didn't think so then. I remember well when it was proposed, you flung yourself on the floor and howled."
"So of course that settled it."
"Why, yes. You generally settled things like that. You had such a determined way, dear. But you were born knowing more than many studious, uninteresting young men have forgotten. Then, your South African career! It was like a romance. You, who had been crammed, oh, ever so little, for Sandhurst, and then left there to go to the war when you were a mere child, hardly nineteen – so brave! And then, the Thing you did on the battlefield! Of course you ought to have had the Victoria Cross, but as it was, the newspapers rang with your praises, and I was besieged for your photographs to publish. That deed alone would have made you a personage of consideration, even without your rank."
"I've told you lots of times, Mater, the whole thing was a sort of accident. I couldn't bear the chap. If I'd stopped to think, I don't believe I'd have run back a step to drag him out from under fire. But I was there, hauling him away, before I knew what I was doing."
"Yes, you have told me – and other people. But no one believes you. How could they? They see it's your modesty." (Lord Loveland's mother was perhaps the one person on earth who would have attributed to him this quality.) "And as for disliking the young man whose life you saved at the risk of your own, of course that proves you all the more noble. Everybody must see that."
"Oh, well, it's a jolly good thing for me if they do," said Val, mechanically passing his hand over the scar on his forehead, which became him like a hall mark or a halo. It, together with the South African brown that never quite faded, had made him still more ornamental in the eyes of the pretty young married women with whom he was popular. Also in the eyes of girls, who liked to dance and flirt with Lord Loveland, even though they preferred to marry Dukes and Princes. "But what are you working up to so elaborately, Mater?"
"To your Prospects. There's no young man so liked and wanted everywhere."
"Oh, I'm fair at polo: I can ride straight, and shoot a bit," said Loveland with a pretence at self-depreciation he was far from feeling. "I get asked to all the amusing house parties. But you know as well as I do, that stopping at such places is a lot more expensive than swaggering about at the most expensive hotels in Europe."
"I know, dearest," sighed the devoted lady who by industrious spoiling had made him what he was. "I was only going on to say that you are a personage of importance; never think you're not. As for the two or three wretched girls who have hurled themselves at the heads of princes, when they might have had you – why, our English heiresses are growing disgustingly conceited and ambitious, quite unmaidenly, and let them regret their mistakes – you needn't. Val, you want my advice. Well, I've had an inspiration, I do believe, a real inspiration. Why don't you go to America?"
"To try ranching?"
"Good Heavens, no, my son! To try marrying. In America you'll succeed brilliantly. Why not run over and see what there is?"
She spoke as if to see meant to have, notwithstanding certain failures nearer home. But Loveland's sense of humour, which had a real existence, did not always bestir itself when his own affairs were in question. When things come too close to the eye, one is apt to lose the point of view. And Loveland did not laugh at his mother's suggestion.
"Oh, girls!" he said, distastefully. "Why go there for them? Plenty come over here to collect us."
"Ye – es. But think of the competition. There are still unmarried Dukes. It's so annoying, there always seem to be Dukes, and foreign semi-Royalties who might better stop in their own countries than prowl about ours, seeking what they may devour."
"That's what you propose my doing in the States."
"Oh, that's different. The Americans would be the foreigners, not you."
"They don't look on themselves in that light."
"Let them look at you – the girls I mean – in any light, there, on their native heath, where practically no competition can exist. For who ever heard of an American heiress marrying an American man?"
"I suppose it must happen sometimes," said Val.
"It's never in the newspapers. No, dearest, I believe that is why, according to statistics, there are so many more men than women in the States. The girls marry our men. And really some of them are quite presentable."
If any one of three or four beautiful and charming Duchesses had heard the tone in which old Lady Loveland said this, she would have laughed or sneered, according to her mood.
"Do you know many Americans, Val?" his mother went on, thoughtfully.
"Hardly any except Jim Harborough, and – er – his cousin who has married Stanforth."
(This was another instance of a misguided young woman who preferred a Duke to the Marquis. Therefore she remained nameless between mother and son.)
"Mr. Harborough would, I suppose, give you letters of introduction to the Right People over there?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose he would. He doesn't approve of me; but he couldn't refuse letters to his wife's cousin."
"Doesn't approve of you, indeed! What impertinence! But perhaps he's jealous, and thinks you were once in love with Betty. I feared it myself before she paid that visit to the States which turned out such a success. Just as I'm sure yours would, if you went."
"I never was in love with Betty. First cousins are a bit too near to be interesting. One's generally known them since the stage when they were silly over dolls. Besides, Betty looks too much like me. I don't care for yellow-haired, blue-eyed girls."
"It's just as well you didn't care for Betty. Such a marriage would have been disastrous. But she's a sweet girl, and must have made a good many friends in the States. There was the young woman Mohunsleigh married, for instance. I believe he met her through Betty. Oh, Val, you really ought to go over. I'm sure you'd be the greatest success."
"Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea," Loveland patronized his mother's inspiration. "Of course Harborough and Betty would both give me letters. If I had to marry – horrid bore, at my age! – and could afford to choose, I'd take an English girl of the right sort. But Americans are a lot better than English ones of the wrong sort; middle class mushrooms who've shot up in a night – on the strength of Pale Pills for Pink People, or Corsets, or Disinfectants. If a man's a beggar he must be content with the wine and wives of the country where he begs. American girls, no matter what they've sprung from, seem adaptable; and anyhow, people are tolerant of any queer ways they may have."
"That's true," agreed Lady Loveland, who had never in her life spoken to an American girl, but was now eager to become Dowager for the sake of a desirable one. "If you went to New York – or somewhere – you'd see enough girls to feel you were picking out the best. Oh, you would virtually have a clear coast! And judging from novels I've read, everybody in American society would be fighting for the honour of entertaining you, racking their brains to get up the most wonderful spectacles for your amusement."
"They wouldn't amuse me," said Loveland, in the blasé way he had cultivated since he came back a wounded hero of nineteen, in the last year of the South African war. "I should be there purely on business." But though he spoke like a tired man of forty rather than a happy and healthy one of twenty-six or seven, he was beginning to lean towards his mother's advice. He could easily get long leave. He had a couple of months due to him. During a tour of inspection in the States he would be free from all the bills that flesh is heir to, as he would have no settled address, until the "business"
