Part 24 (1/2)
”He burst forth with the story of his wrongs, of course, then. He could not keep it in any longer. Things had gone wrong with him in every way before this had happened, he said, and he had longed so for just one hour in which Dolly could comfort him and try to help him to pluck up spirits again, and she had written to him a tender little letter, and promised to give him that hour, and he had been so full of impatience and love, and he had gone to the very gates and waited like a beggar outside, lest he should miss her by any chance, and the end of his waiting had been that he had caught a glimpse of the bright, warm room, and the piano, and Dolly with Gowan bending over her as if she had no other lover in the world. He told it all in a burst, clenching his hand and scarcely stopping for breath; but when he ended he dashed the letter down, pushed his chair round, and dropped his head on his folded arms on the table, with a wild, tearing sob.
”It is no fault of hers,” he cried, ”and it was only the first sting that made me reproach her. I shall never do it again. She is only in the right, and that fellow is in the right when he tells himself that he can take better care of her and make her happier than I can. I will be a coward no longer,--not an hour longer. I will give her up to-night. She will learn to love him--he is a gentleman at least--if I were in his place I should never fear that she would not learn in time, and forget--and forget the poor, selfish beggar who would have died for her, and yet was not man enough to control the jealous rage that tortured her. I 'll give her up. I'll give it all up--but, oh! my G.o.d! Dolly, the--the little house, and--and the dreams I have had about it!”
Aimee was almost in despair. This was not one of his ordinary moods; this was the culminating point,--the culmination of all his old sufferings and pangs. He had been working slowly toward this through all the old unhappiness and self-reproach. The constant droppings of the bygone years had worn away the stone at last, and he could not bear much more. Aimee was frightened now. Her habit of forethought showed her all this in a very few seconds. His nervous, highly strung, impa.s.sioned temperament had broken down at last. Another blow would be too much for him. If she could not manage to set him right now and calm him, and if things went wrong again, she was secretly conscious of feeling that the consequences could not be foreseen. There was nothing wild and rash and wretched he might not do.
She got up and went to him, and leaned upon the table, clasping her cool, firm little hand upon his hot, desperate one. A woman of fifty could not have had the power over him that this slight, inexperienced little creature had. Her childish face caught color and life and strength in her determination to do her best for these two whom she loved so well. Her small-boned, fragile figure deceived people into undervaluing her reserve forces; but there was mature feeling and purpose enough in her to have put many a woman three times her age to shame. The light, cool touch of her' hand soothed and controlled Griffith from the first, and when she put forth all her powers of reasoning, and set his trouble before him in a more practical and less headlong way, not a word was lost upon him. She pictured Dolly to him just as she had found her holding his letter in her hand, and she pictured her too as she had really been the night he watched her through the window,--not staying because she cared for Gowan, but because circ.u.mstances had forced her to remain when she was longing in her own impetuous pretty way to fly to him, and give him the comfort he needed.
And she gave Dolly's story in Dolly's own words, with the little sobs between, and the usual plentiful sprinkling of sweet, foolish, loving epithets, and--with innocent artfulness--made her seem so charming and affectionate, a little centre-figure in the picture she drew, that no man with a heart in his breast could have resisted her, and by the time Aimee had finished, Grif was so far moved that it seemed a sheer impossibility to speak again of relinquis.h.i.+ng his claims.
But he could not regain his spirits sufficiently to feel able to say very much. He quieted down, but he was still down at heart and crushed in feeling, and could do little else but listen in a hopeless sort of way.
”I will tell you what you shall do,” Aimee said at last. ”You shall see Dolly yourself,--not on the street, but just as you used to see her when she was at home. She shall come home some afternoon. I know Miss MacDowlas will let her,--and you shall sit in the parlor together, Grif, and make everything straight, and begin afresh.”
He could not help being roused somewhat by such a prospect. The cloud was lifted for one instant, even if it fell upon him again the next.
”I shall have to wait a week,” he said. ”Old Flynn has asked me to go to Dartmouth, to attend to some business for him, and I leave here to-morrow morning.”
”Very well!” she answered. ”If we must wait a week, we must; but you can write to Dolly in the interval, and settle upon the day, and then she can speak to Miss MacDowlas.”
He agreed to the plan at once, and promised to write to Dolly that very night. So the young peacemaker's mind was set at rest upon this subject, at least, and after giving him a trifle more advice, and favoring him with a few more sage axioms, she prepared to take her departure.
”You may put on your hat and take me to the door; but you had better not come in if you are going to finish your letter before the post closes,”
she said; ”but the short walk will do you good, and the night-air will cool you.”
She bade him good-night at the gate when they reached Bloomsbury Place, and she entered the house with her thoughts turning to Mollie. Mollie had been out, too, it seemed. When she went up-stairs to their bedroom, she found her there, standing before the dressing-table, still with her hat on, and looking in evident preoccupation at something she held in her hand. Hearing Aimee, she started and turned round, dropping her hand at her side, but not in time to hide a suspicious glitter which caught her sister's eye. Here was a worse state of affairs than ever. She had something to hide, and she had made up her mind to hide it. She stood up as Aimee approached, looking excited and guilty, but still half-defiant, her lovely head tossed back a little and an obstinate curve on her red lips. But the oracle was not to be daunted. She confronted her with quite a stern little air.
”Mollie,” she began at once, without the least hesitation,--”Mollie, you have just this minute hidden something from me, and I should n't have thought you could do it.”
Mollie put her closed hand behind her.
”_If_ I am hiding something,” she answered, ”I am not hiding it without reason.”
”No,” returned Dame Prudence, severely, ”you are not. You have a very good reason, I am afraid. You are ashamed of yourself, and you know you are doing wrong. You have got a secret, which you are keeping from _me_, Mollie,” bridling a little in the prettiest way. ”I didn't think you would keep a secret from _me_.”
Mollie, very naturally, was overpowered. She looked a trifle ashamed of herself, and the tears came into her eyes. She drew her hand from behind her back, and held it out with a half-pettish, half-timid gesture.
”There!” she said; ”if you must see it.”
And there, on her pink palm, lay a s.h.i.+ning opal ring.
”And,” said Aimee, looking at it without offering to touch it, and then looking at her,--”and Mr. Gerald Chandos gave it to you?”
”Yes, Mr. Gerald Chandos did,” trying to brave it out, but still appearing the reverse of comfortable. ”And you think it proper,”
proceeded her inquisitor, ”to accept such presents from a gentleman who cares nothing for you?”
Care nothing for her! Mollie drew herself upright, with the air of a Zen.o.bia. She had had too few real love affairs not to take arms at once at such an imputation cast upon her prowess.
”He cares enough for me to want me to marry him,” she said, and then stopped and looked as if she could have bitten her tongue off for betraying her.
Aimee sat down in the nearest chair and stared at her, as if she doubted the evidence of her senses.