Part 31 (1/2)
”I should imagine that would be the most difficult time to play such a role,” Miss Harding said. ”We know those who cannot be gentlemen even under the most encouraging circ.u.mstances. The greatest happiness which can come to a good woman is to marry the man she loves, and if she allows wealth, position or any other selfish consideration to stand in the way she does not deserve happiness.”
”Right you are!” I declared with an enthusiasm which may have betrayed me. ”I agree with every word you have said.”
”See those perfect yellows against that bar of vivid red,” she said, pointing to the west, where the sky quivered with a naming sunset. ”See how the light flashes from the windows of the club house! One would think it filled with molten metal. How sharp the old church belfry shows against that ma.s.s of golden cloud to the northwest!”
We watched this glorious scene in silence until the upper rim of the sun sank beneath the rounded crest of ”Old Baldy.” Then I helped her down and we walked slowly back to the club house.
Have I not the right to a.s.sume that Miss Harding ”likes me well enough to encourage my attentions,” which is her definition of a flirtation? I believe I have. I know that other young gentlemen belonging to the club have attempted in vain to compete with me for the favour of her society.
All have failed--Carter alone excepted. But recently I have been with her more than has Carter. In fact I fear him less at the present moment than I have at any time. I shall soon know my fate.
For the first time the strain of my stock operations is telling on me. I have now purchased 35,000 shares of N.O. & G., and the market for it closed to-night at 60. If I were forced to settle at this figure I would be about $345,000 loser. If the stock is valueless, as some of the experts are now declaring, I am liable for nearly $2,000,000 more.
I have converted everything except my equity in Woodvale into money, and counting the margins in the hands of my brokers I find that I have nearly $3,000,000. I suppose I could get out with a loss of half a million, and there are moments when my cowardice struggles against me and when I am tempted to abandon this hazardous enterprise.
I shall stick it out, however. I know the conspiracy which has been hatched, and I do not believe they will dare force the price down much lower. I am going to buy another block of ten thousand shares if it continues to decline, and then await developments. If it goes to zero I shall still have a little money left, and I shall have the income from the old farm--but I shall not have the hardihood to ask for the hand of Grace Harding.
You may talk as much as you please but money is a commanding factor in love and marriage. It is all very well for a wealthy man to fall in love and marry a poor girl, but it is an entirely different thing for a poor man to aspire to the hand and heart of a wealthy woman.
Honestly, I don't believe it right that women should be permitted under the law to inherit vast sums of money--at least marriageable women. No man of ordinary means who possesses a proper self-respect will espouse a woman whose income overshadows his own.
I would limit the inheritances of marriageable women to a maximum amount of $100,000. I wish Miss Harding did not have a dollar.
The contest for the Harding Trophy--I mean the bronze, and not the real Harding Trophy--has narrowed down to four of us, Carter, Boyd, Marshall and myself. I have a sort of a premonition that as that 'bronze gent'
goes, so will go everything which I hold dear. I am making the fight of my life for it. I play Marshall to-morrow morning.
ENTRY NO. XVIII
MR. HARDING'S STRUGGLE
I won my match with Marshall after a contest which went to the twentieth hole. He had me dormie one coming to the eighteenth, but by perfect playing I won it in a five and halved the match. Nothing happened on the first extra hole, but on the following I held a fifteen putt for a three and won a beautifully contested match.
Miss Harding went around with us and was my Mascot. I broke my record for the course, making a medal score of seventy-eight. Miss Harding congratulated me and I was so happy I could have yelled. Dear old Marshall did not take his defeat the least to heart, but he is not playing for the stakes that I am.
I have dreamed twice that if I won the Harding Trophy I should win everything.
Carter beat Boyd handily, and the prize will go to one of us. I must beat him; I shall beat him!
After having declared innumerable times that he would master the secrets of golf without aid from anyone, Harding finally surrendered and took his first lesson this afternoon.
”I take back everything I ever said about this being an easy game to play,” he said. ”I'm a pretty good 'rule of thumb' civil and mechanical engineer, I know a few things about the laws of resistances and all that sort of thing, I have watched you fellows. .h.i.t that ball and have tried to imitate you, but it's no use. Now I'm going to do just what Wallace tells me, and if he can teach me to drive I'll pay him more than any professional ever made in the history of the game.”
Harding certainly has had a time of it. For weeks he has laboured with a patience worthy of better results, he has purchased every known variety and weight of club. He has a larger collection of drivers, bra.s.sies, cleeks, mas.h.i.+es, midirons, jiggers, niblicks, putters and other tools than Billy Moon, and Moon is a specialist in that direction.
The surrounding woods, the ponds, brooks and swamps contain unnumbered b.a.l.l.s which Harding has misdriven. He will not waste one minute looking for a ball which gets into difficulty, and since his arrival our orders to the manufacturers have more than doubled.
One of his ambitions has been to drive a ball across the old mill pond.