"The work of the world," he told Frances, "belongs to specialists.
Even a bootblack knows his trade. I know nothing. I can do nothing.
I am a mass of flabby pretences."
Every month she filled his pocket-book. She found at last that he did
not touch the money. He sold his clothes and his jewelry to keep
himself alive while he tramped the streets of New York looking for
work. He starved himself to make this money last. His flesh was
lead-colored from want of proper food, and he staggered from weakness.
"'He that will not work neither let him eat,'" he said grimly.
It was about this time that Miss Vance came home. Mrs. Waldeaux in a
moment of weakness gave her a hint of his defeat.
"Is the world blind," she cried, "to deny work to a man of George's
capacity? What does it mean?"
Clara heard of George's sufferings with equanimity. "The truth is,"
she said, when she told the story to Miss Dunbar, "Frances brought that
boy up to believe that he was a Grand Llama among men. There is no
work for Grand Llamas in this country, and when he understands that he
is made of very ordinary clay indeed, he will probably be of some use
in the world."
Lucy was watering her roses. "It is a matter of indifference to me,"
she said, "what the people of New York think of Mr. Waldeaux."
Clara looked at her quickly. "I do not quite catch your meaning?" she
said.
But Lucy filled her can, and forgot to answer.
CHAPTER XVII
Clara had brought Miss Dunbar back and established her in her own house
near Weir, under the care of a deaf widowed aunt. Dunbar Place was a
stately colonial house, set in a large demesne, and all Kent County
waited breathless to know what revelations the heiress would make to
it, in the way of equi-pages, marqueterie furniture, or Paris gowns.
Mrs. Waldeaux found Lucy one day, a month after her arrival, seated at
her sewing on the broad, rose-covered piazza, looking as if she never
had left it.
"Have you come to stay now, my dear," she said, "or will Prince
Wolfburgh----"
"Oh, that is an old story," interrupted Clara. "Lucy handed the little
prince over to Jean Hassard, who married him after he had a long fight
with her father about her dot. He won the dot, but Count Odo is now
the head of the house. Jean, I hear, is in Munich fighting her way up
among the Herrschaft."
"Jean has good fighting qualities," Lucy said. "She will win."
"I had a letter from her to-day," said Miss Vance. "Here it is. She
says, 'I mean to rebuild the Schloss, and I have put a stop to the
soap-boiling business. I will have no fumes of scorching fat in our
ancestral halls. Four of the princesses live with us here in the flat.
Gussy Carson from Pond City is staying with me now. We have an
American tea every Wednesday. Gus receives with me.'"
"Poor princesses!" said Lucy.
Miss Vance folded the letter with a complacent nod. "I am glad that
Jean is settled so satisfactorily," she said. "As for Lucy----"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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