But when he came out upon the terrace, Sarah Ellen Haggage stopped him—stopped him with a queer blending of diffidence and resolve in her manner.
The others, by this, had disappeared in various directions, puzzled and exceedingly uncertain what to do. Indeed, to congratulate Billy in the Colonel's presence would have been tactless; and, on the other hand, to condole with the Colonel without seeming to affront the wealthy Mr. Woods was almost impossible. So they temporised and fled—all save Mrs. Haggage.
She, alone, remained to view Mr. Woods with newly opened eyes; for as he paused impatiently—the sculptured Eagle above his head—she perceived that he was a remarkably handsome and intelligent young man.
Her motherly heart opened toward this lonely, wealthy orphan.
"My dear Billy," she cooed, with asthmatic gentleness, "as an old, old friend of your mother's, aren't you going to let me tell you how rejoiced Adèle and I are over your good fortune? It isn't polite, you naughty boy, for you to run away from your friends as soon as they've heard this wonderful news. Ah, such news it was—such a manifest intervention of Providence! My heart has been fluttering, fluttering like a little bird, Billy, ever since I heard it."
In testimony to this fact, Mrs. Haggage clasped a stodgy hand to an exceedingly capacious bosom, and exhibited the whites of her eyes freely. Her smile, however, remained unchanged and ample.
"Er—ah—oh, yes! Very kind of you, I'm sure!" said Mr. Woods.
"I never in my life saw Adèle so deeply affected by anything," Mrs. Haggage continued, with a certain large archness. "The sweet child was always so fond of you, you know, Billy. Ah, I remember distinctly hearing her speak of you many and many a time when you were in that dear, delightful, wicked Paris, and wonder when you would come back to your friends—not very grand and influential friends, Billy, but sincere, I trust, for all that."
Mr. Woods said he had no doubt of it.
"So many people," she informed him, confidentially, "will pursue you with adulation now that you are wealthy. Oh, yes, you will find that wealth makes a great difference, Billy. But not with Adèle and me—no, dear boy, despise us if you will, but my child and I are not mercenary. Money makes no difference with us; we shall be the same to you that we always were—sincerely interested in your true welfare, overjoyed at your present good fortune, prayerful as to your brilliant future, and delighted to have you drop in any evening to dinner. We do not consider money the chief blessing of life; no, don't tell me that most people are different, Billy, for I know it very well, and many is the tear that thought has cost me. We live in a very mercenary world, my dear boy; but our thoughts, at least, are set on higher things, and I trust we can afford to despise the merely temporal blessings of life, and I entreat you to remember that our humble dwelling is always open to the son of my old, old friend, and that there is always a jug of good whiskey in the cupboard."
Thus in the shadow of the Eagle babbled the woman whom—for all her absurdities—Margaret had loved as a mother.
Billy thanked her with an angry heart.
"And this"—I give you the gist of his meditations—"this is Peggy's dearest friend! Oh, Philanthropy, are thy protestations, then, all void and empty, and are thy noblest sentiments—every one of 'em—so full of sound and rhetoric, so specious, so delectable—are these, then, but dicers' oaths!"
Aloud, "I'm rather surprised, you know," he said, slowly, "that you take it just this way, Mrs. Haggage. I should have thought you'd have been sorry on—on Miss Hugonin's account. It's awfully jolly of you, of course—oh, awfully jolly, and I appreciate it at its true worth, I assure you. But it's a bit awkward, isn't it, that the poor girl will be practically penniless? I really don't know whom she'll turn to now."
Then Billy, the diplomatist, received a surprise.
"She'll come with me, of course," said Mrs. Haggage.
Mr. Woods made an—unfortunately—inaudible observation.
"I beg your pardon?" she queried. Then, obtaining no response, she continued, with perfect simplicity: "Margaret's quite like a daughter to me, you know. Of course, she and the Colonel will come with us—at least, until affairs are a bit more settled. Even afterward—well, we have a large house, Billy, and I don't see that they'd be any better off anywhere else."
Billy's emotions were complex.
"You big-hearted old parasite," his own heart was singing. "If you could only keep that ring of truth that's in your voice for your platform utterances—why, in less than no time you could afford to feed your Afro-Americans on nightingales' tongues and clothe every working-girl in the land in cloth of gold! You've been pilfering from Peggy for years—pilfering right and left with both hands! But you've loved her all the time, God bless you; and now the moment she's in trouble you're ready to take both her and the Colonel—whom, by the way, you must very cordially detest—and share your pitiful, pilfered little crusts with 'em and—having two more mouths to feed—probably pilfer a little more outrageously in the future! You're a sanctimonious old hypocrite, you are, and a pious fraud, and a delusion, and a snare, and you and Adèle have nefarious designs on me at this very moment, but I think I'd like to kiss you!"
Indeed, I believe Mr. Woods came very near doing so. She loved Peggy, you see; and he loved every one who loved her.
But he compromised by shaking hands energetically, for a matter of five minutes, and entreating to be allowed to subscribe to some of her deserving charitable enterprises—any one she might mention—and so left the old lady a little bewildered, but very much pleased.
She decided that for the future Adèle must not see so much of Mr. Van Orden. She began to fear that gentleman's views of life were not sufficiently serious.