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Page 98
"Oh?" she said again.
"He's a good fellow. I like him. I liked him the moment we met. He
knew it, too. And I knew he liked me."
A group of men and girls from a neighbouring table passed on their
way to the door. One of the girls nodded to Billie. She returned
the nod absently. The party moved on. Billie frowned down at the
tablecloth and drew a pattern on it with a fork.
"Why don't you let George marry your daughter, Lord Marshmoreton?"
The earl drew at his cigar in silence.
"I know it's not my business," said Billie apologetically,
interpreting the silence as a rebuff.
"Because I'm the Earl of Marshmoreton."
"I see."
"No you don't," snapped the earl. "You think I mean by that that I
think your friend isn't good enough to marry my daughter. You think
that I'm an incurable snob. And I've no doubt he thinks so, too,
though I took the trouble to explain my attitude to him when we
last met. You're wrong. It isn't that at all. When I say 'I'm the
Earl of Marshmoreton', I mean that I'm a poor spineless fool who's
afraid to do the right thing because he daren't go in the teeth of
the family."
"I don't understand. What have your family got to do with it?"
"They'd worry the life out of me. I wish you could meet my sister
Caroline! That's what they've got to do with it. Girls in my
daughter's unfortunate position have got to marry position or
money."
"Well, I don't know about position, but when it comes to
money--why, George is the fellow that made the dollar-bill famous.
He and Rockefeller have got all there is, except the little bit
they have let Andy Carnegie have for car-fare."
"What do you mean? He told me he worked for a living." Billie was
becoming herself again. Embarrassment had fled.
"If you call it work. He's a composer."
"I know. Writes tunes and things."
Billie regarded him compassionately.
"And I suppose, living out in the woods the way that you do that
you haven't a notion that they pay him for it."
"Pay him? Yes, but how much? Composers were not rich men in my day."
"I wish you wouldn't talk of 'your day' as if you telling the boys
down at the corner store about the good times they all had before
the Flood. You're one of the Younger Set and don't let me have to
tell you again. Say, listen! You know that show you saw last night.
The one where I was supported by a few underlings. Well, George
wrote the music for that."
"I know. He told me so."
"Well, did he tell you that he draws three per cent of the gross
receipts? You saw the house we had last night. It was a fair
average house. We are playing to over fourteen thousand dollars a
week. George's little bit of that is--I can't do it in my head, but
it's a round four hundred dollars. That's eighty pounds of your
money. And did he tell you that this same show ran over a year in
New York to big business all the time, and that there are three
companies on the road now? And did he mention that this is the
ninth show he's done, and that seven of the others were just as big
hits as this one? And did he remark in passing that he gets
royalties on every copy of his music that's sold, and that at least
ten of his things have sold over half a million? No, he didn't,
because he isn't the sort of fellow who stands around blowing about
his income. But you know it now."
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