same woman, and contrary to rule, that too was a link—perhaps the strongest of the three—though Bransby had never even remotely suspected it.

had

Morton Grant could not remember when he had not loved Violet Bransby. He had yearned for her when they both wore curls and very short dresses. He had loved her when, short-sighted and round-shouldered then as now, he had been in her class at dancing school and in the adjacent class at the Sunday School, in which the pupils, aged from four to fourteen, had been decently and discreetly segregated of sex. He had loved her on her wedding-day, and wept the hard scant tears of manhood defeated, denied and at bay, until his dull, weak eyes had been bleared and red-rimmed, and his ugly little button of a nose (he had almost none) had flamed gin-scarlet. And for that one day the beloved business had been to him nothing. He had loved her when she lay shrouded in her coffin—and now, a year after, he loved her dust in its grave—and all so silently that even she had never sensed it. For the old saying is untrue: a woman does not always know.

always

This poor love of his was indeed a link between the man and his master—and all the stronger because Richard had been as suspicionless as Violet herself. For Bransby would have resented it haughtily, but less and less hotly than he had resented her marriage with that “mountebank” (the term is Bransby’s and not altogether just)—but of the two he would greatly have preferred Grant as a brother-in-law.

Under Helen’s sway, Grant had never come. She was not Violet’s child. He would rather even that Bransby were childless and his fortune in entire keeping for Violet’s boys. For herself he neither liked nor disliked the little girl. But he was grateful to her for being a girl. That left the business undividedly open for Stephen and Hugh—for their future participation and ultimate management at least. And he hoped that of so large a fortune an uncle so generous to them, and so fond of Violet, would allot the brothers some considerable share.

Unlike Mr. Dombey and many other self-made millionaires, Richard Bransby had never wished for a son. Not for treble his millions would he have changed her of sex: Helen satisfied him—quite.

And perhaps unconsciously he was some trifle relieved that no son, growing up to man’s assertion, could rival or question his sole headship of “Bransby’s.”

CHAPTER IV

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