"--SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY--"
Now I am only an old priest and no businessman, so of course I do not
know just how Hunter was set like a hound upon the track of those
circumstances that, properly manipulated, helped him toward a solution
of his problem--the getting of a girl apparently as unreachable as
Mary Virginia Eustis.
To start with, he had two assets, the first being Eustis pride.
Shrewdly working upon that, Hunter played with skill and finesse.
When he was ready, it was easy enough to meet Miss Eustis on the
street of an afternoon. Although her greeting was disconcertingly
cold, he fell into step beside her. And presently, in a low and
intimate voice, he began to quote certain phrases that rang in her
astonished ears with a sort of hateful familiarity.
A glance at her face made him smile. "I wonder," he questioned, "if
you have changed, dear puritan? You are engaged to Mayne now, I hear.
Very clever chap, Mayne. The moving power behind your father, I
understand. And engaged to you! You're so intense and interesting when
you're in love that one is tempted to envy Mayne. Do you write _him_
letters, too?"
Mary Virginia's level eyes regarded him with haughty surprise. The
situation was rather unbelievable.
"Miss Eustis--" he paused to bow and smile to some passing girls who
plainly envied Mary Virginia, "Miss Eustis, you must come to my
office, say to-morrow afternoon. We must have a heart-to-heart talk. I
have something you will find it to your interest to discuss with me."
She disdained to reply, to ask him to leave her; her attitude did not
even suggest that he should explain himself. Seeming to be perfectly
content with this attitude, he sauntered along beside her.
"Do you know," he smiled, "that with you the art of writing genuine
love-letters amounts to a gift? I am sure your father--and let's say
Mayne--would be astonished and delighted to read the ones I have. They
are unequaled. Human documents, heart-interest, delicate and piquant
sex-tang--the very sort of thing the dear public devours. I told you
once they meant a great deal to me, remember? They're going to mean
more. Come about four, please." He lifted his hat, bowed, and was
gone.
Mary Virginia went to his office at four o'clock the next afternoon,
as he had planned she should. She wanted to know exactly what he
meant, and she fancied he meant to make her buy back the letters he
claimed not to have destroyed. The bare idea of anybody on earth
reading those insane vaporings sickened her.
Hunter's manner subtly allowed her to understand that he had known she
would come, and this angered her inexpressibly; it gave him an
advantage.
"Instead of wasting time in idle persiflage," he said when he had
handed her a chair, "let's get right down to brass tacks. You
naturally desire to know why I kept your letters? For one reason,
because they are a bit of real literature. However, I propose to
return them now--for a consideration."
He leaned forward, idly drumming on the polished desk, and regarded
her with a sort of impersonal speculation. A little smile crept to his
lip.
"The whirligig of time does bring in its revenges, doesn't it?" he
mused aloud. Mary Virginia's lips curled.
"I do not follow you," she said coldly. "I am not even sure you have
the letters--that is why I am here. I must see them with my own eyes
before I agree to pay for them. That is what you expect me to do, is
it not?"
"Oh, I have them all right--that is very easily proven," said he,
unruffled. "Now listen carefully, please, while I explain the real
reason for your presence here this afternoon. Mr. Inglesby, for
reasons of his own, desires to don the senatorial toga; why not? Also,
even more vehemently, Mr. Inglesby desires to lead to the altar Miss
Mary Virginia Eustis: yourself, dear lady, your charming self: again,
why not? Who can blame him for so natural and laudable an ambition?
"As to his ever persuading you to become Mrs. Inglesby, without
some--ah--moral suasion, why, you know what his chance would be better
than I do. As to his persuading the state to send him to Washington,
it would have been a certainty, a sure thing, if our zealous young
friend Mayne hadn't egged your father into the game. How Mayne managed
that, heaven knows, particularly with your father's affairs in the
condition they are. Now, Eustis is a fine man. Far too fine to be lost
in the shuffle at Washington, where he'd be a condemned
nuisance--just as he sometimes is here at home. Do you begin to
comprehend?"
"Why, no," said she, blankly. "And I certainly fail to see where my
silly letters--"
"Let me make it plainer. You and your silly letters put the game into
Mr. Inglesby's hands, swing the balance in his favor. _You_ pay _me_?
