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The Mind Reader
by
Often he had read in stories and novels of men who were too poor to marry. And he had laughed at the idea. He had always said that when two people truly love each other it does not matter whether they have money or not. But when in London, with only a five-pound note, and face to face with the actual proposition of asking Helen Carey not only to marry him but to support him, he felt that money counted for more than he had supposed. He found money was many different things–it was self-respect, and proper pride, and private honors and independence. And, lacking these things, he felt he could ask no girl to marry him, certainly not one for whom he cared as he cared for Helen Carey. Besides, while he knew how he loved her, he had no knowledge whatsoever that she loved him. She always seemed extremely glad to see him; but that might be explained in different ways. It might be that what was in her heart for him was really a sort of “old home week” feeling; that to her it was a relief to see any one who spoke her own language, who did not need to have it explained when she was jesting, and who did not think when she was speaking in perfectly satisfactory phrases that she must be talking slang.
The Ambassador and his wife had been very kind to Endicott, and, as a friend of Helen’s, had asked him often to dinner and had sent him cards for dances at which Helen was to be one of the belles and beauties. And Helen herself had been most kind, and had taken early morning walks with him in Hyde Park and through the National Galleries; and they had fed buns to the bears in the Zoo, and in doing so had laughed heartily. They thought it was because the bears were so ridiculous that they laughed. Later they appreciated that the reason they were happy was because they were together. Had the bear pit been empty, they still would have laughed.
On the evening of the thirty-first of May, Endicott had gone to bed with his ticket purchased for America and his last five-pound note to last him until the boat sailed. He was a miserable young man. He knew now that he loved Helen Carey in such a way that to put the ocean between them was liable to unseat his courage and his self-control. In London he could, each night, walk through Carlton House Terrace and, leaning against the iron rails of the Carlton Club, gaze up at her window. But, once on the other side of the ocean, that tender exercise must be abandoned. He must even consider her pursued by most attractive guardsmen, diplomats, and belted earls. He knew they could not love her as he did; he knew they could not love her for the reasons he loved her, because the fine and beautiful things in her that he saw and worshipped they did not seek, and so did not find. And yet, for lack of a few thousand dollars, he must remain silent, must put from him the best that ever came into his life, must waste the wonderful devotion he longed to give, must starve the love that he could never summon for any other woman.
On the thirty-first of May he went to sleep utterly and completely miserable. On the first of June he woke hopeless and unrefreshed.
And then the miracle came.
Prichard, the ex-butler who valeted all the young gentlemen in the house where Philip had taken chambers, brought him his breakfast. As he placed the eggs and muffins on the tables to Philip it seemed as though Prichard had said: “I am sorry he is leaving us. The next gentleman who takes these rooms may not be so open-handed. He never locked up his cigars or his whiskey. I wish he’d give me his old dress-coat. It fits me, except across the shoulders.”