The Imaginary Marriage. Henry St. John Cooper
suppose you could; you are a friend of hers?"
He nodded.
"Well, I don't know that it is usual for visitors to call on lady clerks. If I might make a suggestion I'd say send in your card to Mr. Slotman, and ask his permission to see Miss Meredyth."
"Thanks!" Hugh said. "If that's the right thing to do, I'll do it."
Half an hour later Mr. Slotman was examining Hugh's card.
"Who is he?"
"A tall, well-dressed gentleman, sir; young. Looks as if he's up from the country, but he's a gentleman all right," the clerk said.
"Very good, I'll see him."
Slotman rose as Hugh came in. He recognised the man of position and possessions, a man of the class that Slotman always cultivated.
"I wish to ask your permission to interview Miss Meredyth. I understand that, in business hours, the permission of the employer should be asked first."
"Delighted!" Slotman said. "You are a friend of Miss Meredyth's?" He looked keenly at Hugh, and the first spark of jealousy was ignited in his system.
"Hardly that, an acquaintance only," said Hugh.
Slotman felt relieved.
"Miss Meredyth is in the outer general office. You could hardly talk to her there. If you will sit down, I will go out and send her to you, Mr.—Alston." He glanced at the card.
"Thanks, perhaps you would be so kind as not to mention my name to her," said Hugh.
"Something up!" Slotman thought. He was an eminently suspicious man; he suspected everyone, and more particularly all those who were in his pay. He suspected his clerks of wasting their time—his time, the time he paid for. He suspected them of filching the petty cash, stealing the postage stamps, cheating him and getting the better of him in some way, and in order to keep a watch on them he had riddled his suite of offices with peepholes, listening holes, and spyholes in every unlikely corner.
A small waiting office divided his private apartment from the General Office, and peepholes cunningly contrived permitted anyone to hear and see all that passed in the General Office, and in his own office too.
He found a young clerk in the waiting office, and sent him to Miss Meredyth.
"Ask Miss Meredyth to go to my office at once, not through this way, and then you remain in the General Office till I send for you," said Slotman.
This gave him the advantage he wanted. He locked both doors leading into the waiting office, and took up his position at the spyhole that gave him command of his own office.
He could see his visitor plainly. Hugh Alston was pacing the room slowly, his hands behind his back, his face wearing a look of worry. Slotman saw him pause and turn expectantly to the door at the far end of the room.
Slotman could not see this door, but he heard it open, and he knew by the look on the man's face that Joan had come in.
"Why are you here? How dare you follow me here?"
"I have dared to follow you here, to express my deep regret for what is past," Hugh said. He looked at the girl, her white face, the hard line made by a mouth that should be sweet and gentle.
It seemed, he thought, that the very sight of him roused all that was cold and bitter in her nature.
"Am I to be tormented and insulted by you all my life?" she asked.
"You are unreasonable! You cannot think that this visit is one that gives me any pleasure," Hugh said.
"Then why do you come?"
"I asked permission of your employer to see you, and he kindly placed his office at our disposal. I shall not keep you long."
"I do not intend that you shall, and in future—"
"Will you hear what I have to say? Surely I am not asking too much?"
"Is it necessary?"
"To me, very! I wish to make a few things plain to you. In the past—I had no intention of hurting or of disgracing you—"
Slotman started, and clenched his hands. What did that man mean? He wondered, what could such words as those mean?
"But as I have shamed and angered you, I have come to offer the only reparation in my power—a poor one, I will admit."
He looked at her, paused for a moment to give her an opportunity of speaking, but she did not speak. She looked at him steadily.
"May I briefly explain my position? I am practically alone in the world. My home is at Hurst Dormer, one of the finest old buildings in Sussex. I have an income of eight thousand a year."
"What has this to do with me?"
"Only that I am offering it to you, myself and all I possess. I am asking you to do me the honour of marrying me. It seems to me that it is the one and the only atonement that I can make for what has passed."
"You are—very generous! And—and you think that I would accept?"
"I hoped that you might consider the offer."
Slotman gripped at the edge of the table against which he leaned.
He could scarcely believe his own ears—Joan, who had held her head so high, whom he had believed to be above the breath of suspicion!
If it were possible for such a man as Mr. Philip Slotman to be shocked, then Slotman was deeply shocked at this moment. He had come to regard Joan as something infinitely superior to himself. Self-indulgent, a libertine, he had pursued her with his attentions, pestered her with his admiration and his offensive compliments. Then it had slowly dawned on the brain of Mr. Philip Slotman that this girl was something better, higher, purer than most women he had known. He had come to realise it little by little. His feelings towards her had undergone a change. The idea of marriage had come to him, a thing he had never considered seriously before. Little by little it grew on him that he would prefer to have Joan Meredyth for a wife rather than in any other capacity. He could have been so proud of her beauty, her birth and her breeding.
And now everything had undergone a change. The bottom had fallen out of his little world of romance. He stood there, gasping and clutching at the edge of the table, while he listened to the man in the adjoining room offering marriage to Joan Meredyth "as the only possible atonement" he could make her!
Naturally, Mr. Philip Slotman could not understand in the least why or wherefore; it was beyond his comprehension.
And now he stood listening eagerly, holding his breath waiting for her answer.
Would she take him, this evidently rich man? If so, then good-bye to all his hopes, all his chances.
Within the room the two faced one another in momentary silence. A flush had come into the girl's cheeks, making her adorable. For an instant the coldness and hardness and bitterness were all gone, and Hugh Alston had a momentary glimpse of the real woman, the woman who was neither hard, nor cold, but was womanly and sweet and tender.
And then she was her old self again, the bitterness and the anger had come back.
"I thank you for making everything so clear to me, your wealth and position and your desire to make—to make amends for the insult and the shame you have put on me. I need hardly say of course that I refuse!"
"Why?"
"Did you ever expect me to accept? I think you did not!"
She gave him a slight inclination of the head and, turning, went out of the room, and Hugh Alston stood staring at the door that had closed on her.
CHAPTER VIII