The Millionaires, etc

Front matter

THE MILLIONAIRES FRANKFORT MOORE'S NOVELS. Each in crown Svo, cloth gilt, 6s. I FORBID THE BANNS. [Ninth Edition. THE JESSAMY BRIDE. [Fifth Edition. A QRAY EYE OR SO. [Ninth Edition. ONE FAIR DAUGHTER. [Fourth Edition. PHYLLIS OF PHILISTIA. [Fifth Edition. THEY CALL IT LOVE. [Second Edition. DAIREEN [Third Edition London : Hutchinson & Co., Paternoster Row, IT'S FROM MY AUNT IN LONDON. [A 335- Frontispiece.'] The Millionaires BY FRANK FRANKFORT MOORE AUTHOR OF "I FORBITD ?HE BANNS," "THE JESSAMY BRIDE," Etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY M. GRIEFFENHACEN London: HUTCHINSON &P CO. Tat er nos ter Row, E.C. Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. I THE MILLIONAIRES

Chapter I

" His affection for her never degenerated into respect," said Lord Ballyseedy. Angela Brown gave a laugh — a sort of laugh — it might have been a hiccup ; her mother hoped that it was a hiccup, but feared that it was a laugh. Being a woman who possessed an undoubted capacity for considering small matters, and an easy system of self-deception, she came to the conclusion that a laugh which might be mistaken for a hiccup was not particularly compromising. That was why she turned severely to her brother, saying, — " Patricius, there is a child present." " Where is she ? " inquired Lord Ballyseedy. " Here," said Angela, with another sort of laugh : it might have been a simple parody of a dramatic soprano's shake on a top note. " Here ; it's me ; I'm her." Zbc /Billionaires 2 " Oh, you're her, are you ?

" said her uncle. " She — she I " cried her mother. " Then she — she is a brave lump of a child," said Lord Ballyseedy. "Whether would you rather be respected or beloved, my child ? " " I think I'd like to be respected by every man except the one I love for the time being," said Angela. " Good girl ! Out of the mouths of babes," said Lord Ballyseedy. " Were you taught that at school, my love, or did you just manage to pick it up since you came to finish your education on the Riviera?" " I never thought about the matter until you asked me the simple question," said she demurely. " Ask me some more questions, Pat ; answering questions is stimulating to the imagination." " This conversation must go on no longer," said Lady Glenmirk. " I cannot understand how it ever began." " It began by your telling Pat that he should marry some one — some one he could respect — some one with money ; and you brought forward the case of Teddy Grant and Miss Pearl G. Schymber, of Chicago, who had five million dollars in cans ; then Pat said Teddy's affection for her never degenerated into respect, and then you told him that there was a child present, and " " Let her cease to be present, sweet one," said Lord Ballyseedy.

" Run away, Angela, my dear, TTbe Millionaires 3 and try if you can find a nice ripe strawberry in the garden." " That would be a ridiculous quest just now ; I'd rather have your questions than your quest, dear uncle. Strawberries are not due for another month. But don't you think that your own affairs require a little further discussion, O beautiful brother of my much more beautiful mother ? I should like to help in the solution of that urgent problem of how you are to be settled in life. You're getting on in years, mine uncle ; you're now thirty-one, as is stated in every peerage in the United Kingdom. The most artful combing of your luxuriant but rapidly thinning locks over that small island of baldness which is already, I regret to say, showing above the chestnut waves, will avail you nothing so long as the peerages record how a peerages ; so that you, sole uncle of mine house and heart " "Angela, leave the room instantly," cried Lady Glenmirk.

" Yes, mamma ; but I trust that my withdrawal will not be prejudicial to a prompt settlement of my dear uncle's affairs. He's getting on in years, mamma ; he's rapidly approaching that period when people will cease to talk of him as a wild young man, and begin to refer to him as an old reprobate. Wherefore, I beseech of you as many as are here present, to hurry up. So long, matey." Gbe Millionaires 4 And the Honourable Angela Brown, giving the whirl and the kick of a popular young artist in agility whom she had seen on a furtive visit to a certain Palace of Varieties, and imitated — to the great detriment of her spring mattress — after say ing her prayers, nightly for several weeks, left the room. Her mother was speechless for some moments. She could not withdraw her eyes from the door through which the girl had gone.

