Chapter Two.

The Girl Who Wished for Money.

Claudia Berrington prided herself that if she had many faults, she had at least one supreme virtue—she was honest! She condescended to no subterfuges, no half-truths, no beatings about the bush. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth fell from her coral lips with a nakedness which astonished her hearers, and this despite the fact that few people had less consideration for honesty for honesty’s sake. There was no “I can, because I ought” in Claudia Berrington’s composition; her outspokenness was simply a means to an end. Very early in life her sharp wits had mastered the fact that honesty was the best policy, and that to speak the truth was at once to disarm criticism and to avoid the danger of pitfalls.

To Claudia’s supreme delight, she discovered that her adopted virtue was quite an asset in society. It was so uncommon, so arresting to meet a girl who really said what she meant, that it made quite a sensation, when found. People said to one another: “Have you heard Claudia’s latest?” and hung upon her lips in delighted anticipation of shocks. And Claudia duly shocked them, and enjoyed the process.

Openly, at the New Year’s party, Claudia had confessed that the one overwhelming ambition of her heart was to be rich, and as there seemed only one way in which a helpless young woman could obtain a limitless command of money, had declared herself ready to marry the highest bidder in the market. “A German Jew stock-broker, or a Maharajah of ‘something-core,’ or a soap-boiler bereft of h’s. Anyone will do!” she had cried, “if he can only give me enough.” And in a tête-à-tête with a girl friend over her bedroom fire the same night, she had repeated and defended the same statement.

“Ashamed?” she cried, “why should I be ashamed? I’m not a bit! How can I help my own nature? Most girls put love before everything else. Well, so do I; but it’s love for myself. I love myself better than any stupid young man, and I mean to make myself happy. I couldn’t be happy without money, therefore money I must have, and if I find a man who is ready and willing to give it to me, why on earth should I refuse?”

The friend looked at the fair, delicately cut face with a pang of envy.

“You are so lovely, Claudia; you’ll find him fast enough, and he’ll worship you, and think you a paragon of virtue. It is unfair! A plain-looking girl who would have loved him back, and been amiable and devoted, would have no chance, whereas you will carry all before you. It is unfair!”

“Oh, I’ll be quite sweet to him. I’ll have to be, to keep him in a good temper. I’ll be wickedly extravagant, you see, like all nouveaux riches, and I detest rows! Don’t you worry about the man, dear. He’ll be happy enough. So long as I get all I want, I’m quite easy to live with!”

“No one gets all one wants in life, Claudia,” said the friend tritely. “All the money in the world can’t protect you from the troubles which enter every life!”

“Perhaps not; but it can gild them! If I’m bound to have troubles, let me have them de luxe. A million or two can make anything picturesque. All the difference between sables and bombazine. Shouldn’t I look sweet, Meriel, as a widow, with a Marie Stuart bonnet and a cloak of priceless sables? He might die, you know! You never can tell!”

Then Meriel had arisen and swept scornfully from the room, and Claudia had laughed, and yawned, and gone to bed.

Several men proposed to Claudia during the next two years, only to be rejected with a finality which left no ground for appeal, and then, soon after the celebration of her twenty-fifth birthday, John Biggs appeared upon the scene. He was neither a Maharajah nor a German Jew, and he knew nothing whatever about soap-boiling. Probably in early years he had hardly been better acquainted with soap itself! He was an Australian by birth; a man of the people, who by a series of lucky chances had first discovered a gold reef, and then secured it for his own. A born fighter, he had experienced a delight in every step on the road to success, which was strangely lacking when the summit was reached. He was a multi-millionaire; he owned more money than he could spend. The battle had been fought and won, and henceforth life stretched before him barren of interest. He made his way to London, as millionaires have a habit of doing, was eagerly welcomed by a certain section of society, and in the course of a few weeks met Miss Berrington at a musical “At Home.”

“Who’s the Ogre?” asked Claudia of her companion as she watched the entrance of the big, lumbering man, who still carried his dress clothes with an air of discomfort. She shuddered daintily. “He looks like, ‘The better to eat you, my dear.’ Such teeth oughtn’t to be allowed! Has he any eyes? They are so buried in fat that one can’t see. It’s very inconsiderate of Lady Rollo to give us such shocks! If he comes over here, I shall scream!”

“That’s Biggs, the Australian millionaire, the third richest man in the world, so they say. He is an ugly beggar, and as glum as he’s ugly. Doesn’t appear to get much fun out of his pile! There’s no need to be introduced to him, Miss Berrington, if you’d rather not. Shall we go and hide in the conservatory?”

The speaker was a recent acquaintance, sufficiently under the spell of Claudia’s dimples to believe her everything that was disinterested and simple. Her reply gave him a shock.

“A millionaire, is he? That covers a multitude of—teeth! I shan’t scream, after all. No; I don’t want to hide. I’ve a penchant for millionaires! I’ll sit here and look pretty! How long do you give him, Mr Bruce, before he asks for an introduction?”

Mr Bruce gave him ten minutes, but, as a matter of fact, it was only seven and a half by the clock before the Ogre was bowing before the Beauty’s sofa, and being smilingly welcomed to a seat by her side. He was portentously ugly! Claudia, regarding him with her long green eyes, thought she had never before beheld so unattractive a man. “Flabby dabby” was her not inappropriate mental definition, but the small grey eyes looking out of the vast mass of flesh were disconcertingly keen and alert. Claudia realised that her description did not apply to the man’s mind, however aptly it might fit his body.

As for John Biggs, no words could describe his admiration of this wonderful new specimen of womanhood. Never in all his life had he beheld anyone so fair, so exquisite, so ethereal. Her hair was like threads of gold. The exquisite fineness and beauty of her complexion was like that of a child. It seemed a miracle in the eyes of the big, rough man that a grown-up woman should preserve such delicacy of charm. Yet as they exchanged the first commonplaces of conversation there was something in the expression of those sunken eyes which was not wholly approving. They seemed to Claudia like small steel gimlets, piercing into her soul! As he bade her good-bye that evening, John Biggs announced coolly:

“I shall see you again on Thursday, as arranged!” and when Claudia exclaimed, he waved aside her protests with a sarcastic laugh.

“You have been at pains to tell me exactly what you are to be doing every day of this week! Didn’t you intend me to meet you?”

Claudia shrugged her shoulders, and took refuge in her usual honesty.

“Well—I did! But you might have pretended that I didn’t. It’s rather unkind to show that you see through my poor little machinations with such ease.”

“I never pretend,” said John Biggs. His eyes rested on the string of imitation pearls encircling the slender neck, and he spoke again, roughly, insolently: “Why do you