Part 14 (1/2)
His eyes became downcast and gloomy. ”At the Mision that morning, I, a wretched outcast, only saw in you a beautiful girl intent on overriding me with her merciless beauty. At San Antonio I handed the fan I picked up to the man whose eyes told me he loved you.”
She started impatiently. ”You might have been more gallant, and found more difficulty in the selection,” she said, pertly. ”But since when have you gentlemen become so observant and so punctilious? Would you expect him to be as considerate of others?”
”I have few claims that any one seems bound to respect,” he returned, brusquely. Then, in a softer voice, he added, looking at her, gently,--
”You were in mourning when you came here this afternoon, Miss Saltonstall.”
”Was I? It was for Dr. West--my mother's friend.”
”It was very becoming to you.”
”You are complimenting me. But I warn you that Captain Carroll said something better than that; he said mourning was not necessary for me.
I had only to 'put my eye-lashes at half-mast.' He is a soldier you know.”
”He seems to be as witty as he is fortunate,” said Guest, bitterly.
”Do you think he is fortunate?” said Maruja, raising her eyes to his.
There was so much in this apparently simple question that Guest looked in her eyes for a suggestion. What he saw there for an instant made his heart stop beating. She apparently did not know it, for she began to tremble too.
”Is he not?” said Guest, in a low voice.
”Do you think he ought to be?” she found herself whispering.
A sudden silence fell upon them. The voices of their companions seemed very far in the distance; the warm breath of the flowers appeared to be drowning their senses; they tried to speak, but could not; they were so near to each other that the two long blades of a palm served to hide them. In the midst of this profound silence a voice that was like and yet unlike Maruja's said twice, ”Go! go!” but each time seemed hushed in the stifling silence. The next moment the palms were pushed aside, the dark figure of a young man slipped like some lithe animal through the shrubbery, and Maruja found herself standing, pale and rigid, in the middle of the walk, in the full glare of the light, and looking down the corridor toward her approaching companions. She was furious and frightened; she was triumphant and trembling; without thought, sense, or reason, she had been kissed by Henry Guest, and--had returned it.
The fleetest horses of Aladdin's stud that night could not carry her far enough or fast enough to take her away from that moment, that scene, and that sensation. Wise and experienced, confident in her beauty, secure in her selfishness, strong over others' weaknesses, weighing accurately the deeds and words of men and women, recognizing all there was in position and tradition, seeing with her father's clear eyes the practical meaning of any divergence from that conventionality which as a woman of the world she valued, she returned again and again to the trembling joy of that intoxicating moment. She though of her mother and sisters, of Raymond and Garnier, of Aladdin--she even forced herself to think of Carroll--only to shut her eyes, with a faint smile, and dream again the brief but thrilling dream of Guest that began and ended in their joined and parted lips. Small wonder that, hidden and silent in her enwrappings, as she lay back in the carriage, with her pale face against the cold starry sky, two other stars came out and glistened and trembled on her pa.s.sion-fringed lashes.
CHAPTER X
The rainy season had set in early. The last three weeks of summer drought had drained the great valley of its lifeblood; the dead stalks of grain rustled like dry bones over Dr. West's grave. The desiccating wind and sun had wrought some disenchanting cracks and fissures in Aladdin's Palace, and otherwise disjoined it, so that it not only looked as if it were ready to be packed away, but had become finally untenable in the furious onset of the southwesterly rains. The gorgeous furniture of the reception-rooms was wrapped in mackintoshes, the conservatory was changed into an aquarium, the Bridge of Sighs crossed an actual ca.n.a.l in the stable-yard. Only the billiard-room and Mr. Prince's bed-room and office remained intact, and in the latter, one stormy afternoon, Mr. Prince himself sat busy over his books and papers. His station-wagon, splashed and streaked with mud, stood in the court-yard, just as it had been driven from the station, and the smell of the smoke of newly-lit fires showed that the house had been opened only for this hurried visit of its owner.
The tramping of horse hoofs in the court-yard was soon followed by steps along the corridor, and the servant ushered Captain Carroll into the presence of his master. The Captain did not remove his military overcoat, but remained standing erect in the centre of the room, with his forage cap in his hand.
”I could have given you a lift from the station,” said Prince, ”if you had come that way. I've only just got in myself.”
”I preferred to ride,” said Carroll, dryly.
”Sit down by the fire,” said Prince, motioning to a chair, ”and dry yourself.”
”I must ask you first the purport of this interview,” said Carroll, curtly, ”before I prolong it further. You have asked me to come here in reference to certain letters I returned to their rightful owner some months ago. If you seek to reclaim them again, or to refer to a subject which must remain forgotten, I decline to proceed further.”
”It DOES refer to the letters, and it rests with you whether they shall be forgotten or not. It is not my fault if the subject has been dropped. You must remember that until yesterday you have been absent on a tour of inspection and could not be applied to before.”
Carroll cast a cold glance at Prince, and then threw himself into a chair, with his overcoat still on and his long military boots crossed before the fire. Sitting there in profile Prince could not but notice that he looked older and sterner than at their last interview, and his cheeks were thinned as if by something more than active service.
”When you were here last summer,” began Prince, leaning forward over his desk, ”you brought me a piece of news that astounded me, as it did many others. It was the a.s.signment of Dr. West's property to Mrs.
Saltonstall. That was something there was no gainsaying; it was a purely business affair, and involved n.o.body's rights but the a.s.signor.
But this was followed, a day or two after, by the announcement of the Doctor's will, making the same lady the absolute and sole inheritor of the same property. That seemed all right too; for there were, apparently, no legal heirs. Since then, however, it has been discovered that there is a legal heir--none other than the Doctor's only son.