Heavens, no! _We_ pay _you_--and a thumping price at that!"
For a long moment they looked at each other.
"My dear Miss Eustis," he put the tips of his fine fingers together,
bent forward over them, and favored her with a white-toothed smile,
"behold in me Mr. Inglesby's ambassador--the advocate of Cupid. Plainly,
I am authorized to offer you Mr. Inglesby's heart, his hand, and--his
check-book. Let us suppose you agree to accept--no, don't interrupt me
yet, please. And keep your seat, Miss Eustis. You may smile, but I would
advise you to consider very seriously what I am about to say to you, and
to realize once for all that Mr. Inglesby is in dead earnest and
prepared to go to considerable lengths. Well, then, as I was about to
say: suppose you agree to accept his proposal! Being above all things a
business man, Mr. Inglesby realizes that gilt-edged collateral should be
put up for what you have to offer--youth, beauty, charm, health,
culture, family name, desirable and influential connections, social
position of the highest. In exchange he offers the Inglesby millions,
his absolute devotion to yourself, and his hearty support to all your
father's plans and interests. Observe the last, please; it is highly
important. Besides this, Mayne and Eustis want reform, progress,
Demos-with-a-full-dinner-pail, all the wearisome rest of that uplift
stuff? Inglesby will see that they get an undiluted dose of it. More
yet: if you have any scruples about Mayne, Inglesby will get behind that
young man and boost him until he can crow on the weathervane--when you
are Mrs. Inglesby. A chap like Mayne would be valuable, properly
expurgated. Come, Miss Eustis, that's fair enough. If you refuse--well,
it's up to you to make Eustis understand that he must eliminate himself
from politics--and look out for himself," he finished ominously.
Mary Virginia rose impetuously.
"I am no longer seventeen, Mr. Hunter. What, do you honestly think you
can frighten a grown woman into believing that a handful of silly
letters could possibly be worth all that? Well, you can't. And--let me
remind you that blackmailing women isn't smiled upon in Carolina. A
hint of this and you'd be ostracized."
"So would you. And why use such an extreme term as blackmailing for
what really is a very fair offer?" said he, equably. "The letters are
not the only arrows in my quiver, Miss Eustis. But as you are more
interested in them than anything else just now, suppose we run over a
few, just to remind you of their amazing nature?" He rose leisurely,
opened the safe in a corner of the room, took from the steel
money-vault a package, and Mary Virginia recognized her own writing.
Always keeping them under his own hand, he yet allowed her to lean
forward and verify what he chose to read.
Her face burned and tears of mortification stung her eyes. Good
heavens, had she been as silly and as sentimental as all that? But as
she listened to his smooth remorseless voice, mortification merged
into amazement and amazement into consternation. Older and wiser now,
she saw what ignorance and infatuation had really accomplished, and
she realized that a fool can unwittingly pull the universe about her
ears.
She was appalled. It was as if her waking self were confronted by an
incredible something her dreaming self had done. She knew enough of
the world now to realize how such letters would be received--with
smiles intended to wound, with the raised eyebrow, the shrugged
shoulder. She wondered, with a chill of panic, how she could ever hope
to make anybody understand what she admitted she herself couldn't
explain. For heaven's sake, _what_ had she been trying to tell this
man? She didn't know any more, except that it hadn't been what these
letters seemed to reveal.
"Well?" said the lazy, pleasant voice, "don't you agree with me that
it would have been barbarous to destroy them? Wonderful, aren't they?
Who would credit a demure American schoolgirl with their supreme art?
A French court lady might have written them, in a day when folks made
a fine art of love and weren't afraid nor ashamed."
"I must have been stark mad!" said she, twisting her fingers. "How
could I ever have done it? Oh, how?"
"Oh, we all have our moments of genius!" said he, airily.
As he faced her, smiling and urbane, she noted woman-fashion the
superfine quality of his linen, the perfection of every detail of his
appearance, the grace with which he wore his clothes. His manner was
gracious, even courtly. Yet there was about him something so
relentless that for the first time she felt a quiver of fear.
