Lord Loveland Discovers America

								

was there, hauling him away, before I knew what I was doing."
"Yes, you have told me--and other people. But no one believes you. How
could they? They see it's your modesty." (Lord Loveland's mother was
perhaps the one person on earth who would have attributed to him this
quality.) "And as for disliking the young man whose life you saved at
the risk of your own, of course that proves you all the more noble.
Everybody must see that."
"Oh, well, it's a jolly good thing for me if they do," said Val,
mechanically passing his hand over the scar on his forehead, which
became him like a hall mark or a halo. It, together with the South
African brown that never quite faded, had made him still more ornamental
in the eyes of the pretty young married women with whom he was popular.
Also in the eyes of girls, who liked to dance and flirt with Lord
Loveland, even though they preferred to marry Dukes and Princes. "But
what are you working up to so elaborately, Mater?"
"To your Prospects. There's no young man so liked and wanted
everywhere."
"Oh, I'm fair at polo: I can ride straight, and shoot a bit," said
Loveland with a pretence at self-depreciation he was far from feeling.
"I get asked to all the amusing house parties. But you know as well as I
do, that stopping at such places is a lot more expensive than swaggering
about at the most expensive hotels in Europe."
"I know, dearest," sighed the devoted lady who by industrious spoiling
had made him what he was. "I was only going on to say that you are a
personage of importance; never think you're not. As for the two or three
wretched girls who have hurled themselves at the heads of princes, when
they might have had you--why, our English heiresses are growing
disgustingly conceited and ambitious, quite unmaidenly, and let them
regret their mistakes--you needn't. Val, you want my advice. Well, I've
had an inspiration, I do believe, a real inspiration. Why don't you go
to America?"
"To try ranching?"
"Good Heavens, no, my son! To try marrying. In America you'll succeed
brilliantly. Why not run over and see what there is?"
She spoke as if to see meant to have, notwithstanding certain failures
nearer home. But Loveland's sense of humour, which had a real existence,
did not always bestir itself when his own affairs were in question. When
things come too close to the eye, one is apt to lose the point of view.
And Loveland did not laugh at his mother's suggestion.
"Oh, girls!" he said, distastefully. "Why go there for them? Plenty come
over here to collect us."
"Ye--es. But think of the competition. There are still unmarried Dukes.
It's so annoying, there always seem to be Dukes, and foreign
semi-Royalties who might better stop in their own countries than prowl
about ours, seeking what they may devour."
"That's what you propose my doing in the States."
"Oh, that's different. The Americans would be the foreigners, not you."
"They don't look on themselves in that light."