The Vision of Desire | Page 8

have
admitted it--Sir Philip Brabazon inferred a kind of divinely appointed
dictatorship over the souls and bodies of the various members of his
household which even included the right to arrange and determine their
lives for them, without reference to their personal desires and tastes.
It was odd, therefore, that his chief friend and confidante--and the

woman he would have married thirty years ago if she would only have
had him--should be Lady Susan, as tolerant and modern in her outlook
as he was archaic.
She was a tall, sturdily built woman of the out-of-door, squiress type.
Her fine-shaped head was crowned by a wealth of grey hair, simply
coiled in a big knot on the nape of her neck and contrasting rather
attractively with her very black, arched eyebrows and humorous dark
eyes. Those same eyes were now regarding Sir Philip with a quizzical
expression of amusement.
"Besides," she pursued. "Ann wouldn't have half as much pull with him
if she were his wife, let me tell you."
"You think not?"
"I'm sure. A man will let himself be lectured and generally licked into
shape by the woman he wants to marry--but after marriage he usually
prefers to do all the lecturing that's required himself."
The old man shot a swift glance at her from under a pair of shaggy
brows.
"How do you know?" he demanded rudely. "You're not married."
Lady Susan nodded.
"That's why."
"Do you mean--do you mean--" he began stormily, then, meeting her
quiet, humorous gaze, stammered off into silence. Presently he fixed
his monocle in one of his fierce old eyes and surveyed her from behind
it as from behind a barricade.
"Do you mean me to understand that that's the reason you declined to
marry me?"
She laughed a little.

"I think it was. I didn't want to be browbeaten into submission--as you
browbeat poor Virginia, and as you would Tony if he hadn't got a good
dash of the Brabazon devil in him. You're a confirmed bully, you
know."
"I shouldn't have bullied you." There was an odd note of wistfulness in
the harsh voice, and for a moment the handsome, arrogant old face
softened incredibly. "I shouldn't have bullied you, Susan."
"Yes, you would. You couldn't have helped it. You'd like to bully my
little Ann into marrying Tony if you dared--monster!"
The grim mouth beneath the clipped moustache relaxed into an
unwilling smile.
"I believe I would," he admitted. "Hang it all, Susan, it would settle the
boy if he were married. He wants a wife to look after him."
"To look after him?"--with a faintly ironical inflection.
"That's what I said"--irritably. "That's--that's what wife's for, dammit!
Isn't it?"
"Oh, no." She shook her head regretfully. "That idea's extinct as the
dodo. Antiquated, Philip--very."
He glared at her ferociously.
"Worth more than half your modern ideas put together," he retorted.
"Women, don't know their duty nowadays. If they'd get married and
have babies and keep house in the good, old-fashioned way, instead of
trying to be doctors and barristers and the Lord knows what, the world
would be a lot better off. A good wife makes a good man--and that's
job enough for any woman."
"I should think it might be," agreed Lady Susan meditatively. "But it
sounds a trifle feeble, doesn't it? I mean, on the part of the good man.
It's making a sort of lean-to greenhouse of him, isn't it?"

"You're outrageous, Susan! I'm not a 'lean-to' anything, but do you
suppose I'd be the bad-tempered old ruffian I am--at least, you say I
am--if you'd married me thirty years ago?"
"Twenty times worse, probably," she replied promptly. "Because, like
most wives, I should have spoiled you."
Sir Philip looked out of the window.
"I've missed that spoiling, Susan," he said. Once again that incongruous
little note of wistfulness sounded in his voice. But, an instant later,
Lady Susan wondered if her ears had deceived her, for he swung round
and snapped out in his usual hectoring manner: "Then you won't help
me in this?"
"Help you to marry off Ann to Tony? No, I won't. For one thing, I don't
want to spare her. And if ever I have to, it's going to be to some one
who'll look after her--and take jolly good care of her, too!"
"Obstinate woman! Well--well"--irritably. "What am I to do, then?"
"Can't you manage your own nephew?"
"No, I can't, confound it! Told me this morning he wanted to be an
architect. An architect!" He spoke as though an architect were
something that crawled. "Imagine a Brabazon of Lorne turning
architect!"
"Well, why not?" placidly. "It's better than being nothing but a
gambler--like poor Dick. Tony always did love making plans. Don't
you remember, when he was about eight, he made a drawing