"If my father--or Mr. Mayne--knew this, you would undoubtedly be
shot!" said she, and her eyes flashed.
"Unwritten law, chivalry, all the rest of that rot? I am well aware
that the Southern trigger-finger is none too steady, where lovely
woman is concerned," he admitted, with a faint sneer. "But when one
plays for high stakes, Miss Eustis, one runs the risks. Granted I do
get shot? That wouldn't give you the letters: it would simply hand
them over to prosecuting attorneys and the public press, and they'd be
damning with blood upon them. No, I don't think there'll be any
fireworks--just a sensible deal, in which everybody benefits and
nobody loses."
"The thing is impossible, perfectly impossible."
"I don't see why. Everything has its price and I'm offering you a
pretty stiff one."
"I would rather be burned alive. Marry Mr. Inglesby? _I_? Why, he is
impossible, perfectly impossible!"
"He is nothing of the kind. And he is very much in love with you--you
amount to a grand passion with Inglesby. Also, he has twenty
millions." He added dryly: "You are hard to please."
Mary Virginia waved aside grand passion and twenty millions with a
gesture of ineffable disdain.
"Even if I were weak and silly enough to take you seriously, do you
imagine my father would ever consent? He would despise me. He would
rather see me dead."
"Oh, no, he wouldn't. Nobody can afford to despise a woman with twenty
millions. It isn't in human nature. Particularly when you save Mr.
James Eustis himself from coming a breakneck cropper, to say the very
least."
For the moment she missed the significance of that last remark.
"I repeat that I would rather be burned alive. I despise the man!"
said she, passionately.
"Oh, no, you wouldn't." His manner was a bit contemptuous. "And you'd
soon get used to him. Women and cats are like that. They may squall
and scratch a bit at first, but the saucer of cream reconciles them,
and presently they are quite at home and purring, the sensible
creatures! You'll end by liking him very well."
The girl ignored this Job's comforting.
"What shall I say to my father?" she asked directly. "Tell him you
kept the foolish letters written you by an ignorant child--and the
price is either his or my selling out to Mr. Inglesby?"
"That is your lookout. You can't expect us to let your side whip us,
hands down, can you? Mr. Inglesby does not propose to submit tamely to
_everything_." His face hardened, a glacial glint snapped into his
eyes. "Inglesby's no worse than anybody else would be that had to hold
down his job. He's got virtues, plenty of solid good-citizen,
church-member, father-of-a-family virtues, little as you seem to
realize it. Also, let me repeat--he has twenty millions. To buy up a
handful of letters for twenty million dollars looks to me about the
biggest price ever paid since the world began. Don't be a fool!"
"I refuse. I refuse absolutely and unconditionally. I shall
immediately send for my father--and for Mr. Mayne--"
"I give you credit for better sense," said he, with a razor-edged
smile. "Eustis is honorable and Mayne is in love with you, and when
you spring this they'll swear they believe you: _but will they_? Do
men ever believe women, without the leaven of a little doubt? Speaking
as a man for men, I wouldn't put them to the test. No, dear lady, I
hardly think you are going to be so silly. Now let us pass on to
something of greater moment than the letters. Did you think I had
nothing else to urge upon you?"
"What, more?" said she, derisively. "I don't think I understand."
"I am sure you don't. Permit me, then, to enlighten you." He paused a
moment, as if to reflect. Then, impressively:
"Hitherto, Miss Eustis, you have had the very button on Fortune's
cap," he told her. "Suppose, however, that fickle goddess chose to
whisk herself off bodily, and left you--_you_, mind you! to face the
ugly realities of poverty, and poverty under a cloud?" And while she
stared at him blankly, he asked: "What do you know of your father's
affairs?"
As a matter of fact she knew very little. But something in the deadly
pleasantness of his voice, something in his eyes, startled her.
"What do you mean, Mr. Hunter?"
"Ah, now we get down to bedrock: your father's affairs," he said evenly.
