessie commanding me not to leave my rooms on any account in the morning.
I puzzled over it, but the solution came at ten o'clock next day when Mr. Dewbury was announced.
He was very cold and very distant, and he addressed me as though I were one of the men whom he did business with.
"I have come to ask you, sir, whether you consider it consistent with honesty and dignity to write such letters as your last one to my niece while carrying on a very pronounced flirtation here with another lady."
"And may I ask you, sir," said I, in a tone that gave him back his iciness with interest, "whether you consider it consistent with the honesty and dignity to which you allude, to read letters that are addressed to somebody else?"
He bounded out of his chair at that.
"I did not read it," he exclaimed.
"Are you not rash then in passing judgement upon its contents?"
"A fool could guess them knowing the relations that existed between yourself and my niece. You don't doubt me?"
"Not for a moment," said I in tones which were meant to convey the very opposite. "May I ask, sir, how my behaviour can further concern or interest you? You have closed your house against me; you have forbidden me to see Mildred; you take care that I shall not write to her. Are you not satisfied, or is it that, taking a keen interest in my welfare, and having some notion that a literary man should be wedded only to his art, you wish to ensure for me a future of aesthetic celibacy?"
He was thoughtful for a moment. Then, instead of the anger with which I had expected him to answer me―
"It has occurred to me, Paddy," said he very mildly―and this return to the use of my sobriquet made me suddenly hopeful―"it has occurred to me that after all I may have been a trifle hasty over that Stollbridge affair."
"I daresay it was for the best," said I, whereat alarm spread itself upon his face.
"I mean that perhaps I had no right to separate you and Mildred. She will wait for you and―well, there's always a danger attached to a woman's waiting for a man. In a city like London there are so many distractions; so much may occur. I have been thinking it over, and do you know I have come to the conclusion that in matters of this kind perhaps young people themselves are the best judges, and that after all it might on the whole be wiser if I were to sanction your engagement."
"That is very good of you, sir," said I, in a perfectly colourless voice, which must have left him still uneasy.
"Supposing that I were to do so, Paddy―what course would you adopt?"
"I should return to Stollbridge and work there. As you say, there are rather many distractions in town, and a young man may find them militating against his work."
He was visibly relieved.
"My dear boy," said he, "if I have been hasty I am sure you will forgive me."
Of course I forgave him, for who could have withheld pardon under the circumstances. That very afternoon I travelled down to Stollbridge to bear Mildred the good news.
In the middle of the following week she had a wire from her uncle announcing his engagement.
"Isn't it droll?" she laughed, holding out the telegram to me, "Fancy the uncle being engaged! I shall be one of Jessie's bridesmaids."
"I think," said I, "that that is about the least we can do for Jessie."