"Mrs. Leith, this is a young woman who has answered the advertisement
for a maid," said the man, respectfully, as he turned away.
The beautiful lady nodded Golden to a seat, and looked at her with
careless condescension.
"What is your name?" she inquired.
"Mary Smith," answered the girl in a low, fluttering voice.
"Have you any recommendations?"
"Not as a maid, as the occupation is new to me. I have been a nurse
heretofore, but if you will try me I will do my best to please you,"
said Golden, anxiously.
"I am very hard to please," said Mrs. Leith.
She did not tell Golden that she was so very hard to please that no one
could suit her, leaving her to find that out for herself, as she would
be sure to do if she remained.
There was a moment's silence, and Golden gravely regarded Mrs. Leith.
She was _petite_ and graceful in form, with large, blue eyes, waving
masses of golden hair, and beautifully-moulded features. She was barely
thirty years old in appearance, and was richly and becomingly attired.
Yet Golden shivered and trembled as she regarded the fair, smiling
beauty. How could she look so bright and careless with the brand of
deadly sin upon her? There was neither sorrow nor repentance on the
smiling, debonair face.
"And this is my mother," Golden thought to herself, with a strange
heaviness at her heart. "She seems utterly indifferent at her
wickedness. Ah, she little dreams that the poor babe that she deserted
so heartlessly is sitting before her now."
Mrs. Leith's light, careless voice jarred suddenly on her mournful mood.
"Well, I will try you, Mary, for I need a maid. My last one was so
incapable I had to discharge her. You may do my hair for me now. I am
going to drive in the park with Mr. Leith, if his troublesome clients
do not detain him. My husband is a lawyer, Mary, and his time is almost
wholly engrossed by his business."
"Her husband," Golden repeated to herself, as she wound the shining
tresses into braids. "So they keep up that farce before the world.
Poor mother! how she must love my father to remain with him on such
humiliating terms. Is she really happy, or does she only wear a mask?"
But there was no apparent sorrow or remorse on the complacent face of
the lady as she gave her orders and directions to the new maid.
The uppermost thought in her mind was how to make the most of her
beauty.
Golden had to arrange her hair twice before she was suited, and she
tried several dresses in turn before she decided on one. She was
inordinately vain and fond of finery, and Golden thought pitifully to
herself:
"Her beauty is the only hold she has on my father, and she is compelled
to make its preservation the sole aim of her life."
She wondered a little that no yearning throb had stirred her heart
at the sight of her beautiful mother, but she told herself that it
was simply because her mother's sin had wholly alienated the natural
affection of her purer-hearted daughter.
She pitied her with a great, yearning pity, but no impulse prompted her
to kiss the dewy, crimson lips, she had no temptation to pillow her
head on the fair bosom that had denied its shelter and sustenance to
her helpless infancy.
Mrs. Leith did not look as if she would have made a tender mother.
"Have you any children, madam?" she asked, suddenly, and Mrs. Leith
answered:
"No," rather shortly, but added a minute later: "And I am glad of it,
for I do not love children. But Mr. Leith does, and is rather sorry
that we have none."
"He is justly punished for his sin," thought his unknown daughter,
while she secretly wondered why he had never claimed the child his wife
had heartlessly deserted to return to him.
"Perhaps she told him I was dead," thought Golden, looking at the
beautiful woman with a strange thrill of repulsion. "Perhaps he would
have loved me and cared for me, had he known I lived."
A thrill of pity, half mixed with tenderness, stirred her heart for the
father who had been cheated of the child he would have loved.
She became conscious of a burning desire to meet her father--the man
who had wronged her mother, and who had been wronged in turn, in that
he had never beheld the face of his child.
There was a manly step at the door, and it opened, admitting a tall,
handsome man in the prime of life.
Golden's heart gave a quick, wild throb, then sank heavily in her
breast.
She retreated hastily to the shade of a window-curtain, where she could
observe the new-comer, herself unobserved.
Richard Leith was tall, dark, and very handsome, though there
were iron-gray threads in his dark, waving hair, and in the long,
magnificent beard that rippled down upon his breast.
He looked like a man who had known trouble and sorrow. His face was
both sad and stern, and his dark eyes were cold and gloomy.
Mrs. Leith looked up at him carelessly, and his grave face did not
brighten at the sight of her beauty, enhanced as it was by the rich,
blue silk, and becoming white lace bonnet with its garland of roses.
"Are you ready for your drive, Mrs. Leith?" he inquired, with
punctilious politeness.
"Yes, I am just ready," she replied, carelessly. "You see I have a
new maid; she is rather awkward, but I shall keep her until I can do
better."
Mr. Leith gave an indifferent nod toward the gray gown and white cap
that was dimly visible at the furthest corner of the room, then he went
out with his wife, and Golden sank down upon the carpet and wept some
bitter, bitter tears, that seemed to lift a little bit of the load of
grief from her oppressed bosom.
After all, she had found her father and mother, and it was possible
that she might bring them to see the wickedness of their course, and to
seek reformation.
She determined not to reveal her identity just yet.
She would stay with them a little and learn more of them before she
made her strong appeal to them in behalf of truth.
She would not reproach them just yet for the blight they had cast on
her innocent life. She would patiently bide her time.
It was a strange position to be placed in.
Under the roof of her own parents, unknown and unacknowledged, with her
whole life laid bare and desolate through their sin.
A hot and passionate resentment against them surged up into Golden's
wounded heart.
What right had her mother to be so fair and happy when she had sinned
so grievously?
Perhaps she would be very angry when she knew that the child she had so
pitilessly deserted had hunted her down to confront her with her sin.
"I will wait a little. I will not speak yet," she said. "I shall know
them better after awhile, and I shall know how to approach them better."
So the days waned and faded.
Golden began to become very well acquainted with the beautiful woman
whom she believed to be her mother. She was vain, frivolous, heartless.
The pure-hearted girl recoiled instinctively from her. But she could
not understand Mr. Leith so well.
He was a mystery to her. Some settled shadow seemed to brood heavily
over him always.
He was engrossed with his studies and business. Golden wondered if it
was remorse that preyed so heavily on him. She had never seen a smile
on the stern, finely-cut lips.
There was one thing that struck her strangely, Richard Leith and his
so-called wife did not appear very fond of each other. The gentleman
was studiously courteous, polite and kind, but Golden never saw on
his expressive face that light of adoring tenderness she had loved to
see on Bertram Chesleigh's whenever he looked at her. Mrs. Leith was
totally absorbed in her dresses, her novels, and her daily drives,
during which she excited much admiration by her beauty and her
exquisite toilets. But love and passion--these seemed to be worn-out
themes between the strangely-mated pair. They addressed each other
formally as Mr. and Mrs. Leith, but Golden had noticed that the lady's
clothing was marked "G. L." She knew, of course, that the letter
G. stood for Golden, but when she asked her about it with apparent
carelessness one day, the lady answered that it was for Gertrude.
"She has discarded even her name," her daughter mused bitterly.
"Perhaps she has even forgotten her old home and her deserted father
and her little child."
And in spite of herself Golden felt that she heartily despised the
woman whom she should have loved in spite of all her faults because
she was her mother. But some strange and subtle fascination drew her
nearer and nearer to Richard Leith.
Her anger and scorn which she had tried to foster at first began to
dissolve in spite of herself into a yearning and sorrowful tenderness.