"Your father, Miss Eustis, is a very remarkable man, a man with one
idea. In other words, a fanatic. Only a fanatic could accomplish what
Eustis has accomplished. His one idea is the very sound old idea that
people should remain on the land. He starts in to show his people how to
do it successfully. Once started, the work grows like Jonah's gourd. He
becomes a sort of rural white hope. So far, so good. But reclamation
work, experimenting, blooded stock, up-to-the-minute machinery,
labor-saving devices, chemicals, high-priced experts, labor itself, all
that calls for money, plenty of money. Your father's work grew to its
monumental proportions because he'd gotten other men interested in
it--all sorts and conditions of men, but chiefly--and here's at once his
strength and weakness--farmers, planters, small-town merchants and
bankers. They backed him with everything they had--and they haven't
lost--yet.
"However, there are such things as bad seasons, labor troubles,
boll-weevil, canker, floods, war. He lost ship-loads of cotton. He
lost heavily on rice. Remember those last floods? In some of his
places they wiped the work of years clean off the map. He had to begin
all over, and he had to do it on borrowed money; which in lean and
losing years is expensive. Floods may come and crops may go, but
interest on borrowed money goes on forever. He mortgaged all he could
mortgage, risked everything he could risk, took every chance--and now
everything is at stake with him.
"Do you realize what it would mean if Eustis went under? A smash to
shake the state! Consider, too, the effect of failure upon the man
himself! He can't fail, though--_if Mr. Inglesby chooses to lend a
hand_. Now do you begin to comprehend?"
In spite of her distrust, he impressed her profoundly. He did not
over-estimate her father's passionate belief in himself and the value
of his work. If anything, Hunter had slurred the immense influence
Eustis exerted, and the calamitous effect his failure would have upon
the plain people who looked up to him with such unlimited trust. They
would not only lose their money; they would lose something no money
could pay for--their faith.
"Oh, but that just simply couldn't happen!" said Mary Virginia, and
her chin went up.
"It could very easily happen. It may happen shortly," he contradicted
politely. "Heavens, girl, don't you know that the Eustis house is
mortgaged to the roof, that Rosemount Plantation is mortgaged from the
front fences to the back ditches? No, I suppose he wouldn't want his
women-folks to know. He thinks he can tide it over. They always
believe they can tide it over, those one-idea chaps. And he could,
too, for he's a born winner, is Eustis. Give him time and a good
season and he'd be up again, stronger than ever." While he spoke he
was taking from a drawer a handful of papers, which he spread out on
the desk. She could see upon all of them a bold clear "_James
Eustis_."
"One place mortgaged to prop up another, and that in turn mortgaged to
save a third. Like links in a chain. Any chain is only as strong as
its weakest link, remember. And we've got the links. Look at these,
please." He laid before her two or three slips of paper. Mary
Virginia's eyes asked for enlightenment.
"These," explained Hunter, "are promissory notes. You will see that
some of them are about due--and the amounts are considerable."
"Oh! And _he_ had to do that?"
"Of course. What else could he do? We kept a very close watch since we
got the first inkling that things were not breaking right for him. Mr.
Inglesby's own interests are pretty extensive--and we set them to
work. It wasn't hard to manage, after things began to shape: a word
here, a hint there, an order somewhere else; and once or twice, of
course, a bit of pressure was brought to bear, in obdurate instances.
But the man with money is always the man with the whip hand. Eustis
got the help he had to have--and presently we got these. All perfectly
legitimate, all in the course of the day's work.
"Now, promissory notes are dangerous instruments should a holder
desire to use them dangerously. Mr. Inglesby could give Eustis an
extension of time, or he could demand full payment and immediately
foreclose. You see, it's entirely optional with Mr. Inglesby." And he
leaned back in his chair, perfectly self-possessed, entirely at his
ease, and waited for her to speak.
"You could do that--anybody could do that--to my father?" she was
only half-convinced.
"I assure you we can send him under--with a lot of other men's money
tied around his neck to keep him down."
"But even you would hesitate to do a thing like that!"
"All is fair," said Hunter, "in love and war."
"_Fair_?"
"Legitimate, then."
"But if he is in Mr. Inglesby's way and in his power at the same time,
why not remove him in the ordinary course of business? Why drag in me
and my letters?"
