Mr. Falconer started and stared at her, his heavy face growing a
dust-red, his eyes distended with amazement and anger.
"Are you out of your mind?" he said at last, and frowning at her in a
kind of perplexity. "'Pon my soul, Maude, I'm never quite certain
whether you are in jest or earnest! If this is intended for a joke,
permit me to tell you I consider it in vilely bad taste."
"I am not jesting," she said, very quietly, her chin in her hand, her
blue eyes fixed on his unblushingly. "I am in the most sober, the most
serious earnest, I assure you."
He rose, then sank into the chair again, and sighed impatiently.
"Do you mean to say that you--that he--Confound it. If ever there was a
man to be pitied, it is the one who has the honour to be your father,
Maude."
"Why?" she asked, calmly. "Have I not been a dutiful daughter? Have I
ever given you any trouble, deceived you? Am I not perfectly frank with
you at this moment?" He rose and paced to the mantel-shelf, and leaning
against it, looked down upon her, the frown still on his heavy face,
his hands thrust deeply in his pockets.
"You've always been a puzzle to me," he said, more to himself than to
her. "Ever since you were born I've felt uncertain about you--you're
like your mother. But never mind that. What game is this you're
carrying on?"
"One in which I mean to win," she replied, slowly, meditatively. "Have
you not seen--How slow to perceive, even you, a reputedly clever man,
can be! I don't suppose there is a woman in the house who has not
detected the fact that I am in love with Stafford Orme, though I have
tried to hide it from them--and you will admit that I am not a bad
actress."
"In love with Stafford Orme!" His face darkened. "No, I did not know
it. Why---what the devil does he mean by not coming to me!" he broke
out angrily, harshly.
She smiled.
"He hasn't come to ask you for me, because--well, he doesn't want me,"
she said in a low voice.
"What!" he exclaimed below his breath. "Do you mean to tell me
that--that--Why, you can't have the shamelessness to care for the man
without--until--"
She broke in upon his burst of indignation with a low, clear laugh, and
there was no shame in her voice or eyes, as she said:
"Would it be so shameful if I have? My dear father, you and I should
differ on that point. We are told that we are made for love and to be
loved, that it is our proper and natural destiny. Why, then, should we
be ashamed of it. None of us are in reality; we only pretend to be. It
is part of the world's system of hypocrisy to assume an incapacity for
loving a man until he has asked you; to pretend an utter indifference
until he has said the magic words, 'I love you.' As if love could wait,
ever did wait, ever will! Anyway, mine did not! And I am no different
to other women--only more candid."
"By Heaven, you make me feel--mad!" he said, with suppressed anger.
"You tell me unblushingly, to my face, that you have fallen in love
with the son of my old enemy, that you want to marry him--you ask me to
help you, to--to forego my just revenge, to use my hold over him as a
lever, to induce him, force him--Good God! have you no sense of right
or wrong, are you utterly devoid of--of modesty, of womanly pride!"
He glowered down upon her with flushed face and angry eyes; but she was
quite unmoved by his outburst, and still met his gaze steadily, almost
reflectingly.
"A fortnight ago I should have asked myself that question--and as
angrily as you; but I can't now. It has gone too far."
"Gone too far! You mean--"
"That I have grown to love him so much, so dearly, that life without
him--"
"By God! you will have to live without him, for I'll not help you to
get him," he said, fiercely. "Stafford Orme, Stephen Orme's boy! No!
Put the thing out of your mind, Maude! See here--I don't want to be
angry; I'll take back all I said: you--well, you surprised me, and
shocked me, too, I'll admit--you're a strange girl, and say things that
you don't mean, and in a cold-blooded way that gives me fits. Say no
more about it; put the idea out of your head."
She laughed, and rose, and gliding to him, put her hand on his arm.
"My dear father," she said in a low voice, but with a strange and
subtle vibration in it, as if the passion with which she was struggling
threatened to burst forth, "you don't know what you ask; you don't know
what love is--and you don't know what I am! I didn't know myself until
the last few days; until a gradual light shone on the truth and showed
me my heart, the heart I once thought would never grow warm with love!
Oh, I was a fool! I played with fire, and I have been burned. I am
burning still!" She pressed her hand against her bosom, and for an
instant the passion within her darted from her eyes and twisted the
red, perfectly formed lips. Her hand tightened on his arm, her breath
came pantingly, now quickly, now slowly. "Father I have come to you.
Most girls go to their mother. I have none. I come to you because
I--must! You ask me to put the--the idea out of my head." She laughed a
low laugh of self-scorn and bitterness. "Do you think I have not tried
to steel, to harden, my heart against this feeling which has been
creeping insidiously over me, creeping, stealing gliding like a cloud
until it has enveloped me? I have fought against it as never woman
fought against the approach of love. The first day--it was the day he
took me on the lake--ah, you don't remember, but I--Shall I ever forget
it!--the first day my heart went out to him I tried to call it back, to
laugh at my weakness, to call myself a fool! And I thought I had
succeeded in driving the insidious feeling away. But I was wrong. It
was there in my heart already, and day by day, as I saw him, as I heard
him speak, the thing grew until I could not see him cross the lawn,
hear him speak to the dog, without thrilling, without shivering,
shuddering! Father, have pity on me! No, I won't ask for pity! I won't
have it! But I ask, I demand, sympathy, your help! Father," she drew
nearer to him and looked into his eyes with an awful look of
desperation, of broken pride, of the aching craving of love, "you must
help me. I love him, I must be his wife--I cannot live without him, I
will not!"
He paled and gnawed at his thick lip.
"You talk like a madwoman," he said, hoarsely.
She nodded.
"Yes, I am mad; I know it; I know it! But I shall never be sane again.
All my days and all my nights are consumed in this madness. I think of
him--I call up his face--ah!" She flung her hands before her face and
swayed to and fro as if she were half dazed, half giddy with passion.
"And all day I have to fight against the risk, the peril of discovery.
To feel the women's eyes on me when he comes near, to feel that their
ears are strained to catch the note in my voice which will give me
away, place me under their scorn--and to know that, try as I will, my
voice, my eyes will grow tender as they rest on him, as I speak to him!
To have to hide, to conceal, to crush down my heart while it is aching,
throbbing with the torture of my love for him!"
He strode from her, then came back. The sight of the storm within her
had moved him: for, after all, this strange girl was his daughter,
flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. He swore under his breath and
struggled for speech.
"And--and the man Stafford?" he said. "He--he has not said--D--n it!
you don't mean to tell me that he is absolutely indifferent, that
he--he doesn't care?"
"I'll tell you the truth," she said. "I swore to myself that I would.
There is too much at stake for me to conceal anything. He
does--not--care for me."
Ralph Falconer uttered a sharp snarl of shame and resentment.
"He doesn't? and yet you--you want to marry him!"
She made a gesture with her hands which was more eloquent than words.
"Perhaps--perhaps there is someone else? Someone of the other women
here?" he suggested, moodily.
"Yes, there is someone else," she said, with the same calm decision.
"No, it is not one of the women here; it is a girl in the place; a
farmer's daughter, I think. It is only a _liaison_, a vulgar
intrigue--"
He uttered an exclamation.
"And yet _that_ doesn't cure you!"
She shook her head and smiled.
"No; my case is incurable. Father, if he were engaged to anyone of the
women here, to someone his equal, I should still love him and want him;
yes, and move heaven and earth to get him. But this is only a
flirtation with some country girl--she meets him on the hill-side by
the river--anywhere. I have seen them, at a distance, once or twice.
She is of no importance. She has caught his fancy, and will soon fail
to hold it."
She waved her hand as if she were moving the obstacle aside. Her father
stared at her in a kind of stupefaction.
"My girl, don't you know what you are asking for? A life of
wretchedness and misery; the hell of being married to a man who doesn't
love you."
She laughed and drew herself up, her eyes flashing, a warm glow on her
cheeks.
"Who doesn't love me! Not now, perhaps; but do you think I should not
teach him to love me, make him love me? Look at me, father!"
He looked at her reluctantly, in a kind of dazed admiration and
resentment.
"Do you think any man could resist me if I set my mind upon winning
him? No! Oh, it's not the language of hysterical vanity! I know my
power; every woman knows how far her power will go. Let me have him to
myself for one week, and--" She caught her breath. "Love! Yes, he shall
return mine tenfold! I will teach him!" She caught her breath again and
pressed her hands to her bosom. "Don't be afraid, father, I will take
care of the future. Help me in the present; help me as I have asked
you!"
"By God, you ask too much!" he said, sternly, fiercely.
She stood and looked at him. The colour slowly left her face until it
was white as death, the light faded from her eyes until they were dull
and lifeless, the red of her lips paled and the lips themselves relaxed
and drooped, and as he looked at her a ghastly fear smote his heart and
a question shot into and a question shot into his eyes. She inclined
her head as if he had put the question in words.
"Yes," she said. "I shall die. You remember my mother? I shall follow
her--"
He uttered a low, hoarse cry, and caught her hands and held them; then
he flung them from him, and standing with his back to her, said,
thickly, as if every word were forced from him:
"You shall have your way! You always have had, like your mother before
you--you always will. But mark my words: you'll live to curse the hour
you forced me to do this!"
She drew a long breath--it was almost a sigh--of relief, and she laid
her hands on his arms and kissed him on the forehead.
"I'll risk that," she said, with a tremulous laugh.
There was a silence for a moment, then she said, calmly:
"You will play your part carefully, father? You will let Sir Stephen
think that Stafford desires it: you will be careful?"
He turned upon her with an oath.
"You'd best leave it to me," he said, savagely. "I'll try and save you
from shame all I can. For God's sake go and leave me alone!"