She seemed to be not quite certain that her daughter might not reappear in another attitude of infinite com promise. " I wonder if you feel scandalised by her ? " said Lord Ballyseedy. " Scandalised or proud ? " " Scandalised ! Oh, Patricius ! " Lady Glenmirk held up her hands in an attitude which, curiously enough, suggested episcopal benediction, though she meant it to suggest some thing fundamentally different. " Scandalised ! " she repeated after a pause. (Her pauses sometimes reached a very high level of eloquence.) " Scandalised — ah, I should have had her presented last season. I should have had her presented last season. She's nineteen." " Poor girl ! It's no wonder she breaks out like that ; she's not to blame. You neglected to present her. And I suppose you now and again think of yourself as a good mother.

And I suppose you have no desire to know the name of Ube Millionaires 5 the young lady on whose method that kick was founded. Never mind ; I'll tell you. Her name is Babby Baiser, and she serves her turn at the Palace." " At the Palace — surely not there ; I thought that it was only. . . . Surely . . . the Palace Oh, some music hall ! " " Babby Baiser is the only artist — living or dead — who succeeded in imparting genius to a high exit kick. I don't say, mind you, that Angela's isn't a creditable imitation — nothing of the sort ; and as the peerage is just now being so largely recruited from the music halls, I don't see that Angela " " She should have been presented." Lady Glenmirk was more emphatic than ever. " How ever, that is not to the point. Oh, Patricius, will you tell me why you have come here ?

" " Certainly. I came here for the same reason as every one else has for coming here — to gamble and to mingle with gamblers." " I had hopes Have you any income at all now ? " " Nothing worth talking about — a butterfly fluttering over the green tables." Lord Ballyseedy had the imagination of a Celt, though he was only an Irish peer. " A butterfly ? " said his sister, with a puzzled look. (She had been married for twenty years to a Scotchman.) Zbt Millionaires "A butterfly among condors, it is here, since Africa was discovered, and the cans of Chicago are packed with dollars." " Ah, Chicago — that brings us back. I'd have no objection to your marrying an American girl, Patricius." "No, but the American girl would," said Patricius. " You are a peer, Ballyseedy," said Lady Glenmirk, giving an excellent imitation of a dignified woman.

Angela would have overdone the imitation of a dignified woman ; she overdid her imitation of her mother's imitating a dignified woman. "Yes, I suppose I'm a kind of peer — an Irish Viscount." " A title is still a title. People living under a republic cannot be particular. American girls dont make inquiries." " Don't they ? That's not the result of my experience of them, and I've met with some that moved in the very best society in Nebraska and Monte Carlo. It seemed to me that they were just too inquiring. That's why I hadn't a chance. No, my dear sister, an American girl wants to buy a higher-toned article than is available in the entire Irish peerage." " May I beg that you will not decry your family — our family, Lord Ballyseedy," said the sister, with a flash that twenty years' association XEbe Millionaires 7 with the house of Glenmirk had failed to extinguish.

Her brother hung his head. She felt that she had been too severe with him. He wanted encouragement, not rebuke. She struck a note in a less heroic key. " My dear Patricius, see what other men without half your advantages have done. There was young Rawdon, the third son of a baronet ; think of that, the third son ! mind — third ; and didn't he marry a rich American ? " No, not an American ; she was a Bostonian," said Ballyseedy. " Oh ! I thought that . . . surely Boston . . . never mind ; the principle is precisely the same. Lady Glenmirk knew that she would not be doing wisely to argue on questions of geography. She knew that the atlas of her young days had long ago become obsolete. She had seen a new map of Africa : the Mountains of the Moon were not marked upon it. " You wouldn't have me marry Miss Amethyst P. Vamoose ?

" said Lord Ballyseedy. " I don't know why you shouldn't have married her as well as Algy Rawdon. She was an amiable girl." " Amiable ? Oh, I wouldn't be so hard on her as all that." " She was very well connected, and that's tTbe Millionaires 8 something nowadays. Her father was in the American army — a colonel, I think, or something." " He was a Field-Marshal." " Think of that. And yet he was extremely well off." " So I thought — the farther off the better." " Patricius, you irritate me. You know that there's nothing left for you but marriage, and yet you walk about with a cigar in your mouth and your hands in your pockets." " They're better in my own pockets than in somebody else's ; that's the natural attitude of a good many of the people here — other people's pockets. My dear Patricia, I haven't yet come to look on marriage as the last refuge of the stoney-broke.

I've managed to pull along pretty well up to the present without marrying ; but if ever I have an irresistible impulse in that direction, I'll marry the girl that'll marry me, whether she has a red cent or a million in dollars. I prefer a legitimate gamble down at the tables to retrieve my fortunes, and just now I feel that I'll break the bank if the bank doesn't first break me." Lady Glenmirk looked at her brother with something like scorn in her glance. She turned away from him for a moment — only a moment. Then she looked at him as she said, — " I believe that I'll see you starving yet." " Why yet ? " he inquired. " You see me starving now. Didn't you tell me that you drank Œbe Millionaires 9 tea at four ? It's now half-past. I've had nothing since breakfast." " Tea will be ready when I ring.

