AN EXPLANATION DEMANDED
Hazel's pride came to her rescue before she was half-way home.
Instinctively she had turned to that refuge, where she could lock
herself in her own room and cry her protest against it all. But she
had done no wrong, nothing of which to be ashamed, and when the first
shock of the news article wore off, she threw up her head and refused
to consider what the world at large might think. So she went back to
the office at one o'clock and took up her work. Long before evening
she sensed that others had read the _Gazette_. Not that any one
mentioned it, but sundry curious glances made her painfully aware of
the fact.
Mrs. Stout evidently was on the watch, for she appeared in the hall
almost as the front door closed behind Hazel.
"How de do, Miss Weir?" she greeted. "My, but you fell into quite a
bit of a fortune, ain't you?"
"I only know what the papers say," Hazel returned coldly.
"Just fancy! You didn't know nothing about it?" Mrs. Stout regarded
her with frank curiosity. "There's been two or three gentlemen from
the papers 'ere to-day awskin' for you. Such terrible fellows to quiz
one, they are."
"Well?" Hazel filled in the pause.
"Oh, I just thought I'd tell you," Mrs. Stout observed, "that they got
precious little out o' _me_. I ain't the talkin' kind. I told 'em
nothink whatever, you may be sure."
"They're perfectly welcome to learn all that can be learned about me,"
Hazel returned quietly. "I don't like newspaper notoriety, but I can't
muzzle the papers, and it's easy for them to get my whole history if
they want it."
She was on the stairs when she finished speaking. She had just reached
the first landing when she heard the telephone bell, and a second or
two later the land-lady called:
"Oh, Miss Weir! Telephone."
Barrow's voice hailed her over the line.
"I'll be out by seven," said he. "We had better take a walk. We can't
talk in the parlor; there'll probably be a lot of old tabbies there out
of sheer curiosity."
"All right," Hazel agreed, and hung up. There were one or two
questions she would have liked to ask, but she knew that eager ears
were close by, taking in every word. Anyway, it was better to wait
until she saw him.
She dressed herself. Unconsciously the truly feminine asserted its
dominance--the woman anxious to please and propitiate her lover. She
put on a dainty summer dross, rearranged her hair, powdered away all
trace of the tears that insisted on coming as soon as she reached the
sanctuary of her own room. And then she watched for Jack from a window
that commanded the street. She had eaten nothing since morning, and
the dinner bell rang unheeded. It did not occur to her that she was
hungry; her brain was engrossed with other matters more important by
far than food.
Barrow appeared at last. She went down to meet him before he rang the
bell. Just behind him came a tall man in a gray suit. This individual
turned in at the gate, bestowing a nod upon Barrow and a keen glance at
her as he passed.
"That's Grinell, from the _Times_," Barrow muttered sourly. "Come on;
let's get away from here. I suppose he's after you for an interview.
Everybody in Granville's talking about that legacy, it seems to me."
Hazel turned in beside him silently. Right at the start she found
herself resenting Barrow's tone, his manner. She had done nothing to
warrant suspicion from him. But she loved him, and she hoped she could
convince him that it was no more than a passing unpleasantness, for
which she was nowise to blame.
"Hang it!" Barrow growled, before they had traversed the first block.
"Here comes Grinell! I suppose that old cat of a landlady pointed us
out. No dodging him now."
"There's no earthly reason why I should dodge him, as you put it,"
Hazel replied stiffly. "I'm not an escaped criminal."
Barrow shrugged his shoulders in a way that made Hazel bring her teeth
together and want to shake him.
Grinell by then was hurrying up with long strides. Hat in hand, he
bowed to her. "Miss Hazel Weir, I believe?" he interrogated.
"Yes," she confirmed.
"I'm on the _Times_, Miss Weir," Grinell went straight to the business
in hand. "You are aware, I presume, that Mr. Andrew Bush willed you a
sum of money under rather peculiar conditions--that is, the bequest was
worded in a peculiar way. Probably you have seen a reference to it in
the papers. It has caused a great deal of interest. The _Times_ would
be pleased to have a statement from you which will tend to set at rest
the curiosity of the public. Some of the other papers have indulged in
unpleasant innuendo. We would be pleased to publish your side of the
matter. It would be an excellent way for you to quiet the nasty rumors
that are going the rounds."
"I have no statement to make," Hazel said coolly. "I am not in the
least concerned with what the papers print or what the people say. I
absolutely refuse to discuss the matter."
Grinell continued to point out--with the persistence and persuasive
logic of a good newspaper man bent on learning what his paper wants to
know--the desirability of her giving forth a statement. And in the
midst of his argument Hazel bade him a curt "good evening" and walked
on. Barrow kept step with her. Grinell gave it up for a bad job
evidently, for he turned back.
They walked five blocks without a word. Hazel glanced at Barrow now
and then, and observed with an uncomfortable sinking of her heart that
he was sullen, openly resentful, suspicious.
"Johnnie-boy," she said suddenly, "don't look so cross. Surely you
don't blame me because Mr. Bush wills me a sum of money in a way that
makes people wonder?"
"I can't understand it at all," he said slowly. "It's very
peculiar--and deucedly unpleasant. Why should he leave you money at
all? And why should he word the will as he did? What wrong did he
ever do you?"
