Part 2 (1/2)
”Luxury!” she repeated bitterly. ”Surrounding me with all a woman might desire--paintings that charm the eye, books that charm the mind, music that charms the ear. Money!”
”Philosophy in a girl!” thought Warrington. His hat became motionless.
”It is all a lie, a lie!” The girl struck her hands together, impotent in her wrath.
It was done so naturally that Warrington, always the dramatist, made a mental note of the gesture.
”I was educated in Paris and Berlin; my musical education was completed in Dresden. Like all young girls with music-loving souls, I was something of a poet. I saw the beautiful in everything; sometimes the beauty existed only in my imagination. I dreamed; I was happy. I was told that I possessed a voice such as is given to few. I sang before the Emperor of Austria at a private musicale. He complimented me. The future was bright indeed. Think of it; at twenty I retained all my illusions! I am now twenty-three, and not a single illusion is left. I saw but little of my father and mother, which is not unusual with children of wealthy parents. The first shock that came to my knowledge was the news that my mother had ceased to live with my father. I was recalled. There were no explanations. My father met me at the boat. He greeted my effusive caresses--caresses that I had saved for years!--with careless indifference. This was the second shock. What did it all mean? Where was my mother? My father did not reply. When I reached home I found that all the servants I had known in my childhood days were gone. From the new ones I knew that I should learn nothing of the mystery which, like a pall, had suddenly settled down upon me.”
She paused, her arms hanging listless at her sides, her gaze riveted upon a pattern in the rug at her feet. Warrington sat like a man of stone; her voice had cast a spell upon him.
”I do not know why I tell you these things. It may weary you. I do not care. Madness lay in silence. I had to tell some one. This morning I found out all. My mother left my father because he was ... a thief!”
”A thief!” fell mechanically from Warrington's lips.
”A thief, bold, unscrupulous; not the petty burglar, no. A man who has stolen funds intrusted to him for years; a man who has plundered the orphan and the widow, the most despicable of all men. My mother died of shame, and I knew nothing. My father left last night for South America, taking with him all the available funds, leaving me a curt note of explanation. I have neither money, friends, nor home. The newspapers as yet know nothing; but to-morrow, to-morrow! The banks have seized everything.”
She continued her story. Sometimes she was superb in her wrath; at others, abject in her misery. She seemed to pa.s.s through the whole gamut of the pa.s.sions.
And all this while it ran through Warrington's head--”What a theme for a play! What a voice!”
He pitied the girl from the bottom of his heart; but what could he do for her other than offer her cold sympathy? He was ill at ease in the face of this peculiar tragedy.
All at once the girl stopped and faced him, There was a smile on her lips, a smile that might be likened to a flash of sunlight on a wintry day. Directly the smile melted into a laugh, mellow, mischievous, reverberating.
Warrington sat up stiffly in his chair.
”I beg your pardon!” he said.
The girl sat down before a small writing-table. She reached among some papers and finally found what she sought.
”Mr. Warrington, all this has been in very bad taste; I frankly confess it. There are two things you may do: leave the house in anger, or remain to forgive me this imposition.”
”I fail to understand.” He was not only angered, but bewildered.
”I have deceived you.”
”You mean that you have lured me here by trick? That you have played upon my sympathies to gratify ...”
”Wait a moment,” she interrupted proudly, her cheeks darkening richly.
”A trick, it is true; but there are extenuating circ.u.mstances. What I have told you HAS happened, only it was not to-day nor yesterday.
Please remain seated till I have done. I AM poor; I WAS educated in the cities I have named; I have to earn my living.”
She rose and came over to his chair. She gave him a letter.
”Read this; you will fully understand.”
Warrington experienced a mild chill as he saw a letter addressed to him, and his rude scribble at the bottom of it.