A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.
The newspaper that carried such fatal tidings to Max Verne in Paris
holds a surprise for Vivian, too.
Returning from her wedding tour, she finds that Eve has kept for her
the Richmond _State_ containing the description of her marriage.
Mrs. Essex languidly thanks her, lays it aside, and for a time it is
forgotten.
October sets in gloomily, with chilly winds and drizzling rain. Mr.
Essex comes in from a drive down town one day and finds his bride
lounging at the window in an easy chair, listlessly conning the pages
of the _State_--a picture sweet enough for framing in her rose-hued
morning dress, with a white rose nestled in her dark hair. He kisses
her and sinks into an armchair close by, where he can watch her lovely
face.
She has resumed her reading. The small hand, sparkling with diamonds,
holds the paper steadily, the dark-fringed lashes droop to the
rose-flushed cheeks, but about the lips in the calmness of repose,
there has come the shadow of a change. The sunny sweetness, the arch
dimples of old, have given place to wistful gravity. Her husband’s
keen eyes note the change, and again he wonders, as he has often done
before, why Vivian married him. She had owned she did not love him, and
it was surely not for his money. Was it pride’s solace for the cruel
letter she had received the evening her governess had disappeared?
Suddenly the paper rustles in her hands, she looks up, smiles, and
speaks with swift impulsiveness:
“There is the oddest mistake in this paper, Earle, or I might say
several mistakes. They have confounded the elder Mr. Verne with his
nephew, married the elder man, and sent the nephew to Europe, when in
truth it is quite the reverse.”
“Let me see,” and taking the paper he reads the statement, then answers:
“There is no mistake, my love. I saw the old gentleman yesterday, and
congratulated him on his marriage.”
“But Eve told me----” she begins, then breaks off gasping, as if for
breath, and turns her face from him to the window, staring out into the
rain with dim, unseeing eyes.
“Eve told you?--go on, dear.”
“It is nothing--only, you see, it was her error, not mine. She said
that--that Charlton’s friend, Max Verne, was to be married, and that
his uncle was so displeased he had disinherited him.”
“She told you that, Vivian--when?” Earle Essex inquires with a lowering
brow, and with a brave pretence of indifference she replies:
“Oh, ever so long ago--last summer I believe. Really, it does not
matter when--the affair is too trivial for discussion.”
“I differ from you on that point. Can you remember when she told you?
Was it before you accepted me?”
“Yes, I think so! Why do you question me so strangely, Earle?”
There is a flash of annoyance in her tone, and she lifts her dark eyes
to his face in surprise, but they droop swiftly, for, in the keen eyes
reading hers, shines the answer to her petulant question. He will never
ask himself again why she married him. Eve’s mischievous gossip had
kindled the fires of a reckless pride that consumed every instinct of
the heart it fed on. His wife--the beautiful young creature sitting
before him with pale lips that mock the smile that wreaths them--with
white arms folded over a heart whose wild pulsations spurn her mind’s
control--has married him because--she was maddened beyond endurance at
the thought of Max Verne’s marriage to another. His heart burns with
jealous rage, but it is not for him to breathe one word of blame. He
schemed and plotted for this, and he has won her--“the hand without the
heart,” as she had bitterly told him.
And Vivian sits still and fights down her heart silently. She has had a
terrible shock.
She would not be Earle Essex’s wife to-day if she had not implicitly
believed all that Eve had told her. She would have waited and hoped
for a reconciliation with Max. All the same, it is too late to go back.
The past is irrevocable. She is married now. All her faith and love are
due to the man whose name she bears. She is trying to give him love for
love, and persistently tramples every intruding thought of another.
Pure as purity, true as truth, every thought of Max Verne now seems to
her like a sin.
“I forgot to tell you,” her husband says, moodily, presently. “I saw
your cousins to-day, and asked them to dine with us this evening. Diana
had another engagement, but Eve will be here without fail.”
“Yes?”
“And I asked another person--recent acquaintance of mine. He will be a
charming companion for our volatile Eve--so brilliant and versatile. I
hope you will like him, Viva.”
“I hope so,” she answers, and taking up a book, tries to lose herself
in its pages. Essex follows her example, pretending to read, but
inwardly furious, knowing too well the truth now. She did not give
her hand because he had caught her heart in the rebound, but through
despair and pique.
----“All was loss,
All his wealth but gilded dross;
Bars retain nor rubies buy
Love whose light wings cleave the sky.”