"Why? Because it's the letters that enable us to reach _you_. My dear
girl, Mr. Inglesby doesn't really give a hang whether Eustis sinks or
swims. He'd as lief back him as not, for in the long run it's good
business to back a winner. But it's _you_ he's playing for, and on
that count all is fish that comes to his net. _Now_ do you begin to
see?"
Mary Virginia began to see. She looked at the unruffled man before her
a bit wonderingly.
"And what do _you_ get out of this?" she asked, unexpectedly. "Mr.
Inglesby is to get me, I am to get his money and a package of letters,
my father is to get time to save himself; well then, what do _you_
get? The pleasure of doing something wrong? Revenge?"
But Hunter looked at her with cold astonishment. "You surprise me," he
said. "You talk as if you'd been going to see too many of those
insufferable screen-plays that make the proletariat sniffle and the
intelligent swear. I am merely a business man, Miss Eustis, and
attending to this particular affair for my employer is all in the
course of the day's work. I--er--am not in a position to refuse to
obey orders or to be captious, particularly since Mr. Inglesby has
agreed to double my present salary. That in itself is no light
inducement--but I get more. I get Mr. Inglesby's personal backing,
which means an assured future to me; as it will mean to you and your
father, if you have got the sense you were born with. This is
business. Kindly omit melodrama--crude, and not at all your style,
really," he finished, critically.
"This is nothing short of villainy. And not at all too crude for
_your_ style," said Mary Virginia.
He laughed good-humoredly. "Bad temper is vastly becoming to you," he
told her. "It gives you a magnificent color."
And at that Mary Virginia looked at him with eyes in which the shadow
of fear was deepening. Hard as nails, cold as ice, to him she was
merely a means to an end. He did not even hate her. The guillotine
does not hate those whom it decapitates, either; none the less it
takes off their heads once they get in the way of the descending
knife.
"I suggest," said Hunter, rising, "that you go home now and think the
matter over carefully. Weigh what you and your father stand to gain
against what you stand to lose. I do not press you for an immediate
decision. You shall have a reasonable time for consideration." It was
a threat and a command, thinly veiled.
All that night, unable to sleep, she did think the matter over
carefully; she turned and twisted it about and about and saw it now
from this angle and now from that; and the more she studied it in all
its bearings the worse it grew. There was no escape from it.
Suppose, although she knew she could never, never hope to
satisfactorily explain them, she nevertheless told her father about
those letters and the part they were to be made play, now that his own
affairs had reached a crisis? She could fancy herself telling him that
he must shield himself behind her skirts if he would save himself from
ruin. That ... to James Eustis!
Suppose that the Carolina trigger-finger slipped, as Hunter had
nonchalantly admitted might happen: what then? But it is the woman in
the case who always suffers the most and the longest; it is the woman,
always, who pays the greater price. Her fears magnified the imagined
evil, her pride was crucified.
What tortured her most was that they were actually making her party to
a wreck that could easily be averted. Hunter had admitted that Eustis
could weather the storm, if he were given time. Oh, to gain time for
him, then! And she lay there, staring into the dark with wet eyes. How
could she help him, she who was also snared?
And in desperation she hit upon a forlorn hope. She dared not speak
out openly to anybody, she dared not flatly refuse Inglesby's
pretensions, for that would be to invite the avalanche. What she
proposed to herself was to hold him off as long as she could. She
would not be definite until the last possible minute. Always there was
the chance that by some miracle of mercy Eustis might be able to meet
those notes when they fell due. Let him do that, and she would then
tell him everything. But not now. He was bearing too much, without
that added burden.
It cost her a supreme effort to face the situation as it affected
herself and Laurence. Life without Laurence! The bare thought of it
tested her heart and showed her how inalienably it belonged to him.
But under all his lovingness and his boyishness, Laurence had a
sternness, a ruggedness as adamantine as one of Cromwell's Iron-sides.
With him to know would be to act. Well--he mustn't know. It terrified
her to think of just what might happen, if Laurence knew.
Under the circumstances there seemed but one course open to her--to
give up Laurence, and that without explanations. For his own sake she
had to keep silent--just as Hunter had known she would. What Laurence
must think of her, even the loss of his affection and respect, would
be part of the price paid for having been a fool.
In the most unobtrusive manner they kept in touch with her. Hunter had
so adroitly wirepulled, and so deftly softened and toned down
Inglesby's crudities, that Mrs. Eustis had become the latter's open
champion. Condescending and patronizing, she liked the importance of
lending a very rich man her social countenance. She insisted that he
was misunderstood. Men of great fortunes are always misunderstood.
Nobody considers it a virtue to be charitable to the rich--they save
all their charity for the poor, who as often as not are undeserving,
and are generally insanitary as well. Mrs. Eustis thanked her heavenly
Father she was a woman of larger vision, and never thought ill of a
man just because he happened to be a millionaire. Millionaires have
got souls, she hoped? And hearts? Mrs. Eustis said she knew Mr.
Inglesby's noble heart, my dear, whether others did or not.
Compelled to apparently jilt Laurence, Mary Virginia sank deeper and
deeper into the slough of despond. A terror of Inglesby's power, as of
something supernatural, was growing upon her, a terror almost childish
in its intensity. He had begun to occupy the niche vacated by the
Boogerman her Dah had threatened her with in her nursery. She could
barely conceal this terror, save that an instinct warned her that to
let him know she feared him would be fatal. And she felt for him a
physical repulsion strong enough to be nauseating.
The fact that she disdained and perhaps even disliked him and made no
effort to conceal her feelings, did not in the least ruffle his bland
complacency nor affront his pride. He knew that not even an Inglesby
could hope to find a Mary Virginia more than once in a lifetime, and
the haughtier she was the more she pleased him; it added to his
innate sense of power, and this in itself endeared her to him
inexpressibly.
But as the girl still held out stubbornly, trying to evade the final
word that would force a climax disastrous any way she viewed it,
Inglesby's patience was exhausted. He was determined to make her come
to terms by the word of her own mouth, and he had no doubt that her
final word must be Yes; perhaps a Yes reluctant enough, but
nevertheless one to which he meant to hold her.
To make that final demand more impressive, Hunter was not entrusted
with the interview. Hunter may have been doubtful as to the wisdom of
this, but Inglesby could no longer forego the delight of dealing with
Mary Virginia personally. On the Saturday night, then, Mrs. Eustis
being absent, Mr. Inglesby, manicured, massaged, immaculate, shaven
and shorn, called in person; and not daring to refuse, Mary Virginia
received him, wondering if for her the end of the world had not come.
He made a mistake, for Mary Virginia had her back against the wall,
literally waiting for the Eustis roof to fall. But he could not forego
the pleasure of witnessing her pride lower its crest to him. He did
not relish a go-between, even such a successful one as his secretary.
He had made up his mind that she should have until to-morrow night,
Sunday, to come to a decision--just that long, and not another hour.
He was not getting younger; he wanted to marry, to found a great
establishment as whose mistress Mary Virginia should shine. And she
was making him lose time.
What Inglesby succeeded in doing was to bring her terror to a head,
and to fill her with a sick loathing of him. Under the smooth
protestations, the promises, the threats veiled with hateful and oily
smiles, the man himself was revealed: crude, brutal, dominant,
ruthless, a male animal bull-necked and arrogant, with small eyes,
wide nostrils, cruel moist lips, sensual fat white hands she hated.
And he was so sure of her! Mary Virginia found herself smarting under
that horrible sureness.
Perfectly at his ease, inclined to be familiar and jocose, he looked
insolently about the lovely old room that had never before held such a
suitor for a daughter of that house. Watching her with the complacent
eyes of an accepted lover, assuming odious airs of proprietorship such
as made one wish to throttle him, he was in no hurry to go. It seemed
to her that black and withering years rolled over her head before he
could bring himself to rise to take his departure. Death could hardly
be colder to a mortal than she had been to this man all the evening,
and yet it had not disconcerted him in the least!
He stood for a moment regarding her with the eyes of possession. "And
to think that to-morrow night I shall have the right to openly claim
you as my promised wife!" he exulted. "You can't realize what it means
to a man to be able to say to the world that the most beautiful woman
in it is his!"
Directly in front of her hung the portrait of the founder of the house
in Carolina, the cavalier who had fled to the new world when Charles
Stuart's head fell in the old one. It was a fine and proud face, the
eyes frank and brave, the mouth firm and sweet. The girl looked from
it to George Inglesby's, and found herself unable to speak. But as she
stood before him, tall and proud and pale, the loveliness, the
appealing charm of her, went like a strong wine to the man's head.
With a quick and fierce movement he seized her hand and covered it
with hot and hateful kisses.
At the touch of his lips cold horror seized her. She dragged her hand
free and waved him back with a splendid indignation. But Inglesby was
out of hand; he had taken the bit between his teeth, and now he
bolted.
"Do you think I'm made of stone?" he bellowed, and the mask slipped
altogether. There was no hypocrisy about Inglesby now; this was
genuine. "Well, I'm not! I'm a man, a flesh-and-blood man, and I'm
crazy for you--and you're _mine_! You're _mine_, and you might just as
well face the music and get acquainted with me, first as last.
Understand?
"I'm not such a bad sort--what's the matter with me, anyhow? Why ain't
I good enough for you or any other woman? Suppose I'm not a young
whippersnapper with his head full of nonsense and his pockets full of
nothing, can the best popinjay of them all do for you what _I_ can?
Can any of 'em offer you what _I_ can offer? Let him try to: I'll
raise his bid!
"Here--don't you stand there staring at me as if I'd tried to slit
your throat just because I've kissed your hand. Suppose I did? Why
shouldn't I kiss your hand if I want to? It's my hand, when all's said
and done, and I'll kiss it again if I feel like it. No, no, beauty, I
won't, not if it's going to make you look at me like that! Why, queen,
I wouldn't frighten you for worlds! I love you too much to want to do
anything but please you. I'd do anything, everything, just to please
you, to make you like me! You'll believe that, won't you?" And he
held out his hands with a supplicating and impassioned gesture.
"Why can't we be friends? Try to be friends with me, Mary Virginia!
You would, if you only knew how much I love you. Why, I've loved you
ever since that first day I saw you, after you'd come back home. I was
going into the bank, and I turned, and there you were! You had on a
gray dress, and you wore violets, a big bunch of them. I can smell
them yet. God! It was all up with me! I was crazy about you from the
start, and it's been getting worse and worse ... worse and worse!
"You don't know all I mean to do for you, beauty! I'm going to give
you this little old world to play with. Nothing's too good for _you_.
Look at me! I'm not an old man yet--I've only just _begun_ to make
money for you. Now be a little kind to me. You've got to marry me, you
know. Look here: you kiss me good-night, just once, of your own free
will, and I swear you shall have anything under the sky you ask me
for. Do you want a string of pearls that will make yours look like a
child's playpretty? I'll hang a million dollars around that white
throat of yours!"
But there came into the girl's eyes that which gave him pause. They
stood staring at each other; and slowly the wine-dark flush faded from
his face and left him livid. Little dents came about his nose, and his
lips puckered as if the devil had pinched them together.
"No?" said he thickly, and his jaw hardened, and his eyes narrowed
under his square forehead. "No? You won't, eh? Too fine and proud? My
lady, you'll learn to kiss me when I tell you to, and glad enough of
the chance, before you and I finish with each other! Why, you--I--Oh,
good God! Why do you rouse the devil in me, when I only want to be
friends with you?"
But she, with a ghastly face, turned swiftly and with her head held
high walked out of the room, passed through the wide hall, and
ascended the stairs, without even bidding him goodnight. Let him take
his dismissal as he would--she could stand no more!
Once in her own room, Mary Virginia dismissed Nancy for the night. She
had to be alone, and the colored woman was an irrepressible magpie.
Furiously she scrubbed her hands, as if to remove the taint of his
touch. That he had dared! Her teeth chattered. She could barely save
herself from screaming aloud. She bathed her face, dashed some toilet
water over herself, and fell into a chair, limp and unnerved.
