Part 57 (1/2)
”So you left him--alone--for mamma and that despicable creature to do their worst!”
”Miss Dolores, I--I beg your pardon, but I quite fail to take you. If anything has happened to Tom--”
”Regrets! What's the good of them, when it's too late?”
”Too late? Surely you cannot mean that he--?”
”Yes, the worst, the very worst,--and that miserable, detestable creature knew it when he offered him the wine. I believe he brought it in deliberately to tempt him.”
”Wine? He drank! How long ago? Where is he now? I must try to check him.”
”If only you could! But it's too late. He went off with Laffie.”
”Not too late! The craving has been checked once--I've seen it done.”
”But this time it's not the craving.”
”How's that?”
”It's because he was driven desperate. He took it deliberately--intentionally.”
”Impossible! Tom would never--”
”He would! He did! I saw him. But don't you blame him. She's the one.
How could he know better, in his condition?--utterly tired out! She drove him to it, I tell you.”
”She--Genevieve? I a.s.sure you--”
”No, no! mamma, of course! She told him a pack of lies--took away all his hope. She made him think that Vievie had never really loved him.”
”Impossible!--unless your mother herself believes it.”
”Oh, she believes it--or thinks she does. She's so anxious--so anxious!” The girl sprang up and stamped her foot. ”Oh! I wish she and her meddling were in Hades!”
”My dear Miss Dolores!” protested Lord James, tugging nervously at his mustache.
She whirled upon him in hysterical fury. ”Don't you call me that! Don't you dare call me that! I won't have it! I won't! I'm not your dear! I tell you--”
His look of blank astonishment checked her in the midst.
”I--I--I didn't mean--” she gasped. ”Oh! what must you think of me!”
She turned from him, her face scarlet with shame. But in the same instant she remembered Blake, and forgot herself in the disaster to him.
”How selfish of me, when he--Poor Mr. Blake! What can be done? We must do something--at once!”
”If anything can be done!” said Lord James in a hopeless tone. ”You say he took it deliberately?”
”Yes. Can't you see? Mamma had stuffed him with a lot of rot about grat.i.tude--about Vievie sacrificing herself to him on account of grat.i.tude. It's easy enough to guess mamma's little game. Oh! it's simply terrible! Of course he believed it, and of course he planned at once to go away--that's the kind of man he is! He planned to go away--run off--so that Vievie couldn't sacrifice herself.”
”My word!”