Part 28 (1/2)
She turned towards Wargrave.
”You said you loved me. Is it true?”
He answered firmly:
”Yes, I do.”
”Then will you marry me? This woman will only wreck your life. Choose between us.”
He turned in desperation to Mrs. Norton.
”Violet, you don't really want me, do you? You don't love me. I've felt for a long time that you're forgetting me. I love Muriel and she loves me. If you ever cared for me release me from my promise.”
Mrs. Norton lay back calmly in her chair and looked with a smile from one to the other. Then she said deliberately:
”This morning I wrote to my husband and told him that I was never returning to him, that I was going to you, Frank. That is why I asked this girl here to-day to tell you before her that now I'm going to ask you to keep your promise. Will you?”
The girl looked at him appealingly and stretched out her hands to him.
”Frank, for your own sake, if not for mine, don't listen to her.”
He stood irresolute, torn by conflicting emotions. Then with an effort he replied:
”Muriel, I must. I can't break my word.”
Mrs. Norton gave a mocking laugh. The girl shrank from him and hid her face in her hands for a moment. Then she looked up and said, desperately calm:
”Very well, be it so. You've decided and there's nothing more to be said. You've shamed me before this woman; and I never want to see you again.”
She turned and walked out of the room.
CHAPTER XIII
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
As Muriel pa.s.sed through the door Wargrave started to follow her; but Violet cried peremptorily:
”Frank, stay here. Please realise that I come first now. Sit down.”
He obeyed mechanically. She went on petulantly:
”These emotional scenes are rather exhausting. Do you mind calling the hotel 'boy' and ordering a c.o.c.ktail for me? You ought to have one yourself. I suppose, like all men, you hate scenes. Then you should be grateful to me for saving you from that spiteful little jungle cat.”
Going to the verandah outside the room he called a hotel servant and gave him the order, then returned to his chair and sat down wearily. He stared at the floor in silence. He had sent the girl that he loved away utterly humiliated; and he knew that, with her proud spirit, the shame of his rejection of her would cut her to the heart. He cursed himself for bringing this pain to her. It was all his fault. Not only had he had no right to speak of love to her while he was bound to another woman, but he ought never to have sought her society as he had done, never striven to gain her friends.h.i.+p, for by doing so he had unconsciously won her love. The harm was done long before he spoke to her of his feelings.
What a selfish brute he was to thus cause two women to suffer!
Presently he remembered that his moodiness, his silence, were uncomplimentary, cruel, to Violet. She was right in saying that she came first. Indeed she was the only one to be considered now. The other had pa.s.sed out of his life. It might be that they should meet again some day in their restricted world, but while he could he must try to avoid her.