Bessie's Fortune

"It is only a loan. You can pay me some time when your ship comes in, and really I have more than I know what to do with."

This was always Lord Hardy's argument, to which Daisy yielded, and went on piling up the debt which she insisted would be paid in some way, and her thoughts always turned to the old aunt in America, through whom relief must some day come. But Archie knew better, and their indebtedness to Lord Hardy filled him with shame, just as Daisy's intimacy with the young man filled him with disgust, though he had perfect faith in the Irishman, whose worst fault was an open and hearty admiration for a married woman; and, to a certain extent, he had faith in Daisy, who, much as she might compromise her good name by flirtation, would never break her marriage vow in the letter, even if she did in spirit. In a way she would be true to him always, but the world did not know her as he did, and he knew perfectly well how she was talked about and her frivolous conduct commented upon by such people as Lady Jane and her set. But he could not help himself. Daisy was master, and he submitted, with a feeling of humiliation which showed itself upon his face and made him very quiet and ill at ease, except when Bessie was with him. There was something about Bessie which restored his self-respect and made a man of him, Bessie was his all, and to himself he had made a vow that she should not follow in the footsteps of her mother.

"I will kill her first," he said, with clenched fists and flashing eyes, and Daisy would never have known him could she have seen him when, as was often the case, he went over by himself what he would say to her if he ever got his courage up.

Taking a chair for his auditor, he would gesticulate fiercely, and declare that he would not stand it any longer. "Daisy McPherson," he would say, addressing himself to the chair, "I tell you what it is. I am ashamed of myself, and of you, too, and I am going to stop it, and take you home, and be master of my own house, and if we cannot live on our small income, you can take up your dead mother's trade and make dresses, and, by Jove, I'll help you, too! I'll keep the books, and--and--"

Here he would stop, not knowing exactly what else he would do, for work was something to which he did not take kindly.