Part 16 (1/2)
”Cautiously, cautiously, daughter,” admonished Fleming, looking a trifle alarmed. ”That's all right on the stage; but in real life when an outsider tries to join the parted hands of husband and wife, he's likely to get a cuff on the ear.”
”Oh, men are crude,” sighed Fuschia. ”You didn't suppose I was going to do the child at Christmas act, did you? No, what I mean to do, that is, if it's just her imagination and not really her heart that's captured, is to take her boy-Raphael away from her.”
Fleming gasped, and, lowering his head slightly, looked at his daughter from under his eyebrows. ”Fuschia,” he said, ”there are few things that can feaze me. 'No limitations and no limits' has always been my motto, but you do, child, you really do take my breath away sometimes. Why, if report is true, Cress' wife is one of the most beautiful women in the world.”
”Um-huh,” Fuschia yawned indifferently. ”What has that got to do with it? I've usually,” she continued thoughtfully, ”succeeded in getting anything I wanted; that is, men. The wildest of them will trot right up to me, and eat out of my hand.”
”You're your father's own little girl, Fuschia,” said Jim with emotion.
”Yes, and it's a good thing I inherited father's const.i.tution as well as his spell-binding abilities, considering that I have to be practically my own press agent, stage manager and all the rest of it; the management of Fuschia Fleming and Fuschia Fleming herself and then take up the task of reuniting families besides. But Mr. Hepworth is a good, good man, Papa, and we're going to make him happy, even if we have to do it on his money.”
CHAPTER XVII
DO YOU LOVE ME?
The Warrens and Mrs. Wilstead had remained in Santa Barbara a week, time enough for Alice to discover that Hepworth was in no apparent need of the consolatory offices of his old friends, that Fuschia Fleming was a most entertaining young woman, and that Hayward Preston's attentions were persistent and his intentions manifest and purposeful.
During the next month, no matter in what part of the state they were and in what hotel Alice and her friends registered, Preston was sure to turn up before the day was over; and to begin at the earliest possible moment his unending argument. Along palm-shaded boulevards, under avenues of pepper trees, in orange groves, on lonely mountain trails, in the shadow of old missions, on surf-pounded beaches, in secluded nooks of great hotels, everywhere and at all times he told his plain, unvarnished tale. He had now asked Mrs. Wilstead to marry him in every resort in California; and had not yet succeeded in winning her consent, and the day of her departure was drawing near. Within two days she would be leaving for New York. It was at Pasadena that Mr. Preston made his last desperate stand.
He and Alice were strolling about the gardens of the hotel; she had not wished to get too far away from the sheltering Warrens, and there Preston was making what he a.s.sured her was his last appeal.
She, however, preferred to view his condition of mind and heart in a psychological rather than a sentimental way.
”It is a habit, an obsession,” she a.s.severated, tilting her rose-lined parasol toward the sun so that charming pink reflections fell upon her face. ”You have lost sight of the object in the zest of pursuit. It is the game which absorbs you, believe me. The winning would disconcert you. Yes, it's the game. I am convinced that you have lost sight of the goal and all that it entails.”
Mr. Preston merely looked at her. ”It entails you,” he replied simply.
”It entails a great deal more,” her speech was as quick as his was slow.
”You are, you tell me, exactly thirty-three years old. I, Alice Wilstead,” she shut her lips and breathed hard a moment and then gallantly took the fence, ”am just thirty-eight.”
Not by even the flicker of an eyelash did he show either surprise or dismay. Alice's heart went out to him. She really adored his impa.s.sivity; it was so unlike anything she was capable of.
”What has that got to do with my loving you and your loving me?” asked Preston stolidly.
”Everything,” she answered deeply, regarding with drooping eyes and wistful mouth a great, fragrant rose which she held between her fingers.
”If we could but hold this moment, if neither of us would know further change, why--”
”Then you admit that you could care for me, that you do care for me,” he exclaimed with brightening eyes.
”Let it remain at 'could' and 'might,'” with one of her swift smiles.
”But under any circ.u.mstances, I do not wish to marry any one. Look at my admirable position, rich, free, supposedly attractive, young--a widow, you know, is always a good five or six years younger than either a married or an unmarried woman. One is regarded as a young widow until one is quite an elderly person. Now, really, why should I marry?”
”There isn't any possible reason,” agreed Mr. Preston unhappily, ”unless you love me, and then there is every reason. But are you not tired walking up and down, up and down these paths? Shall we not sit down on this seat a few minutes?”
She acquiesced. It was a glorious morning and the spot was enchanting with all this fragrant, almost tropical plant life blooming and blowing about them, and Alice, impelled by the softness and sweetness of the air and scene, forgot her adamantine resolutions and lifted her eyes to his in one long and too-revealing glance.
”Alice, Alice”--there were all manner of tender inflections in his usually colorless and unemotional tones--”you can not now deny--”
”Yes, I can,” she cried quickly; ”I can and I do. Hayward, believe me, it will never, never do. You are looking at the matter from the man's viewpoint, I, from the woman's, and, in cases of this kind, the woman's is the surer, the more safely intuitive.”