But, as Sarah explained to her, such men could never be husbands. They
might be lovers, if one was fortunate enough to move in their sphere,
but husbands--never! and there was no use Theodora protesting this
violent devotion to darling papa, if she could not do a small thing like
marrying Josiah Brown for him!
Theodora's beautiful mother, dead in the first year of her runaway
marriage, had been the daughter of a stiff-necked, unforgiving old earl;
she had bequeathed her child, besides these gentian eyes and wonderful,
silvery blond hair, a warm, generous heart and a more or less romantic
temperament.
The heart was touched by darling papa's needs, and the romantic
temperament revolted by Josiah Brown's personality.
However, there it was! The marriage took place at the Consulate at
Dieppe, and a perfectly miserable little bride got into the train for
Paris, accompanied by a fat, short, prosperous, middle-class English
husband, who had accumulated a large fortune in Australia, quite by
accident, in a comparatively few years.
Josiah Brown was only fifty-two, though his head was bald and his figure
far from slight. He had a liver, a chest, and a temper, and he adored
Theodora.
Captain Fitzgerald had felt a few qualms when he had wished his little
daughter good-bye on the platform and had seen the blue stars swimming
with tears. The two daughters left to him were so plain, and he hated
plain people about him; but, on the other hand, women must marry, and
what chance had he, poor, unlucky devil, of establishing his Theodora
better in life?
Josiah Brown was a good fellow, and he, Dominic Fitzgerald, had for the
first time for many years a comfortable balance at his bankers, and
could run up to Paris himself in a few days, and who knows, the American
widow, fabulously rich--Jane Anastasia McBride--might take him
seriously!
Captain Dominic Fitzgerald was irresistible, and had that fortunate
knack of looking like a gentleman in the oldest clothes. If married for
the third time--but this time prosperously, to a fabulously rich
American--his well-born relations would once more welcome him with open
arms, he felt sure, and visions of the best pheasant shoots at old
Beechleigh, and partridge drives at Rothering Castle floated before his
eyes, quite obscuring the fading smoke of the Paris train.
"A pretty tough, dull affair marriage," he said to himself, reminded
once more of Theodora by treading on a white rose in the station. "Hope
to Heavens Sarah prepared her for it a bit." Then he got into a fiacre
and drove to the hotel, where he and the two remaining Misses Fitzgerald
were living in the style of their forefathers.