ARTFUL FASCINATIONS.
Thrasher was sitting alone in the room we have spoken of, reading or
appearing to read, a large book that lay open on the library table. The
rustle of a purple brocaded dress as it swept over the tessellated
floor, disturbed him. He raised his head and looked steadily in his
wife's face as she approached, but without a sign either of gladness or
anger.
"Always alone," she said, playfully leaning over his shoulder--"always
studying and leaving his poor wife to her solitude."
He looked at her keenly, turning his head with a gesture of avoidance,
but still reading her with his eyes.
"What do you want now, madame?"
She absolutely turned pale to the lips. There was no anger in his tone,
but it cut through her flippancy like a sword.
"What do I want, Nelson?" she faltered.
"Yes, how much?"
The tones were sharp with sarcasm; she winced under them, and slowly
removed her arm from his shoulder. The massive bracelets she wore
jingled faintly with the motion. Nelson glanced at them with a bitter
sneer.
"Those things were not among the jewels I gave you."
She flushed to the temples.
"No," she said, with some truth; "you always seemed anxious and
troubled, so----"
"So you accepted these from some one else?"
"No, I bought them. Who would give me any thing that I cannot purchase
for myself? The jeweller imported them expressly to tempt me."
She resumed all her confidence now. This allusion to the jewels soothed
her into the idea that it was only a spasm of jealousy which had
influenced his words. She leaned her white arm on his shoulder again,
and touched his cheek with her own, glancing down on the book he had
been reading.
He closed the volume suddenly, and leaned his arm upon it.
"And you wont let me read?"
"No."
"Want me out of the way, perhaps?"
"Yes!"
The woman rose to her full height, and in her haughty anger would have
swept from the room, but on second thought she drew a chair, and sat
down opposite him, leaning her arm on the table.
"Nelson," she said, in her clear, rich voice, which, spite of herself,
shook with suppressed passion, "you are angry because I have had so
little time to give you of late."
He looked her steadily in the face.
"No, Ellen, I am not angry at any thing."
"Then why are you so stern with me?"
"Because I am myself again."
The woman was really frightened; the impolicy of her late conduct forced
itself upon her; for a moment she sat biting her lips in silence.
"You had better go to your room," he said, quietly; "the marble floor is
cold."
"Not half as cold as your heart," she answered, with a burst of tears.
"Ah, Nelson, how can you treat me so cruelly? Me, who--who----"
"Who love me so dearly," he said, with one of the most cutting sneers
that ever disfigured a man's countenance.
These were the very words she had been trying to utter, but they lodged
in her throat. He had anticipated the falsehood with a sneer. She arose
haughtily. Tears rolled down her flushed cheeks. She was really a
beautiful woman; but her loveliness had no effect on him then. In her
reckless vanity she had wounded him almost beyond repair, and his bosom
serpent crested itself fiercely.
"I did not expect this," she said, in pale anger. "You shall never have
a chance to insult me again."
"I did not seek it now. It is not my wish that you should ever come
here."
"Why, what great secret do you keep in this room?" she said, speaking at
random, in her anger. "One would think you had a hidden treasure here."
The sudden pallor that spread over his face struck her dumb; what had
she said to arouse this white rage? The words escaped her memory as they
were uttered, but they had given him a blow on the heart. Nelson
recovered himself promptly.
"Well," he said, with less of bitterness in his voice, "you have chosen
to seek me without invitation and without motive, so far as I can
understand. If you have any business, let me know it?"
"Cannot a woman visit her husband without special business?" retorted
the wife.
"Her husband?" he repeated, in a low, sneering voice.
She burst into tears.
"Nelson, this is cruel."
"Cruel; I thought you did not understand the term!"
She could control her passion no longer, but stamped angrily on the
marble floor with her foot.
"Nelson Thrasher, this is too much, after persecuting me with your
attentions, begging me upon your knees to become your wife. I am
insulted in my own house, sneered at almost before my own servants,
neglected, trampled on----"
"Be silent, madame! these complaints are false. It is I who have been
outraged and insulted; set at naught under my own roof; left to
solitude, when my heart ached for the company of my wife; and all
because I brought to you a devotion more perfect than man ever gave to
woman; because I loved you well enough to deserve the contempt which you
rain upon me."
Mrs. Nelson began to cry and wring her hands at this, and, after the
fashion of widows who marry a second time, sobbed out: "It was no more
than she deserved. Oh, if her first husband had only lived--never in
his whole life had he spoken a harsh word to her. Alas, what a fool she
had been!"
Nelson heard her impatiently; the mention of Captain Mason did not
soften his heart, but closed it even against her tears and the beauty
that they brightened, as dews refresh a rose.
She paused in her grief, and looked at him from under her wet eyelashes.
