The Right Man
by
I
“He hasn’t proposed, then?”
“No; he hasn’t.” A pause; then, reluctantly: “I haven’t given him the opportunity.”
“Violet! Do you want to starve?”
The speaker turned in his chair, and looked at the girl bending over the fire, with a quick, impatient frown on his handsome face. They were twins, these two, the only representatives of a family that had been wealthy three generations before them, but whose resources had dwindled steadily under the management of three successive spendthrifts, and had finally disappeared altogether in a desperate speculation which had promised to restore everything.
“You don’t seem to realise,” the young man said, “that we are absolutely penniless–destitute. Everything is sunk in this Winhalla Railway scheme, up to the last penny. It seemed a gorgeous chance at the time. It ought to have brought in thousands. It would have done, too, if it had been properly supported. But it’s no good talking about that. It’s just a gigantic failure, or, if it ever does succeed, it will come too late to help us. Just our infernal luck! And now the question is, what is going to be done? You’ll have to marry that fellow, Violet. It’s absolutely the only thing for you to do. And I–I suppose I must emigrate.”
The girl did not turn her head. There was something tense about her attitude.
“I could emigrate too, Jerry,” she said, in a low voice.
“You!” Her brother turned more fully round. “You!” he said again. “Are you mad, I wonder?”
She made a slight gesture of protest.
“Why shouldn’t I?” she said. “At least, we should be together.”
He uttered a grim laugh, and rose.
“Look here, Violet,” he said, and took her lightly by the shoulders. “Don’t be a little fool! You know as well as I do that you weren’t made to rough it. The suggestion is so absurd that it isn’t worth discussion. You’ll have to marry Kenyon. It’s as plain as daylight; and I only wish my perplexities were as easily solved. Come! He isn’t such a bad sort; and, anyhow, he’s better than starvation.”
The girl stood up slowly and faced him. Her eyes were wild, like the eyes of a hunted creature.
“I hate him, Jerry! I hate him!” she declared vehemently.
“Nonsense!” said Jerry. “He’s no worse than a hundred others. You’d hate any one under these abominable circumstances!”
She shuddered, as if in confirmation of this statement.
“I’d rather do anything,” she said; “anything, down to selling matches in the gutter.”
“Which isn’t a practical point of view,” pointed out Jerry. “You would get pneumonia with the first east wind, and die.”
“Well, then, I’d rather die.” The girl’s voice trembled with the intensity of her preference. But her brother frowned again at the words.
“Don’t!” he said abruptly. “For Heaven’s sake, don’t be unreasonable! Can’t you see that it’s my greatest worry to get you provided for? You must marry. You can’t live on charity.”
Her cheeks flamed.
“But I can work,” she began. “I can—-“
He interrupted her impatiently.
“You can’t. You haven’t the strength, and probably not the ability either. It’s no use talking this sort of rot. It’s simply silly, and makes things worse for both of us. It’s all very well to say you’d rather starve, but when it comes to starving, as it will–as it must–you’ll think differently. Look here, old girl: if you won’t marry this fellow for your own sake, do it for mine. I hate it just as much as you do. But it’s bearable, at least. And–there are some things I can’t bear.”
He stopped. She was clinging to him closely, beseechingly; but he stood firm and unyielding, his young face set in hard lines.
“Will you do it?” he said, as she did not speak.
“Jerry!” she said imploringly.
He stiffened to meet the appeal he dreaded. But it did not come. Her eyes were raised to his, and she seemed to read there the futility of argument. She remained absolutely still for some seconds, then abruptly she turned from him and burst into tears.