The Blotting Book | Page 4

E. F. Benson
glass.
"I have had twenty years of stewardship for you," he went on, "and
before my stewardship comes to an end, which it will do anyhow in
three years from now, and may come to an end any day--"
"Why, how is that?" asked Morris.
"If you marry, my dear boy. By the terms of your father's will, your
marriage, provided it takes place with your mother's consent, and after
your twenty-second birthday, puts you in complete control and
possession of your fortune. Otherwise, as of course you know, you
come of age, legally speaking, on your twenty-fifth birthday."
Morris lit another cigarette rather impatiently.
"Yes, I knew I was a minor till I was twenty-five," he said, "and I
suppose I have known that if I married after the age of twenty-two, I
became a major, or whatever you call it. But what then? Do let us go
and play billiards, I'll give you twenty-five in a hundred, because I've
been playing a lot lately, and I'll bet half a crown."
Mr. Taynton's fist gently tapped the table.

"Done," he said, "and we will play in five minutes. But I have
something to say to you first. Your mother, as you know, enjoys the
income of the bulk of your father's property for her lifetime. Outside
that, he left this much smaller capital of which, as also of her money,
my partner and I are trustees. The sum he left you was thirty thousand
pounds. It is now rather over forty thousand pounds, since we have
changed the investments from time to time, and always, I am glad to
say, with satisfactory results. The value of her property has gone up
also in a corresponding degree. That, however, does not concern you.
But since you are now twenty-two, and your marriage would put the
whole of this smaller sum into your hands, would it not be well for you
to look through our books, to see for yourself the account we render of
our stewardship?"
Morris laughed.
"But for what reason?" he asked. "You tell me that my portion has
increased in value by ten thousand pounds. I am delighted to hear it.
And I thank you very much. And as for--"
He broke off short, and Mr. Taynton let a perceptible pause follow
before he interrupted.
"As for the possibility of your marrying?" he suggested.
Morris gave him a quick, eager, glance.
"Yes, I think there is that possibility," he said. "I hope--I hope it is not
far distant."
"My dear boy--" said the lawyer.
"Ah, not a word. I don't know--"
Morris pushed his chair back quickly, and stood up--his tall slim figure
outlined against the sober red of the dining-room wall. A plume of
black hair had escaped from his well-brushed head and hung over his
forehead, and his sun-tanned vivid face looked extraordinarily

handsome. His mother's clear-cut energetic features were there, with
the glow and buoyancy of youth kindling them. Violent vitality was his
also; his was the hot blood that could do any deed when the life-instinct
commanded it. He looked like one of those who could give their body
to be burned in the pursuit of an idea, or could as easily steal, or kill,
provided only the deed was vitally done in the heat of his blood.
Violence was clearly his mode of life: the motor had to go sixty miles
an hour; he might be one of those who bathed in the Serpentine in
mid-winter; he would clearly dance all night, and ride all day, and go
on till he dropped in the pursuit of what he cared for. Mr. Taynton,
looking at him as he stood smiling there, in his splendid health and
vigour felt all this. He felt, too, that if Morris intended to be married
to-morrow morning, matrimony would probably take place.
But Morris's pause, after he pushed his chair back and stood up, was
only momentary.
"Good God, yes; I'm in love," he said. "And she probably thinks me a
stupid barbarian, who likes only to drive golfballs and motorcars.
She--oh, it's hopeless. She would have let me come over to see them
to-morrow otherwise."
He paused again.
"And now I've given the whole show away," he said.
Mr. Taynton made a comfortable sort of noise. It was compounded of
laughter, sympathy, and comprehension.
"You gave it away long ago, my dear Morris," he said.
"You had guessed?" asked Morris, sitting down again with the same
quickness and violence of movement, and putting both his elbows on
the table.
"No, my dear boy, you had told me, as you have told everybody,
without mentioning it. And I most heartily congratulate you. I never
saw a more delightful girl. Professionally also, I feel bound to add that

it seems to me
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