CHAPTER XXI.
"I LIKE HER BETTER THAN ANY I HAVE MET--I SHALL MARRY HER."
Kendale was clever and quick of resource. He realized that there must besudden action on his part. Should he fly headlong from the place andgive up all? Then a remembrance of the yacht and the horses came to him,and he set his teeth hard together.
"I will see this game through, come what may," he muttered.
At that instant a daring thought came to him, and he acted upon itbefore he could have time to back down through cowardice.
Throwing open the window wide, he stepped boldly out upon the ledge infull view of the angry crowd of five hundred employees.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he exclaimed, raising his voice to a high keythat all might hear, "I have something to say, and it is only due methat you should listen and then pass judgment.
"Please believe me, one and all, I had no thought, no wish to offend Mr.Conway's pretty daughter Margery. I may as well own the truth. I hadfallen desperately in love with the girl and was telling her so, and wasjust on the point of asking her to accept me as a suitor for her handwhen she, mistaking my motives, it appears, called for assistance, and Iwas not permitted to speak in order to explain.
"Assuring her and all of you that my motives were most honorable, I begof you to reconsider leaving me in this abrupt fashion. Return to yourposts of duty, and this little difficulty will be adjustedsatisfactorily to you and to Miss Conway."
Kendale was used to making a hit with an audience--used to throwing hissoul, as it were, into anything he had to say.
The effect on the crowd below was magical; for a moment they werestunned.
The old cashier was almost stunned. The young millionaire was just aboutproposing marriage to Margery! Why, what a mistake he had made--what aterrible mistake! Even Margery had fallen back a step or two and wasclinging to her father's hand in the greatest amazement.
"I--I think I was mad, friends and fellow-workers," he exclaimed,huskily. "I believe I was too precipitate in this affair.
"It is so long since I was young I--I had forgotten that it is thecustom of men now, as in the years long since gone by, to speak to amaiden of love before he said anything of marriage.
"It did not occur to me that the great millionaire wanted my little girlfor his wife, as he now says.
"Hear me, friends, one and all. I most heartily regret causing thisdisturbance and I move that we return to our places, as our employersuggests."
There was a murmur of assent among the throng; then, all in a body, theymoved forward, entering the building again; and in less than fiveminutes' time matters were moving on quite as smoothly once more asthough no sudden upheaval had ever occurred in the great dry goodsestablishment.
Mr. Conway, however, was too upset to attend further to his duties thatafternoon, and accepted the manager's suggestion that he should go tohis home, Margery accompanying him.
Meanwhile Kendale had thrown himself down into the nearest chair,breathing hard, feeling like a general who had achieved a most wonderfulvictory.
"A few soft, silvery words saved me this time," he muttered, "but itthrows the girl on my hands. Well, I suppose I will have to proposemarriage to her now--every one expects it; there would be a terriblerumpus kicked up if I did not. Well, let there be an engagement betweenus; that doesn't mean that there will be a marriage, by any means. Theengagement can drag along three or four years, and then we can breakoff. By that time I shall be ready to marry the heiress of the Fairfaxmillions. Ah, how much easier it is to scheme for a fortune than to toilfor one, as most poor mortals do."
The entrance of the manager with the bill for the hundred andtwenty-five thousand put an end to his musings and plans for thepresent. Mr. Wright emerged from the office ten minutes later with avery troubled expression on his face. It was dearly patent to him thatMr. Lester Armstrong did not care how badly the business was crippled,so long as he secured the yacht and the fast horses.
From that first day, so full of awkward and almost fatal mistakes,Kendale spent as little time as was absolutely necessary in theestablishment of Marsh & Company, as it was still called, preferring tolet all of the business cares fall upon the manager's already weightedshoulders.
In less than a week it was noised about social circles that the youngman who had so suddenly dropped into millions of money was something ofa sport--a yachtsman whose magnificent yachting parties were the wonderof the metropolis; a horseman whose racing stables were second to noneand were worth a handsome fortune; and it was hinted that he seemed nostranger at cards and gambled sums of gold that would have purchased aking's ransom at a single game--until those who looked on in speechlesswonder were sure he must have exhaustless wealth. Every one prophesied,however, that this reckless extravagance must have an ending some time.Meanwhile society held out its arms to the young millionaire, welcominghim with its sweetest smiles.
The date which he had set to dine with the Fairfaxes, of Beechwood,rolled around at last, and for once in his life Kendale, or rather thebogus Lester Armstrong, was punctual in his appointment.
He was ushered into a drawing-room of such magnificence that for amoment he fairly caught his breath in wonder.
"So this was the home of Faynie Fairfax, the girl whom I wedded in theold church and who died so suddenly on her bridal eve," he soliloquized."Well, all this could be mine for the fighting for it as Faynie'shusband, who has survived her, but, as Halloran would say, 'It's a dealeasier getting the same fortune by marrying the stepmother's daughter,who has come into it by Faynie's father cutting her off at the eleventhhour.'
"I wonder what the girl Claire is like."
There was a portrait of a young girl done in water colors over themantel. He stepped over to examine it.
"If this is Claire's portrait she's certainly not bad looking," hemused, "but she is one I should not care to cross."
The figure was slight, draped in a gown of some light, airy fabric. Thehead was small, crowned in a mass of waving dark hair. The contour ofthe face was perfect; a pair of deep gray eyes looked out of it straightat you; the lips were small, but a little too compressed, showing thatthe owner of them had certainly a will of her own, which it was neitherwise nor best to cross.
He was startled from his contemplation by the sound of silken robesrustling across the carpet, and, wheeling suddenly about, he wasconfronted by a tall, slim, magnificent woman, who welcomed him mostgraciously to Fairfax House.
"My daughter Claire will join us in a very few minutes. Ah, she is herenow," she announced, as a swift step was heard in the corridor outside;a moment later the portieres parted, and the young girl whose portraithe had been critically analyzing entered the room.
"I shall know at once by the first words he utters whether I shall likehim or not," thought the girl, looking straight into his face with herfearless, keen, gray eyes. "He is handsome, and that generally goes withgreat conceit, Faynie always said."
"I hope we shall be friends, Miss Fairfax," he said, extending his handand bowing low over the little brown one that lay for an instant in hispalm.
"There is a great mistake evident at the outset," said the girl, lookingup into his face. "Mamma said just now: 'This is my daughter Claire.' Ithink mamma intended to add, 'Miss Claire Stanhope.' Mr. Fairfax was mysteppapa."
Kendale smiled amusedly, both at the mother's momentary discomfitureand the young girl's brusque straightforwardness.
"I like her better than any one I have ever met. I shall marry her," hepromised himself.
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