Part 2 (1/2)
As the procession started toward the waiting car, Gordon, who followed close by the English actress, inquired:
”Where shall we go to-day?”
”Really, I don't think we shall have room for you to-day, Sanford,” said Mrs. Dainton, somewhat coldly, pausing at the top of the steps while the maids, a.s.sisted by the footman and Victor, helped Fuzzy-Wuzzy tenderly into the car.
”That's what you have said for the past three days,” Gordon cried tensely. ”And yet I brought my own machine and my own chauffeur out here from New York just to please you.”
”And you are pleasing me a great deal, Sanford, by letting me go alone.”
”Will nothing I do ever move you?” inquired Gordon. Then, as he saw she was more interested in the way Johanna was holding the Pomeranian, he added fiercely: ”Once you would have answered differently.”
Mrs. Dainton turned on him, her manner a strange mingling of sadness and regret.
”Ah, yes, once,” she said softly. ”I loved you then without any thought of the future, and I have paid for it with many, many bitter years of repentance. Now, after all these years--years when you seemed to have forgotten my very existence and the thing which you had once called love--I return to America, praised and honored by those who in the old days had treated me so lightly, you among the rest.”
”That's not true,” broke in Gordon. ”I always loved you.”
”But we parted,” continued Mrs. Dainton, bitterly. ”And if I had returned, needing your help instead of being able to reject all that you can give, would you have come to me again?”
”You know I should have.”
”No, Sanford, we seek only that which is beyond our reach,” she said softly, laying her hand on his arm. ”The candle has burned out. Do not try to relight it. I have been only an incident in your life--”
”That's not true.”
”Don't you suppose I know about the others?”
”They were nothing to me. It was you, always you.”
”One who has been through the mill doesn't care to be crushed by the mill-stones a second time. Take my advice, Sanford--return to New York, seek out some nice young girl, and marry her.”
”Never!”
”Really!” Mrs. Dainton laughed lightly as she ran down the steps and was helped into the car by the vigilant Victor. ”Ta-ta, Sanford, I'll see you to-morrow, or the day after.” And in another moment the big, red touring-car had whirled away, leaving upon the steps the solitary figure of a tall, dark, good-looking chap of uncertain age, who clenched his hands tightly, then turned suddenly as a bell-boy pa.s.sed along the veranda.
”Boy!”
”Yes, sir.”
”Tell my valet to pack up at once. I'm leaving for New York to-night.”
”Yes, sir. Very good, sir,” closing a responsive palm. ”Thank you, sir.”
CHAPTER III
INTRODUCING MARTHA FARNUM
In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of any famous health resort, strangely contrasting types are often found. Amid the vain, the foolish, the inebriates and the idle who flocked to the Springs for amus.e.m.e.nt and diversion, there were a few who really came to seek health. For three months, the gay pa.s.sers-by on the shaded walks near the hotel had noticed one such, an elderly lady, feeble, gray-haired, evidently recovering from a severe illness, who invariably occupied a wheel-chair, the motive power for which was furnished by a most attractive young girl always clad in simple black. The girl was about nineteen, slender, graceful, with the clear and partly sunburnt complexion which comes from life spent much in the open air. Her eyes and hair were brown--her eyes large and wistful, her hair light and wavy. She wore no jewelry, and there was no suggestion of color about her costume. Yet there seemed a certain lightness and gayety in her face which conveyed the impression that sadness was not a component factor in her life. She smiled as, hour after hour, she read to the invalid on the veranda, and seemed actually to enjoy her task of wheeling the chair back and forth to the Springs in the rear of the hotel.
Once, when a traveling man who had strayed down to the Springs for a weekend offered the front clerk a cheap cigar and expressed curiosity as to the name of the young lady, that obliging encyclopedia explained: