CLIFFORD STANDISH TRIES TO CREATE A GRAND IMPRESSION.
"When you see a vain pretender
Rushing aimlessly along,
Boasting of his wealth and splendor
To the giddy, thoughtless throng,
Pity him, and while you pity
In your mind this adage keep:
Though he may be _fast_ and _witty_,
Rapid streams are seldom deep."
FRANCIS S. SMITH.
Geraldine hastened to her room and scrawled a hasty line to Clifford
Standish:
"You may call at eight o'clock this evening."
When she had dispatched the note by a servant, she threw herself,
weeping, on a sofa.
Her fond heart was almost broken by her mother's command to give up her
lover.
"I will not obey her, for she has no right to demand such a sacrifice
from me!" she sobbed, resentfully.
It was true that she had already written to Hawthorne, telling him all
that had happened to her since she had seen him last, and adding that
no change of fortune could turn her heart from its love. She had begged
him to answer her letter as soon as received, and added a postscript to
ask him to go and tell Cissy Carroll what she had written.
But an adverse fate seemed always to come between Geraldine and her
heart's choice.
Hawthorne, who was in Chicago by this time, vainly seeking his lost
love, was fated not to receive the letter.
But Clifford Standish, writhing with impatience over the uncertainty
that attended his love affair, was elated at the reception of
Geraldine's note permitting him to call.
When the time approached, he laid aside the clumsy disguise he had
assumed, and clothed himself in "purple and fine linen," as the saying
goes, hoping to make some impression on the girl's proud mother by his
handsome person and stately manners. He remembered how contemptuously
she had called him "that person," and flattered himself that she could
not deny him the title of a gentleman now.
Promptly at the time appointed he presented himself at the splendid
Fitzgerald mansion, and was ushered into a luxurious little
reception-room, where he waited in solitude some time after sending his
card to the ladies.
He smiled to himself, as he thought:
"Geraldine is probably adorning herself in all the splendors of her
newly acquired wealth to startle me with her beauty. She will burst
upon me presently in gorgeous array, rustling in silk, and loaded with
jewels, with all the purse-proud vulgarity of the _nouveaux riche_."
And he did not reflect that he himself, following the "loud" taste of
many actors, was almost too stunningly dressed for gentlemanly effect.
But just as he began to grow decidedly impatient at the long delay,
a handsome young woman came softly through the draped door, and,
advancing toward him, said, courteously:
"Mrs. Fitzgerald desires that you will excuse her delay in coming in.
She has been detained by an unexpected caller, but will be with you in
a few minutes now."
He sprang excitedly to his feet.
"Azuba!" burst from his lips.
The handsome young woman, who had scarcely looked at him before, turned
her eyes toward him at that cry, and recoiled with a stifled shriek of
unutterable dismay.
Clifford Standish came close up to her, muttering:
"Azuba, what are you doing here?"
The woman's face became death-white with sudden fear, and lifting her
hand warningly, she almost, hissed:
"Hush! breathe not that name beneath this roof! It is not my name now!"
"Another alias, then," he muttered. "What is it now?"
Her reply came with a groan:
"What does that matter to you? I am done with you and the past
forever--I am trying to lead an honest life and earn an honest,
respectable living. For Heaven's sake, do not betray me to these
people!"
"What are you doing here?"
"I am governess to Mrs. Fitzgerald's children. I am trusted and liked
by the whole family, and I try to deserve it. Will you go away, and
leave me in peace to my new life?" she prayed, with clasped hands, her
large blue eyes swimming in frightened, beseeching tears.
"I have no wish to trouble you, Azuba---- Oh, pardon, that name was a
slip of the tongue! What do you call yourself now?"
"Simply Kate Erroll--Miss Erroll to all. I have a right to that name.
It was my mother's before she was married. But I cannot stay to talk to
you now. I must go; but keep my secret, will you, Clifford Standish?"
"What if I refuse?" he demanded, and she answered, quickly:
"You could not injure me without bringing down harm upon yourself;" and
with that vague threat the handsome governess fled by another door just
as Mrs. Fitzgerald entered, a sombre object in the long, trailing black
robes of widowhood.
She bowed to him with a sort of cold expectancy. Calling all his native
effrontery to his aid, he rose, and said, theatrically:
"Mrs. Fitzgerald, I have come to plead with you to sanction my
engagement to your daughter, Geraldine. We love each other devotedly,
and it would break our loving hearts to be separated. You may think,
perhaps, that I am no mate for your daughter, because you are rich;
but that is a great mistake. I am an actor, I own, but I am paid a
magnificent salary. My mother is very rich, and makes me a handsome
allowance. At her death--and she cannot live much longer, being quite
old and frail--I shall inherit her large fortune and can support my
wife in grand style."