Valencia Mertoun said she might come. I want you to be very nice to Valencia, Patricius ; she will have quite a large fortune — that is, of course, for an English girl." " And she deserves every penny of it," cried Patricius, with enthusiasm. "You and she were always good friends, Patricius." " Indeed we were, and I hope that we'll remain so for ever." Lady Glenmirk shook her head. " That's not what I mean." " No ; you mean that we should become just the opposite — lovers. My dear sister, we've no idea of ceasing to be excellent friends in order that we may become most indifferent lovers." " I suppose you will say that you are not good enough for her." " I don't hesitate for a moment to say so much." " You mean to say you consider yourself a bad man, as men go, Patricius ? " " Here's Angela ; she'll give us the benefit of her wisdom on this point."

He turned to the girl who had just worked her way round the garden until she stood swinging with one arm across the wing of the window, looking into the TTbe Millionaires 10 room. " Tell us, my angel niece, do you consider your uncle to be a wicked man ? " " Oh, yes ; undoubtedly. I always like to think the best of every one, so I'm sure you're wicked," said Angela.

Chapter II

There could no doubt about it. Every one possessing the slightest capacity to pronounce an opinion on an ordinary social question had said that there was no doubt about it : Lord Bally seedy's only hope lay in marriage. People had said precisely the same thing about his father, and he had gone to the trouble to prove that they were right, by marrying the wrong woman. People had said that he must marry a woman with a considerable amount of money, and he had married a woman without a penny, and had been welcomed enthusiastically by the tenantry on his return from his honeymoon to Ballyseedy Castle. Even in those days the Ballyseedy tenantry were from ten to sixty years in arrears with their rent, and when the landlord died he left his son Patricius little beyond an increased volume of arrears of rent due by his tenants.

When young Lord Ballyseedy succeeded to this heritage the tenantry shouted, " Long life to your lordship's honour ! " and then hurried off to attend a meeting held by a pig-jobber from Ulster, who told them to shout " Down with the Ube Millionaires 12 landlords ! " and they shouted it till they were hoarse. Then there came about that interesting period in the history of the island when the people who paid their rents were shot by the people who did not. Of Lord Ballyseedy's tenantry not one was shot. When matters settled down in some measure, and the landlords began to review their position, they came to the conclusion that they were the objects of the oppression of all Governments. They had been foolish enough to suppose at one time that, because it happened to suit a party to take their side in opposition to the Government that was in power, the same party would regard as a sacred obligation the maintenance of the same attitude when they got into office.

They were soon given to understand that the game of party politics differs in no respect from any other gambling transaction — that the cult of the jumping cat is that which alone prevails at St. Stephen's. It was then that his sister, Lady Glenmirk, began to impress upon Lord Ballyseedy the splendid possibilities which lay in the direction of a brilliant marriage. She had frequently given him a hint that he would be much more profitably occupied endeavouring to achieve so desirable an end than waiting for the political cat to jump ; but now she felt that she would not be doing her duty if she were to continue merely hinting in Xlbe Millionaires 13 what direction lay the possibilities of a successful career for him. She had appointed to meet him at Villefranche at the end of January, and it was on the day of his arrival that he had walked up to the villa which Lord Glenmirk rented, and they had conversed together on the topic of his market value as a marrying man in days when marriage is regarded with but a languid interest by so large a proportion of men.

Lord Ballyseedy had long before come to perceive that if he were to consider the advis ability of getting married it would be well for him to consider it with a wealthy young woman in his mind's eye. He had also come to perceive that gambling, at the tables which have caused the Mediterranean to become famous, makes some demand upon the nerves but none upon the in tellect. It so happened that he was strong in nerves ; but he thought of his intellect with suspicion. He had always won a few hundred pounds at the tables, and he had never found the exercise of his intellect to yield him so much profit. This was why he had so long ago made up his mind that he would not exercise his intellect when it came to marrying ; it would be safer to make it a gambling transaction. The fact that he was able to look at the matter in this light would have been sufficient to convince many people that he need not have mistrusted his intellect so greatly after all. abe Millionaires 14 He now stood bareheaded upon the verandah of his sister's villa, the Villa Paolina, looking down the green slope to the town with the far stretch of sparkling blue waters at its feet.

