Part 2 (2/2)
”Perhaps--perhaps he would prefer to stay here and smoke,” the girl suggested hurriedly, for the first time losing her poise. She caught a glint of challenge in Stephen's eyes and rose. Her color was high, her breath a bit uneven as she smiled at him with bewildering charm. ”After all, why should I make suggestions? You are quite old enough to decide what you want to do yourself, aren't you?”
”Yes. Quite old enough and quite ready to decide for myself,” he answered as he stood aside for her to precede him into the living-room.
”Do you play or sing?” he asked as he followed her to the piano. The instrument looked as though it were loved and used. It was her turn to be a trifle scornful.
”I play and sing. Does it seem incredible that I should?” She seated herself and dropped her hands in her lap. ”Shall I play for you?”
”Please.” He leaned his arms on the piano and looked down at her, but she realized that his thoughts were not following his eyes. ”I am not in the least musical, but we had a chap in our company overseas who could make the most sh.e.l.l-shocked instrument give out what seemed to us in the midst of that thundering inferno, heavenly music. Sometimes now a wave of longing for the sound of a piano sweeps over me, played by someone who loves music as that boy loved it. Do you know--Schumann's 'Papillions'? That was one of his favorites.”
For answer she played the first bar of the exquisite thing. Once she glanced up. The eyes of the man leaning on the piano, not blue now, but dark with memories, were an ocean removed from her. It was a minute after the last note was struck before they came back to her face. He drew a long breath.
”Thank you,” he said simply, but his tone was better than a paean of praise. Then the softness left his eyes. There was aggressiveness and a hint of irony in his voice as he said stiffly:
”My--my father has given me to understand that you will do me the honor to marry me.”
A pa.s.sion of anger shook the girl. She valiantly forced back the tears which threatened, rose and faced him defiantly. Her slender fingers smoothed out the long plumes of her fan. There should be no subterfuge now, she determined, no cause for recrimination later.
”Your father, doubtless, has told you also that my father is willing to buy your name and social position for me with a portion of his fortune.
A sort of fifty-fifty arrangement, isn't it?” she added flippantly, with the faintest flicker of her bronze-tipped lashes. Courtlandt shrugged.
”If you wish to put it so crudely.”
She took a step back and clenched her hands behind her. Her beautiful eyes were brilliant with scorn, her heart pounded. It seemed as though it must visibly shake her slender body as she answered:
”Why not? If we speak the truth now it may save complications later. You know that my father wants me to marry you and--and why. I frankly confess that I sympathize with his ambitions. I want the best of life in my a.s.sociations. Your father is in difficulties of one sort--my father is in difficulties of another sort--if a lack of family background can be called a difficulty--and it appears that with our help they can accommodate one another. I'd do anything for Dad--he has done so much for me.” She set her teeth sharply in her under lip to steady it.
”Then--then you are not afraid to marry without love?” His eyes were inscrutable.
”Without love? For the man I marry? No, not as long as I have no love for any other. I might love a man when I married him, and then--love comes unbidden, oftentimes unwanted and pouf!--it goes the way it came, and no one can stop it. You know that yourself.”
”Not if it is real love, the love of a man for the one woman,” he defended.
”Is there such a thing? I wonder?” skeptically.
If he felt a temptation to retaliate he resisted it.
”Then I may conclude that you accept me?” he prompted with frigid courtesy.
”Yes, that is----” a nervous sob caught at her voice. ”If--if you will agree to my conditions. Dad has promised me an income of a hundred thousand a year. I will keep half of it in my possession, the other half you are to have to use as you please.”
Courtlandt's eyes were black with anger, his knuckles white. He was rough, direct, relentless as he answered:
”You are indeed determined to make this a business affair. But understand now that I won't touch one cent of your cursed money.
Whatever arrangement your father wants to make with you and my father is his affair and yours, but you are to leave me out of it absolutely.
That's my condition. Do you get it?”
”Yes, I get it.” She colored richly, angrily, then paled. Even her lips went white. ”There is one thing more. I--we--this marriage is really a bargain--money for social position. Let it be only that. Need there be anything else? You must understand me--you must,” in pa.s.sionate appeal.
She laid her hand on his arm. He looked down at her with disconcerting steadiness. His face was stern.
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