“In the theatrical profession?” I inquired at last, looking up.
He hesitated. “Well, not exactly,” he answered.
I pursed my lips and blew a ring. “Music-hall stage?” I went on, dubiously.
He nodded. “But a girl is not necessarily any the less a lady because she sings at a music-hall,” he added, with warmth, displaying an evident desire to be just to his betrothed, however much he admired Daphne.
“Certainly not,” I admitted. “A lady is a lady; no occupation can in itself unladify her.… But on the music-hall stage, the odds, one must admit, are on the whole against her.”
“Now, there you show prejudice!”
“One may be quite unprejudiced,” I answered, “and yet allow that connection with the music-halls does not, as such, afford clear proof that a girl is a compound of all the virtues.”
“I think she’s a good girl,” he retorted, slowly.
“Then why do you want to throw her over?” I inquired.
“I don’t. That’s just it. On the contrary, I mean to keep my word and marry her.”
“In order to keep your word?” I suggested.
He nodded. “Precisely. It is a point of honour.”
“That’s a poor ground of marriage,” I went on. “Mind, I don’t want for a moment to influence you, as Daphne’s cousin. I want to get at the truth of the situation. I don’t even know what Daphne thinks of you. But you promised me a clean breast. Be a man and bare it.”
He bared it instantly. “I thought I was in love with this girl, you see,” he went on, “till I saw Miss Tepping.”
“That makes a difference,” I admitted.
“And I couldn’t bear to break her heart.”
“Heaven forbid!” I cried. “It is the one unpardonable sin. Better anything than that.” Then I grew practical. “Father’s consent?”
“My father’s? Is it likely? He expects me to marry into some distinguished English family.”
I hummed a moment. “Well, out with it!” I exclaimed, pointing my cigar at him.
He leaned back in his chair and told me the whole story. A pretty girl; golden hair; introduced to her by a friend; nice, simple little thing; mind and heart above the irregular stage on to which she had been driven by poverty alone; father dead; mother in reduced circumstances. “To keep the home together, poor Sissie decided—”
“Precisely so,” I murmured, knocking off my ash. “The usual self-sacrifice! Case quite normal! Everything en regle!”
“You don’t mean to say you doubt it?” he cried, flushing up, and evidently regarding me as a hopeless cynic. “I do assure you, Dr. Cumberledge, the poor child—though miles, of course, below Miss Tepping’s level—is as innocent, and as good—”
“As a flower in May. Oh, yes; I don’t doubt it. How did you come to propose to her, though?”
He reddened a little. “Well, it was almost accidental,” he said, sheepishly. “I called there one evening, and her mother had a headache and went up to bed. And when we two were left alone, Sissie talked a great deal about her future and how hard her life was. And after a while she broke down and began to cry. And then—”