Her Weight in Gold | Page 7

sustaining with each succeeding minute of
suspense. Dimly he recalled that General Gamble had spent nearly half
a million dollars in the construction of this imposing edifice. The
library was worth more than one hundred thousand dollars; the stables
were stocked with innumerable thoroughbreds; the landed estate was
measured by sections instead of acres; the stocks and bonds were--But
even as he considered the question of assets, there surged up before him
an overwhelming liability that brought the General's books to balance.
By this time, Eddie had become so proficient in the art of rapid
calculation that he could estimate within a few ounces just what a
person would have to weigh in order to be worth as much as the library,

the mansion, or the bonds. The great Gainsborough that hung in the
west end of the room corresponded in value (if reports were true
concerning the price Gamble had asked for it) to a woman weighing a
shade over two hundred and three pounds troy.
He lifted a handsome bronze figure from the library table and
murmured: "It's worth a ten-pound baby, twenty-two hundred dollars
and a fraction."
The General came in, followed closely by the butler, who bore a tray
holding at least ten cocktails. After the greetings, Eddie glanced
uneasily at the cocktails.
"Is--is it to be as big a dinner as all this?" he asked ruefully.
"Oh, no. Just family, my boy; we four. The women don't drink, Eddie,
so help yourself."
Eddie gratefully swallowed three in rapid succession.
"I see you mean to make it absolutely necessary for me to take the gold
cure," he said with a forlorn smile.
Martha put in an appearance at seven-thirty, having kept dinner waiting
for half an hour, much to the amazement of those who had lived with
her long enough to know her promptness in appearing for meals.
Mr. Ten Eyck, who was a rather good-looking chap and fastidious to a
degree, did not possess the strength to keep his heart anywhere near the
customary level. It went hurtling to his very boots. He shook hands
with the blushing young woman and then involuntarily shrank toward
the cocktails, disregarding the certainty that he would find them
lukewarm and tasteless.
She was gotten up for the occasion. But, as it was not her costume that
he was to embrace in matrimony, we will omit a description of the
creation she wore. It was pink, of course, and cut rather low in order to
protect her face from the impudent gaze of man.

Her face? Picture the face of the usual heroine in fiction and then
contrive to think of the most perfect antithesis, and you have Martha in
your mind's eye much more clearly than through any description I
could hope to present.
She was squat. Her somewhat brawny shoulders sloped downward and
forward--and perhaps a little sidewise, I am not sure about that. Her
hair was straw-coloured and stringy in spite of the labour she had
expended on it with curling-iron and brush. As to her face, the more
noticeable features were a very broad, flat nose; a comparatively
chinless under jaw, on which grew an accidental wisp of hair or two; a
narrow and permanently decorated upper lip. When she smiled--well,
the effect was discouraging, to say the least. Her eyes were pale and
prominent. In spite of all this, practice in rouging might have helped
her a little, but she had had no practice. Young men never came to the
house, and it was not worth while to keep up appearances for the old
ones who were content to dodder at the end of the way. You would say
at a glance that she was a very strong and enduring person, somewhat
along the lines of a suffragette ward politician.
The dinner was a genial one, after all. The General was at his best, and
the wine was perfect. In lucid moments, Eddie found himself reflecting:
"If I can drink enough of this I'll have delirium tremens and then I
won't have to believe all that I see."
Martha had always called him Eddie. In fact, every one called him
Eddie. He was that sort of a chap. To-night, he observed, with a hazy
interest, she addressed him as Mr. Ten Eyck, and rather frequently, at
that. It was: "Do you really think so, Mr. Ten Eyck?" or "How very
amusing, Mr. Ten Eyck," or "Good gracious, Mr. Ten Eyck," until poor
Eddie, unused to this distinction, reached a point where he muttered
something in way of protest that caused the General to cough violently
in order to give his guest a chance to recover himself before it was too
late.
After dinner the General and Mrs. Gamble retired somewhat
precipitously, leaving the young people alone.

Eddie