The Fighting Chance

"He is the sweetest fellow with his mother," sighed Grace; "and that counts heavily with me. But there's trouble ahead for her--sorrow and trouble enough for them both, if he is a true Siward."

"Heredity again!" said Sylvia impatiently. "Isn't he man enough to win out? I'll bet you he settles down, marries, and--"

"Marries? Not he! How many girls do you suppose have believed that--were justified in believing he meant anything by his attractive manner and nice ways of telling you how much he liked you? He had a desperate affair with Mrs. Mortimer--innocent enough I fancy. He's had a dozen within three years; and in a week Rena Bonnesdel has come to making eyes at him, and Eileen gives him no end of chances which he doesn't see. As for Marion Page, the girl had been on the edge of loving him for years! You laugh? But you are wrong; she is in love with him now as much as she ever can be with anybody."

"You mean--"

"Yes I do. Hadn't you suspected it?"

And as Sylvia had suspected it she remained silent.

"If any woman in this world could keep him to the mark, she could," continued Mrs. Ferrall. "He's a perfect fool not to see how she cares for him."

Sylvia said: "He is indeed."

"It would be a sensible match, if she cared to risk it, and if he would only ask her. But he won't."

"Perhaps," ventured Sylvia, "she'll ask him. She strikes me as that sort. I do not mean it unkindly--only Marion is so tailor-made and cigaretteful--"

Mrs. Ferrall looked up at her.

"Did he propose to you?"

"Yes--I think so."

"Then it's the first time for him. He finds women only too willing to play with him as a rule, and he doesn't have to be definite. I wonder what he meant by being so definite with you?"

"I suppose he meant marriage," said Sylvia serenely; yet there was the slightest ring in her voice; and it amused Mrs. Ferrall to try her a little further.

"Oh, you think he really intended to commit himself?"

"Why not?" retorted Sylvia, turning red. "Do you think he found me over-willing, as you say he finds others?"

"You were probably a new sensation for him," inferred Mrs. Ferrall musingly. "You mustn't take him seriously, child--a man with his record. Besides, he has the same facility with a girl that he has with everything else he tries; his pen--you know how infernally clever he is; and he can make good verse, and write witty jingles, and he can carry home with him any opera and play it decently, too, with the proper harmonies. Anything he finds amusing he is clever with--dogs, horses, pen, brush, music, women"--that was too malicious, for Sylvia had flushed up painfully, and Grace Ferrall dropped her gloved hand on the hand of the girl beside her: "Child, child," she said, "he is not that sort; no decent man ever is unless the girl is too."