"None," Hazel answered shortly. His tone wounded her, cut her deep, so
eloquent was it of distrust. "The only wrong he has done me lies in
willing me that money as he did."
"But there's an explanation for that," Barrow declared moodily.
"There's a key to the mystery, and if anybody has it you have. What is
it?"
"Jack," Hazel pleaded, "don't take that tone with me. I can't stand
it--I won't. I'm not a little child to be scolded and browbeaten.
This morning when you telephoned you were almost insulting, and it hurt
me dreadfully. You're angry now, and suspicious. You seem to think I
must have done some dreadful thing. I know what you're thinking. The
_Gazette_ hinted at some 'affair' between me and Mr. Bush; that
possibly that was a sort of left-handed reparation for ruining me. If
that didn't make me angry, it would amuse me--it's so absurd. Haven't
you any faith in me at all? I haven't done anything to be ashamed of.
I've got nothing to conceal."
"Don't conceal it, then," Barrow muttered sulkily. "I've got a right
to know whatever there is to know if I'm going to marry you. You don't
seem to have any idea what this sort of talk that's going around means
to a man."
Hazel stopped short and faced him. Her heart pounded sickeningly, and
hurt pride and rising anger choked her for an instant. But she managed
to speak calmly, perhaps with added calmness by reason of the struggle
she was compelled to make for self-control.
"If you are going to marry me," she repeated, "you have got a right to
know all there is to know. Have I refused to explain? I haven't had
much chance to explain yet. Have I refused to tell you anything? If
you ever thought of anybody beside yourself, you might be asking
yourself how all this talk would affect a girl like me. And, besides,
I think from your manner that you've already condemned me--for what?
Would any reasonable explanation make an impression on you in your
present frame of mind? I don't want to marry you if you can't trust
me. Why, I couldn't--I _wouldn't_--marry you any time, or any place,
under those conditions, no matter how much I may foolishly care for
you."
"There's just one thing, Hazel," Barrow persisted stubbornly. "There
must have been something between you and Bush. He sent flowers to you,
and I myself saw when he was hurt he sent his carriage to bring you to
his house. And then he leaves you this money. There was something
between you, and I want to know what it was. You're not helping
yourself by getting on your dignity and talking about my not trusting
you instead of explaining these things."
"A short time ago," Hazel told him quietly, "Mr. Bush asked me to marry
him. I refused, of course. He--"
"You refused!" Barrow interrupted cynically. "Most girls would have
jumped at the chance."
"Jack!" she protested.
"Well," Barrow defended, "he was almost a millionaire, and I've got
nothing but my hands and my brain. But suppose you did refuse him.
How does that account for the five thousand dollars?"
"I think," Hazel flung back passionately, "I'll let you find that out
for yourself. You've said enough now to make me hate you almost. Your
very manner's an insult."
"If you don't like my manner--" Barrow retorted stormily. Then he cut
his sentence in two, and glared at her. Her eyes glistened with
slow-welling tears, and she bit nervously at her under Up. Barrow
shrugged his shoulders. The twin devils of jealousy and distrust were
riding him hard, and it flashed over Hazel that in his mind she was
prejudged, and that her explanation, if she made it, would only add
fuel to the flame. Moreover, she stood in open rebellion at being, so
to speak, put on the rack.
She turned abruptly and left him. What did it matter, anyway? She was
too proud to plead, and it was worse than useless to explain.
Even so, womanlike, she listened, expecting to hear Jack's step
hurrying up behind. She could not imagine him letting her go like
that. But he did not come, and when, at a distance of two blocks, she
stole a backward glance, he had disappeared.
She returned to the boarding-house. The parlor door stood wide, and
the curious, quickly averted glance of a girl she knew sent her
quivering up to her room. Safe in that refuge, she sat down by the
window, with her chin on her palms, struggling with the impulse to cry,
protesting with all her young strength against the bitterness that had
come to her through no fault of her own. There was only one cheerful
gleam. She loved Jack Barrow. She believed that he loved her, and she
could not believe--she could not conceive--him capable of keeping
aloof, obdurate and unforgiving, once he got out of the black mood he
was in. Then she could snuggle up close to him and tell him how and
why Mr. Andrew Bush had struck at her from his deathbed.
She was still sitting by the window, watching the yellow crimson of the
sunset, when some one rapped at her door. A uniformed messenger boy
greeted her when she opened it:
"Package for Miss Hazel Weir."
She signed his delivery sheet. The address on the package was in
Jack's handwriting. A box of chocolates, or some little peace
offering, maybe. That was like Jack when he was sorry for anything.
They had quarreled before--over trifles, too.
She opened it hastily. A swift heart sinking followed. In the small
cardboard box rested a folded scarf, and thrust in it a small gold
stickpin--the only thing she had ever given Jack Barrow. There was no
message. She needed none to understand.
The sparkle of the small diamond on her finger drew her gaze. She
worked his ring over the knuckle, and dropped it on the dresser, where
the face in the silver frame smiled up at her. She stared at the
picture for one long minute fixedly, with unchanging expression, and
suddenly she swept it from the dresser with a savage sweep of her hand,
dashed it on the floor, and stamped it shapeless with her slippered
heel.
"Oh, oh!" she gasped. "I hate you--I hate you! I despise you!"
And then she flung herself across the bed and sobbed hysterically into
a pillow.