Part 25 (1/2)

”Oh, no,” returned shocked Nathalie. ”Why, I think you are lovely, even if you are-” But the word was left unsaid, as Nathalie, with sudden impulse, stooped forward and kissed the red lips.

Before she could raise herself, frightened at her own boldness, two arms were flung around her neck and Nathalie was squeezed so hard that she thought she would smother. ”Oh, I just love you!” said Nita's stifled voice from her shoulder, ”and I'm going to keep you with me all the time. Oh, Mother,” she wailed beseechingly, lifting her head, but still keeping Nathalie a prisoner, ”won't you buy her?”

”Buy her!” repeated her mother, who during this affectionate outburst had stood silently by, a pleased smile struggling with an expression of dismay at the girl's rudeness. ”Why, Nita, she is not a horse to be bought and sold.”

”Well, I wish she was then,” said the child, for she was but that, dropping her arms from Nathalie's neck and lying back with sudden exhaustion.

”Oh, she is going to faint,” cried dismayed Nathalie, while the mother rushed to the dresser for the smelling salts. But when she attempted to hold the bottle to Nita's nose, she pushed her mother's hand away crying, ”Take that horrid thing away, and get out of the room; I want Nathalie to myself!”

And the Mystic, the woman always shrouded in gray, who looked at her neighbors with a cold, formal stare of aversion, meekly obeyed. She went softly out of the room and closed the door after her in obedience to her daughter's sharp cry, ”Do you hear? Shut the door!”

Something within Nathalie burst its bounds, she could not sit there another minute and hear the girl talk like that to her mother. ”Oh, don't speak to your mother like that, she is so good to you!” the girl's voice trembled.

”How do you know she is good?” retorted Nita, after a short pause of surprise at this merited rebuke.

”Why-why-because her face shows it,” stammered Nathalie, ”and then, why she is your mother, and if I should talk to my mother like that, why-I should expect her to die then and there.”

”Why?” persisted the voice.

”Because it would hurt her so,-” Nathalie labored, she hated to preach-”to think I could be so disrespectful to her, and ill-bred.”

”Well, your mother isn't my mother; your mother didn't shut you up in a dark room so that you tried to get away.”

”Nita!” came in a pain-stricken voice, ”don't talk that way!”

Nathalie turned to see Mrs. Van Vorst standing in the doorway, her face drawn and lined. ”I was coming in to ask-oh, Miss Page, will you come in here a moment? I should like to speak to you.”

Nathalie arose quickly, her heart overflowing with pity for this poor mother who was only too surely paying the penalty of neglect and anger.

”Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” she cried hastily, ”do not mind your daughter, she doesn't mean to hurt you, she-I think she is just spoiled, you know.”

By this time Nathalie had followed Mrs. Van Vorst into the adjoining room, a sun-parlor, whose gla.s.s windows looked down upon a terraced garden, green with trees and gorgeous with multicolored flowers, surrounded by low rolling hillocks or mounds.

Nita, as Nathalie left the room, began to vent her displeasure in shrill, angry shrieks, but her mother, with set, rigid lips, closed the door softly, and then turning towards Nathalie began to speak, brokenly, between deep-drawn breaths.

”Oh, I have been foolish-I am afraid-in letting you come to see Nita, but oh, it is so hard for her, shut up in this house, with only me and the servants. So when the doctor was telling us about you, Nita pleaded so to have you come, and I foolishly yielded. But oh, Miss Page, do not, I beg of you, repeat what you have seen or heard, don't mind what Nita says about me, it is not true; as you said she does not mean all she says.” The tears were rolling down Mrs. Van Vorst's face.

”Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” exclaimed Nathalie, tears misting in her eyes in sympathy with the lady's grief, ”I know how you feel, but it is all right. I think you are both lovely, I am sure I have nothing to tell; of course, I know that your daughter does not mean what she says, she's just spoiled.” A sudden thought came to the girl. ”Don't you think if you were to let her see people-that is girls of her own age-that she would be better? Oh, I am sure she would,” broke from the girl impetuously, ”and it would make her so happy!”

”Do you really think so?” inquired Mrs. Van Vorst with a note of hope in her voice. ”Would it not hurt her when people said rude things about her?”

”But no one would say rude things about her,” persisted Nathalie determinedly. ”Every one would love her-she's a dear, so sweet-looking-and then she would soon get over her spoiled ways; she would learn by seeing that other girls act differently.” Nathalie felt that she had spoken incoherently, but oh, it did seem such a shame!

”I don't know about that,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst, her face hardening again to the same impenetrable mask that had puzzled Nathalie the first time she met her. ”Well, we will not discuss it now-we'll see how things turn out-only, Miss Page,” she grew stiff and formal, although a note in her voice betrayed that she was battling with her emotion, ”I should like to ask you again to keep silent a little longer, not to tell-how foolish I was-” she broke off suddenly, and then she added, ”of course, you have a right to tell; but let me explain that what Nita says is not true, she likes to tease me into getting her way. Sit down-oh-she has fallen asleep.” Mrs. Van Vorst opened the door softly and then closed it. ”She always does when she cries that way.”

”Yes, I have been foolish,” she reiterated, ”but I am not a criminal, and it is not altogether pride, because I have a deformed child, that makes me keep her secluded. It is because I want to save her, I would give my life for her happiness, but I can't-” there was a hopeless wail to her voice. ”That is my punishment!” And then, as if reminded of what she wanted to tell Nathalie, she continued more calmly, ”It is true that I shut Nita in a dark room. I punished her-she has always had those temper spells-I never knew what to do with her. Some one told me I was too easy with her, so I put her in the room and when she stopped crying I thought she had fallen asleep, but oh, she tried to get out, she said some one was chasing her, and climbed out on the shed and fell off the roof! She broke-her back!” Mrs. Van Vorst buried her face in her hands, but although no sounds came, Nathalie could see the convulsive s.h.i.+vers that shook her frame.

The girl was dumb. What could she say? It was awful! Oh, but if she didn't say something she would be boo-hooing herself in a minute. ”But that was not your fault,” she cried with sudden inspiration. ”It was right for you to punish her. Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, I should consider it just an accident that you could not help.”

Mrs. Van Vorst lifted her face and gazed at the girl with wide, appealing eyes. ”Oh, do you think that? If I could be led to believe I was not to blame! For years I have suffered the tortures of h.e.l.l, doing penance.”

”Yes, and making yourself and your daughter miserable!” Nathalie spoke boldly, she couldn't help it, the words came of themselves as it seemed to her. ”But, Mrs. Van Vorst, look at it in another way, perhaps I should not speak this way to you, for I am just a girl, but I feel so sorry for you, and Nita, it does seem such a shame to shut her off from all pleasure just because an unfortunate thing happened. Why, Mrs.