WELL, old boy!" Mr. Fordyce greeted him with. "You should have been with me and had a good round of golf—but perhaps, though, you have made up your mind!"
Michael flung himself into his great chair.
"Yes—I have—and I have got a fiancée."
Mr. Fordyce was not disturbed; he did not even answer this absurd remark, he just puffed his cigar—cigarettes were beneath his notice.
"You don't seem very interested," his host ejaculated, rather aggrievedly.
"Tommyrot!"
"I tell you, it is true. I have got a fiancée."
"My dear fellow, you are mad!"
"No, I assure you I am quite sane—I have found a way out of the difficulty—an angel has dropped from the clouds to save me from Violet Hatfield."
Henry Fordyce was actually startled. Michael looked as though he were talking seriously.
"But where did she come from? What the—Oh! I have no patience with you, you old fool! You are playing some comedy upon me!"
"Henry, I give you my word, I'm not—I am going to marry a most presentable young person at nine o'clock on Thursday night in the chapel here—and you are going to stay and be best man." Then his excitement began to rise again, and he got up from his chair and paced up and down restlessly. "It is the very thing. She wants her money and I want my freedom. She gets hers by marriage, and I get mine. I don't care a rush for domestic bliss, it has never appealed to me; and the fellow in Australia who'll come after me has got a boy who will do all right, no doubt, for the old place by and by. I shall have a perfectly free time and no responsibilities—and, thank the Lord! no more women for me for the future. I have done with the snakes. I shall be happy and free for the first time for a whole year!"
Mr. Fordyce actually let his cigar go out. This incredible story was beginning to have an effect upon him.
"But where did she come from?" he asked blandly, as one speaks to a harmless imbecile. "I leave you here in an abject state of despair, ready almost to decide upon marrying old Bessie, and I return in an hour and you inform me everything is settled, and you are the fiancé of another lady! You know, you surprise me, Michael—'Pon my word, you do!"
Michael laughed, it was really a huge joke.
"Yes, it is quite true. Well, just as I was going to ring and send James for Bessie to talk it over with her, there was no end of a smash—as you see—and a girl—a tourist—fell through the secret door. I haven't opened it for five years. She was running away from a horrid fellow she was engaged to, it seems, and fled into the passage, and the door shut after her and she could not get out, so she pushed on in here."
"It adds dramatic color to the story, the girl being engaged to someone else—pray go on."
Mr. Fordyce had now picked up his cigar again. This preposterous tale no longer interested him. He thought it even rather bad taste on the part of his friend.
"All right!" Michael explained. "You need not believe me if you don't like. I don't care, since I have done what I wanted to. Bar chaff, Henry, I am telling you the truth. The girl appears to be a young woman of decision. She explained at once her circumstances, and it struck us both that to go through the ceremony of marriage would smooth all our difficulties. We can easily get the bond annulled later on."
Henry Fordyce put down his cigar again.
"I am off to town to-night. You won't mind, will you?" Michael went on. "Just to see if everything is all right, and to get her guardian's consent and a special license, and I shall be back by the six o'clock train on Thursday in time to get the ceremony over that night; and then, by the early morning express, if you'll wait till then, we'll go South together, and so for Paris and freedom!"
Henry actually rose from his chair.
"And the bride?" he asked.
Michael laughed. "Oh, she may go to the moon, for all I care; she leaves directly after the ceremony with her certificate of marriage, which she means to brandish in the face of her relations, who are staying at the Inn, and so exit out of my life! It is only an affair of expediency."
"It is the affair of a madman."
Michael frowned, and his firm chin looked aggressive. "It is nothing of the kind. You told me yourself that you would rather marry old Bessie— a woman of eighty-four—than Violet Hatfield; and now, when I have found a much more suitable person—a pretty little lady—you begin to talk. My mind is made up, and there is an end of it."
Mr. Fordyce interrupted.
"Bessie would have been much more suitable—a plain pretext; but you have no idea what complications you may be storing up for yourself by marrying a young girl—What is the sense in it?" he continued, a little excited now. "The younger and prettier she is makes her all the more unsuitable to be used merely as a tool in your game. Confound it, Michael!"
"And her game, too," his host reminded him. His eyes were flashing now, and that expression, which all his underlings knew meant he intended to have his own will at any cost, grew upon his face.
"You forget that in Scotland divorce is not an impossibility and— I am going to do it, Henry. Now, I had better write to old Fergusson, my chaplain, and tell him to be in readiness, and I suppose I ought to see my lawyers in Edinburgh, although, as there are no settlements and it is just between ourselves, perhaps it does not matter about them."
"How old is the girl?" Mr. Fordyce felt it prudent to ask. "It is a pretty serious thing you contemplate, you know."
"Oh! rot!—she is seventeen, I believe—and for that sort of a marriage and mere business arrangement, her age is no consequence."
Henry turned to the window and looked out for a moment, then he said gravely:
"Is it quite fair to her?"
Michael had gone to his writing-table, and was busily scribbling to his chaplain, but he looked over his shoulder startled, and then a gleam of blue fire came into his eyes, and his handsome mouth shut like a vise.
"Of course, it is quite fair. She wishes to be free as much as I do. She gets what she wants and I get what I want—a mere ceremony can be annulled at any time. She jumped at the idea, I tell you, Henry—I have not got time to go into the pros and cons of that side of the question, and I don't want to hear your views or any one else's on the matter. I mean to marry the girl on Thursday night—and you can quite well put off going South until Friday morning, and see me through it."
Mr. Fordyce prepared to go towards the door, and when there said, in a voice of ice: "I shall do no such thing. I cannot prevent your doing this, I suppose—taking advantage of a young girl for your own ends, it seems to me—so I shall go now."
Michael's temper began to blaze with this, his oldest friend.
"As you please," he flashed. "But it is perfect rot, all this high palaver. The girl gains by it as well as I. I am not taking the least advantage of her. I shall have to get her guardian's consent, and I suppose he'll know what he is up to. I have never taken any one's advice, and I am not going to begin now, old boy—so we had better say good-bye if you won't stop."
He came over to the door, and then he smiled his radiant, irresistible smile so like a mischievous jolly boy's.
"Give me joy, Henry, old friend," he said, and held out his hand.
But Henry Fordyce looked grave as a judge as he took it.
"I can't do that, Michael. I am very angry with you. I have known you ever since you were born, and we have been real pals, although I am so much older than you—but I'm damned if I'll stay and see you through this folly. Good-bye." And without a word further he went out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Michael gave a sort of whoop to Binko, who sprang at him in love and excitement, while he cried:
"Very well! Get along, old saint!"
Then he rang the bell, and to the footman when he came he handed the note he had written to be taken to Mr. Fergusson, and sent orders for Johnson to pack for two nights, and for his motor to be ready to catch the 10:40 express at the junction for London town. Then he seized his cap and, calling Binko, he went off into the garden, and so on to the park and to the golf house, where, securing his professional, he played a vigorous round, and when he got back to the castle again, just before dinner, he was informed that Mr. Fordyce had left in his own motor for Edinburgh