He took one of those long breaths in which people who have just escaped from the horrors of an English January indulge, at such moments as they can spare from the gaming tables. " This is life. I wonder if your mother men tioned to Valencia Mertoun that I would be here this afternoon." Lord Ballyseedy had completed his inhalation of the pure air, and turned to where his niece was softly whistling, with a suggested pas seul obbligato, the romanza which a band was playing far below. " You may lay your last chip on that, matey," replied Angela airily. " Oh, yes ; but after all you might do a great deal worse than marry Valencia, Pat ; only I'm afraid that you'd eventually come to respect her." " I do so already, my dear Angela," said he ; " but I'd cease to respect her if she had anything to say to me."

" You shouldn't decry your family — our family — my dear uncle," said the girl, with only the least hint of a parody upon her mother. She knew how far she might go with her uncle ; though he allowed her to call him Pat, he would not permit her to caricature her mother, so she HE NOW STOOD BARE-HEADED UPON THE VERANDAH. [p. I.| Ubc Millionaires 15 kept well within the lines beyond which reproof was possible. " Yes, Lord Ballyseedy, methinks that you underrate your personal charms and the advantage that being a man gives you. Do you know how many more spinsters than bachelors there are in England? " " I've not had time to count them. I'd marry Valencia to-morrow if she'd have me, Angela, only she wouldn't be such a fool." Angela was accustomed to be confided in by her uncle. She was proud of her position ; he had never confied in her mother.

She went across the verandah to him and put his arm about her. " You'd marry the nicest girl in the world if you married Valencia," she whispered. "And as for her not marrying you, how can you say any thing about that until you try ? It's my opinion that not one girl in every hundred knows whether or not she'd marry a man until he asks her. Another thing is certain, and that is that only one girl in every thousand doesn't want to get married, and I haven't met that one girl yet." " You seem to have kept up your arithmetic, my dear." " It's not arithmetic, it's philosophy — a kind of philosophy I've begun to educate myself in since I left school. It's wonderful how much a girl may learn if she gives herself up to it. It would be such a weight off my mind if you'd marry Valencia. Do try hard, my dearest.

I perceived Zbt Millionaires 16 some hopeful signs when we were with her yesterday." " Hopeful signs ? " " Yes. The mater began to talk about you, saying you would be here to-day, and that, whatever faults you had, you were a man of principle, and so forth. Well, Valencia never said a word in your favour — never said that she and you were good friends ; if she had I would have known that you had no chance with her." " That is certainly philosophy. And I fancied that you thought about nothing but horses." " That was where you made a mistake, dear uncle. But for that matter, a person can't be much with horses without acquiring a thorough knowledge of human nature. Oh, here comes Valencia. One word, Pat — beware of George Drummond." Lord Ballyseedy turned to her with a laugh, but she had slipped through the open window into the central court of the villa, where a fountain splashed in a large basin of marble among floating water-lilies. He paused for a moment before following her to welcome Valencia Mertoun.

Chapter III

He had always thought of her as one of the loveliest girls he had ever seen ; but now, as she stood among the marbles of the central court, with the whisper of a flush upon her face, he felt that his memory of her had been miserably imperfect. His recollection of her had been so preposterous as to lead him to think of her in comparison with other girls, whereas he now knew that, had that faculty been worth anything at all, he would have thought of her apart from all other girls. How was it possible, he asked himself, that he had failed to have impressed upon him for ever that singular charm of hers which consisted in the sudden raising of her eyes ? There was something of a flash about them as she looked at him now, straight in the face, and then the flash melted into a smile as she gave him her hand.

Heavens ! What kind of memory could he have when this exquisite flash — it somehow suggested the flight of a bird in the air — came upon him as something new ? He felt ashamed of himself as she cried, — " Lord Ballyseedy ! No, it is no surprise to 17 ft be Millionaires 1 8 me to find you here ; I felt sure that you would come. There was a tone of sentimental unreality in his reply. " The desire of the moth for the star. He held her hand a second longer than was necessary, and, keeping his eye fixed upon her face, contrived — not too subtly — that his sentence should have the fall of a sigh — a lover's sigh. He was uncertain how matters might turn out ; it was well to prepare for any eventuality. She laughed. There had never been the suspicion of a sigh in any phrase of his that she had ever heard.

"The desire of the moth for the flame," she said. " For the flame ? Well, perhaps — I hope to heaven we mean the same thing," said he. " Come round to the verandah for tea, and mamma," cried Angela. " Come, the evening is getting on. Parables are for the parabolical, and should only be uttered in the early morning." They walked round the great basin without a word, and then through the window to the verandah, where Lady Glenmirk sat before a table with a teapot. They talked of those who had come and those who had gone, of the luck of some people, of the stoney-broke and what their husbands would say — when husbands were in the background — of the Ube Millionaires 19 lathers — when fathers were to the fore. They talked of the little systems that have their day, and of the plunging of the young French fool of that year who, it was generally agreed, was making as great an ass of himself as the young English fool of the previous year, Angela only being patriotic enough to stand up for the English fool, saying it was ridiculous for people to say — as some did — that he had been surpassed in idiotcy by the Frenchman.

