It’s Rastus’ fault. He snores so!”
Mr. McEachern regarded the erring bull-dog sternly.
“Why do you have the brutes in your room?”
“Why, to keep the boogaboos from getting me, of course. Aren’t you
afraid of the boogaboos getting you? But you’re so big, you wouldn’t
mind. You’d just hit them. And they’re not brutes–are you,
darlings? You’re angels, and you nearly burst yourselves with joy
because auntie had come back from England, didn’t you? Father, did
they miss me when I was gone? Did they pine away?”
“They got like skeletons. We all did.”
“You?”
“I should say so.”
“Then, why did you send me away to England?”
“I wanted you to see the country. Did you like it?”
“I hated being away from you.”
“But you liked the country?”
“I loved it.”
McEachern drew a breath of relief. The only possible obstacle to the
great change did not exist.
“How would you like to go back to England, Molly?”
“To England! When I’ve just come home?”
“If I went, too?”
Molly twisted around so that she could see his face better.
“There’s something the matter with you, father. You’re trying to say
something, and I want to know what it is. Tell me quick, or I’ll
make Rastus bite you!”
“It won’t take long, dear. I’ve been lucky in some investments while
you were away, and I’m going to leave the force, and take you over
to England, and find a prince for you to marry–if you think you
would like it.”
“Father! It’ll be perfectly splendid!”
“We’ll start fair in England, Molly. I’ll just be John McEachern,
from America, and, if anybody wants to know anything about me, I’m a
man who has made money on Wall Street–and that’s no lie–and has
come over to England to spend it.”
Molly gave his arm a squeeze. Her eyes were wet.
“Father, dear,” she whispered, “I believe you’ve been doing it all
for me. You’ve been slaving away for me ever since I was born,
stinting yourself and saving money just so that I could have a good
time later on.”
“No, no!”
“It’s true,” she said. She turned on him with a tremulous laugh. “I
don’t believe you’ve had enough to eat for years. I believe you’re
all skin and bone. Never mind. To-morrow, I’ll take you out and buy
you the best dinner you’ve ever had, out of my own money. We’ll go
to Sherry’s, and you shall start at the top of the menu, and go
straight down it till you’ve had enough.”
“That will make up for everything. And, now, don’t you think you
ought to be going to bed? You’ll be losing all that color you got on
the ship.”
“Soon–not just yet. I haven’t seen you for such ages!” She pointed
at the bull-terrier. “Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He
can’t believe I’ve really come back. Father, there was a man on the
Lusitania with eyes exactly like Tommy’s–all brown and bright–and
he used to stand and stare just like Tommy’s doing.”
“If I had been there,” said her father wrathfully, “I’d have knocked
his head off.”
“No, you wouldn’t, because I’m sure he was really a very nice young
man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn’t
have got at him to knock his head off, because he was traveling
second-class.”
“Second-class? Then, you didn’t talk with him?”
“We couldn’t. You wouldn’t expect him to shout at me across the
railing! Only, whenever I walked round the deck, he seemed to be
there.”
“Staring!”
“He may not have been staring at me. Probably, he was just looking
the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I
don’t think you can make much of a romance out of it, father.”
“I don’t want to, my dear. Princes don’t travel in the second-
cabin.”
“He may have been a prince in disguise.”
“More likely a drummer,” grunted Mr. McEachern.
“Drummers are often quite nice, aren’t they?”
“Princes are nicer.”
“Well, I’ll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of.
Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can’t you