The tears rendered her glance very tender and sorrowful. His countenance
softened. She saw it; and, going round the table, leaned over his chair,
fanning his cheek with her breath.
"Nelson, have you really ceased to love me?"
There was truth in the bottom of the man's heart, and he could not
answer "Yes;" so he was silent, and sat beneath her caresses with
downcast eyes. At last he looked up. There was forgiveness in his face,
but it was stern and pale.
"Ellen, I did love you--I bought you at a fearful price. How much I
gave, how much I risked, you will never know. How miserable I have been,
you can never guess. All I asked was a little love and some show of
respect. You gave me neither. I could not win them with entreaties or
buy them with gold. You never loved me. You never liked me, Ellen."
She moved closer to him. The dew upon her cheek cooled his anger. He
could not hate her quite yet. The time might come; but it was sweet to
put it off, even for a little while.
"But I love you now."
As this soft whisper fell upon his heart, the serpent that had lifted
his crest so angrily settled down, and went to sleep stupidly, as if it
never would uncoil again.
The woman bore her triumph with caution, and would not seem elated. She
sank to his side on one knee, forcing him to support her head with his
hand, which yielded to the guidance of her soft touch, as the stern
heart had given way to her caressing speech.
"You have been very harsh with me," was her sweet reproach; "and all
because I cannot be happy when you will not trust me."
"Trust you?"
"Yes; you keep secrets from me. You are jealous because other men admire
me."
"No, Ellen; I am jealous because you have no value for my admiration,
not because others think you beautiful."
"But you keep secrets from me."
"What secrets?" he faltered.
"Oh, a great many."
She dared not come to the point at once for his face was growing dark
again.
She watched his face keenly--it lowered like a thunder cloud. That
pretence of jealousy was only a decoy subject--she cared nothing for his
early love, but was painfully intent on gaining his secret of the
treasures. Without that knowledge she must be forever at his
mercy--always going through scenes like the one which had just passed,
or sink back into comparative poverty by abandoning him altogether. The
partial independence which he had bestowed only made her more eager for
new concessions.
"Then you have other secrets. Where is all the great wealth you told me
of. I never saw it. I have no proof that it exists."
She spoke very naturally, but he understood her drift, and knew, in the
depths of his heart, that it was this secret which chained her in that
loving position at his knee. Still, with his softened feelings, it was
pleasant to have her there at any cost, so he played with the question
as a good angler trifles with his fly on the surface of a lake.
"You have the best of all proof, Ellen--that of spending the money."
"Yes, I know; but what is that compared to the confidence of one's
husband?"
He smiled almost pleasantly, leaned forward, and opening the book which
had been closed from her inspection, pointed out a page with his finger.
"What--the Bible!" she exclaimed, astonished at the nature of his
studies.
"Yes," he said, quietly. "I was reading the history of Sampson."
She looked at him a moment, and the blood mounted slowly to her
forehead. He saw the flush, and turned away his eyes.
Not another word was spoken. She arose from her half kneeling posture,
and he stood up.
"You will not trust me now," was her gentle leave-taking, "because you
think I do not love you, but time will show how mistaken you are."
She reached up her mouth to be kissed, but he touched her forehead with
his lips, and she went away as she came, rustling her silks luxuriously
along the mosaic floor.
He followed her with his eyes till she disappeared, then sat down,
supporting his forehead with one hand.
"Ah, what a creature she is," he murmured. "If one could only buy her in
selling himself to perdition, what man would shrink from the price? But
who can say that he possesses her? My secret! No, Ellen Mason! that is
your chain!--the shackle that keeps you here! I will never break
it--never!"
A noise at the door caused him to look up. She had come back, and stood
smiling upon him.
"You defy me--you liken me to that woman in the Bible, and keep secrets
from me--this is a good reason for amusing myself elsewhere. I will not
do that any more. Keep your secret, and hoard your treasures. I will not
trouble you concerning them. Only let us be friends. There will be no
happiness for either of us without that."
The woman offered her kisses again, and this time he did not avoid her
lips--still she could not feel that her victory was complete.
After she had gone, Nelson cast his eyes on the floor, and started with
an exclamation of dismay. When his wife fell into her passion she had
stood directly over the centre ornament in the massive floor, a secret
spring had yielded to the stamp of her foot, the stone had whirled from
its place, leaving an opening of some inches, circling half around the
centre ornament like a crescent.
"Had the woman seen this?"
The thought made him wild; great drops started to his forehead, while he
fell upon his knees, and strove to replace the stone. It shot back to
its groove, completing the Mosaic pattern. When all was secure, he sat
down and fell into thought. A feeling of insecurity seized upon him;
would this woman wrest his secrets from him after all--not by her
fascinations, but through craft and watchfulness?
No; he would make sure against that. The ornament might give way again,
but it should tell no secrets.