They talked of the marvellous run upon the red by which a distinguished Scotch clergyman, who was writing a "Life of Jane Shore for the Young," had won so much that he had confided in a friend that he could now afford to make his work for adults and to give up The Ministry. They talked of the English novelist who had been seen walking about in a tailor-made frock coat — for the first time — and a white straw hat ; he had had a day of good luck, and considered himself entitled to indulge in unwonted luxury. They talked of the distinguished bankrupt who had taken half a dozen rooms on the first floor of the Metropole, and gave nightly suppers — at which glasses had been smashed — to friends of his, mostly gentlemen. " The same old catalogue of villainy," said Lord Ballyseedy, when his sister had touched upon whatever there was of scandal in the record.

It was, somehow, always Lady Glenmirk who introduced the scandal : she did it in the cause of morality ; where would a moralist be without his example ? " Yes, I find no change in the stories. I suppose that is because there is no change in men or women." " Only millionaires change," remarked Angela sedately, as if she clearly understood that the subject was one to be treated dispassionately. There was a silence before Lord Ballyseedy said, — " I suppose the child wants to be helped out with a pun or something. What is it, Angela, my child ? Millionaires change ? — change — change — of course, I see now. Millionaires change their millions into more convenient sums — that's it, isn't it ? " " Nothing like it," said Angela placidly, but with extraordinary good humour. (She had had a pun attributed to her by a relation.)

"I said millionaires change. So they do : long ago they used to come from America or Lancashire, but now they come from South Africa almost ex clusively. We shall have them coming from Connaught next. I don't speak from my own experience." " I should say you don't," remarked Lord Ballyseedy. " From whose then ? " " Mr. Cleveland's ; he said so yesterday privately — to me — we had some confidential chat. He gave me some advice, and I gave him some." " On the subject of millionaires ? " said Lord Ballyseedy inquiringly. " On a variety of subjects — man, manners, and millionaires," replied Angela. " The three are never found in combination, I suppose," said Lord Ballyseedy. " Oh, yes, they are sometimes," cried Angela. " Sometimes — yes, at least once. His name is Mr. Drummond — George Drummond."

" And he comes from South Africa ? I never heard of him." He did not take into consideration the cir cumstance that Angela had, only a few minutes before, mentioned the name of George Drummond confidentially to him. " Oh, no, you would not be likely to hear of him," said Angela. " You see he has never floated anything at double its value — he has never offered to put a spire on St. Paul's Cathedral or to have Westminster Abbey laid down in Doulton tiles or — well, he has never done anything notorious." " He has a great future before him," said Lord Ballyseedy. " You'll see what he'll do when he feels that he should make his soul, as we say in Ireland. Most millionaires take a deal of soul-making, and the dignitaries of a cathedral are the men to give them a helping hand in that direction. If they don't know all about it, who does ?

I wonder if your friend would object to lend a hundred or two on the security of a fine old Irish estate which is already mortgaged, and the tenants of which are sixty years in arrears with their rent. Does he want to work up a reputation for practical philanthropy ? " Valencia gave a little laugh, and Lord Bally seedy, for the first time since the conversation turned upon millionaires in general and George Drummond in particular, looked at her. He learned nothing from that look except that she was, as usual, amused at his Hibernian way of saying things. He certainly failed to gather why Angela had told him in confidence to beware of George Drummond. If Valencia's face had betrayed the smallest flush imaginable, he would have felt himself in command of at least one factor in the solution of the question of why Angela had given him the caution.

" George Drummond is no fool," said Angela. " On the contrary, he has secured you for his advocate," said her uncle. " But beyond that what has he done ? " " He has asked me to dine aboard his yacht on Thursday," said Angela. "Valencia is coming too, and a few other nice people. If you make up to him perhaps he'll ask you as well." " If I thought I had a chance I'd certainly. .. . What make-up would you advise, my dear ? I'm a bit at sea in regard to that sort of person." " What sort of person ? " ' The sort of person that comes from South Africa with a million or two. The person that goes out to South Africa with something less is more likely to be the one I know all about. Does he expect people to say ' sir ' when they address him — the man who comes from South Africa, I mean ? I think I could manage so far all right."