_One day!_
She was facing the end and she knew it. Because she had to say No. She
had never for one minute admitted to herself the possibility of her
own surrender. She could give up Laurence, since she had to; but she
could not accept Inglesby. Anything rather than that! At the most, all
she had hoped was to evade that final No until the last moment, in
order to give Eustis what poor respite she could. Only her great love
for him had enabled her to do that much. And it had not helped. When
she thought of the wreck that must come, she beat her hands together,
softly, in sheer misery. It was like standing by and watching some
splendid ship being pounded to pieces on the rocks.
Only her innate bravery and her real and deep religious instinct saved
her from altogether sinking into inertia and despair. She _had_ to
arouse herself. Other women had faced situations equally as impossible
and unbearable as hers, and the best of them had not allowed
themselves to be whipped into tame and abject submission. Even at the
worst they had snatched the great chance to live their own lives in
their own way. As for her, surely there must be some way out of this
snarl, some immediate way that led to honorable freedom, even without
hope. But how and where was she to find any way open to her, between
now and to-morrow night?
On her dressing table, with a handful of trinkets upon it, lay the
tray that the Butterfly Man had sent her when she was graduated. Chin
in hands, Mary Virginia stared absently enough at the brightly colored
butterflies she had been told to remember were messengers bearing on
their wings the love of the Parish House people. Why--why--of course!
The Parish House people! They had blamed her, because they hadn't
understood. But if she were to ask the Parish House people for any
help within their power, she could be sure of receiving it without
stint.
If she could get to the Parish House without anybody knowing where she
was, Inglesby and Hunter would be balked of that interview to-morrow
night. The worst was going to happen anyhow, but if she couldn't save
herself from anything else, at least she could save herself from
facing them alone. To be able to do that, she would go now, in the
middle of the night, and tell the Padre everything. Unnerved as she
was, she couldn't face the hours between now and to-morrow morning
here, by herself. She had to get to the Parish House.
It was then after eleven. Nancy having been dismissed for the night,
she had no fear of being interrupted. She made her few preparations,
switched off the light, and sat down to wait until she could be sure
that all the servants were abed, and the streets deserted. She felt as
if she were a forlorn castaway upon a pinpoint of land, with
immeasurable dark depths upon either side.
The midnight express screeched and was gone. She switched on the light
for a last look about her pretty, pleasant room. There was a snapshot
of the Parish House people upon her mantel, and she nodded to it,
gravely, before she once more plunged the room into darkness.
Noiselessly she slipped downstairs and let herself out. The midnight
air was bitingly cold, but she did not feel it. With one handsatchel
holding all she thought she could honestly lay claim to, Mary Virginia
turned her back upon the home that had sheltered her all her life, but
that wouldn't be able to shelter its own people much longer, because
Inglesby was going to take it away from them. It made her wince to
think of him as master under that roof. The old house deserved a
happier fate.
At best the Parish House could be only a momentary stopping-place.
What lay beyond she didn't know. What her fate held further of evil
she couldn't guess. But at least, she thought, it would be in her own
hands. It wasn't. Unexpectedly and mercifully was it put into the
abler and stronger hands of the Butterfly Man.
Now, that night Flint had found himself unable to work. He was
unaccountably depressed. He couldn't read; even the Bible, opened at
his favorite John, hadn't any comfort for him. He shoved the book
aside, snatched hat and overcoat, and fled to his refuge the healing
out-of-doors.
He trudged the country roads for awhile, then turned toward town,
intending to pass by the Eustis house. It wasn't the first time he had
passed the Eustis house at night of late, and just to see it asleep in
the midst of its gardens steadied him and made him smile at the vague
fears he entertained.
He was almost up to the gate when a girl emerged from it, and he
stiffened in his tracks, for it was Mary Virginia. A second later, and
they stood face to face.
"Don't be alarmed, it is I, Flint," he said in his quiet voice. And
then he asked directly: "Why are you out alone at this hour? Where are
you going?"
"To--to the Parish House," she stammered. She was greatly startled by
his sudden appearance.
"Exactly," said the Butterfly Man, with meaning, and relieved her of
her satchel. He asked no questions, offered no comments; but as
quickly as he could he got her to his own rooms, put Kerry on guard,
and ran for help.