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Idolatry - A Romance, a novel by Julian Hawthorne |
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Chapter 7. A Quarrel |
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_ CHAPTER VII. That same afternoon Mr. MacGentle put his head into the outer office and said, "Mr. Dyke, could I speak with you a moment?" Mr. Dyke scraped back his chair and went in, with his polished bald head, and square face and figure,--a block of common-sense. He was more common-sensible than usual, that afternoon, because he had so strangely forgotten himself in the morning. Mr. MacGentle was in his usual position for talking with his confidential clerk,--standing up with his back to the fireplace, and his coat-tails over his arms. Experience had taught him that this attitude was better adapted than any other to sustain the crushing weight of Mr. Dyke's sense. To have conversed with him in a sitting position would have been to lose breath and vitality before the end of five minutes. "Mr. Helwyse has thoughts of settling in Boston to practise his profession," began the President, gently. "I told him you would be likely to know what the chances are." "Profession is--what?" demanded Mr. Dyke, settling his fist on his hip. "O--doctor--physician; eye-doctor, he said, I think." "Eye-doctor? Well, Dr. Schlemm won't last the winter; may drop any day. Just the thing for Mr. Helwyse,--Dr. Helwyse." And the subject, being discussed at some length between the two gentlemen, took on a promising aspect. His house was picked out for the new incumbent, his earnings calculated, his success foretold. Two characters so diverse as were the President and his clerk united, it seems, in liking the young physician. "Married?" asked Mr. Dyke, after a pause. "Why, no,--no; and he doesn't seem inclined to marry. But he is quite young; perhaps he may, later on in life, Mr. Dyke." The elderly clerk straightened his mouth. "Matter of taste--and policy. Gives solidity,--position;--and is an expense and a responsibility." Mr. Dyke himself was well known to be the husband of an idolized wife, and the father of a despotic family. "He never had the advantage of woman's influence in his childhood, you know. His poor mother died in giving him and his sister birth; and the sister was lost,--stolen away, two or three years later. He does not appreciate woman at her true value," murmured MacGentle. "Stolen away? His sister died in infancy,--so I understood, sir," said the clerk, whose versions of past events were apt to differ from the President's. But the President--perhaps because he was conscious that his memory regarding things of recent occurrence was treacherous--was abnormally sensitive as to the correctness of his more distant reminiscences. "O no, she was stolen,--stolen by her nurse, just before Thor Helwyse went to Europe, I think," said he. "Beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Dyke, with an iron smile; "died,--burnt to death in her first year,--yes, sir!" "Mr. Dyke," rejoined MacGentle, dignifiedly, lifting his chin high above his stock, "I have myself seen the little girl, then in her third year, pulling her brother's hair on the nursery floor. She was dark-eyed,--a very lovely child. As to the burning, I now recollect that when the house in Brooklyn took fire, the child was in danger, but was rescued by her nurse, who herself received very severe injuries." Mr. Dyke heaved a long, deliberate sigh, and allowed his eyes to wander slowly round the room, before replying. "You are not a family man, Mr. MacGentle, sir! Don't blame you, sir! Your memory, perhaps--But no matter! The nurse who stole the child was, I presume, the same who rescued her from the fire?" Mr. Dyke perhaps intended to give a delicately ironical emphasis to this question, but his irony was apt to be a rather unwieldy and unmistakable affair. The truth was, he was a little staggered by the President's circumstantial statement; whence his deliberation, and his not entirely pertinent rejoinder about "a family man." "And why not the same, sir? I ask you, why not the same?" demanded Mr. MacGentle, with slender imperiousness. But, by this time, Mr. Dyke had thought of a new argument. "The little girl, I understood you to say, was dark? Since she was the twin-sister of one of Mr. Balder Helwyse's complexion, that is odd, Mr. MacGentle,--odd, sir." And the solid family man fixed his sharp brown eyes full upon the unsubstantial bachelor. The latter's delicate nostrils expanded, and a pink flush rose to his faded cheeks. He was now as haughty and superb as a paladin. "I will discuss business subjects with my subordinates, Mr. Dyke; not other subjects, if you please! This dispute was not begun by me. Let it be carried no further, sir! Twins are not necessarily, nor invariably, of the same complexion. Let nothing more be said, Mr. Dyke. I trust the little girl may yet be found and restored to her family--to--to her brother! I trust she may yet be found, sir!" And he glared at Mr. Dyke aggressively. "I trust you may live to see it, Mr. MacGentle, sir!" said the confidential clerk, shifting his ground in a truly masterly manner; and before the President could recover, he had bowed and gone out. Ten minutes afterwards MacGentle opened the door, and lo! Dyke himself on the threshold. "Mr. Dyke!" "Mr. MacGentle!" in the same breath. "I--Mr. Dyke, let me apologize for my asperity,--for my rudeness," says MacGentle, stepping forward and holding out his thin white hand, his eyebrows more raised than ever, the corners of his mouth more depressed. "I am sincerely sorry that--that--" "O sir!" cries the square clerk, grasping the thin hand in both his square palms; "O sir! O sir! No, no!--no, no! I was just coming to beg you--My fault,--my fault, Mr. MacGentle, sir! No, no!" Thus incoherently ended the quarrel between these two old friends, the dispute being left undecided. But the important point was established that Balder Helwyse was insured a practice in Boston, in case his uncle Glyphic's fortune failed to enrich him. _ |
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