"LOVE MAKES FOOLS OF US ALL!"
"How lovely she looked as she stood
In a robe of pink gossamer dressed,
Her curls waving in the night air,
And the jessamine flowers on her breast.
Those dark eyes, so tender and sweet,
That red mouth so temptingly small,
Those bright, perfumed ringlets--heigho!
What fools such things make of us all!"
MAY AGNES FLEMING.
Geraldine watched the meeting between the estranged lovers with a
knowing little smile.
Their sudden pallor and emotion, even the constraint of their meeting,
assured her that love was not dead in their hearts.
The ashes still smoldered, and needed but a breath to blow them into
flame again.
Geraldine loved Cissy so dearly that she longed to help the girl
to happiness again, and she determined to leave nothing undone to
reconcile her to her lover.
When they were seated again, she said, brightly:
"You must promise to call on me to-morrow, for I have dozens of
questions to ask you, and much to tell you, and I know you will not
have time to listen to it now."
"I will come with the greatest pleasure," he replied, his handsome face
glowing with delight, for he guessed that at her home he should meet
Cissy again.
Geraldine understood his thought, and said, quickly:
"Miss Carroll is staying with me for an indefinite period, and I mean
to give her a good time in Chicago. Perhaps you remember that we roomed
together in New York when we were both working-girls?"
He smiled affirmatively, and she continued:
"Perhaps you have not heard that I have found my lost mother since I
left New York?"
"No; is it true? Let me congratulate you," he cried, warmly, and then
Geraldine ran over her adventures briefly, for she knew that he must
soon leave her to return to his duties.
"But I shall come back at the end of the second act," he said, as he
hurried away.
He was with them every minute he could spare, and Cissy was very angry
with herself, for the traitorous throbbing of her heart told her so
plainly how dear he was to her yet, in spite of the years in which she
had been teaching her heart to forget him.
He was amazed when he heard the story of Clifford Standish's wickedness.
"I knew the man had a bad heart--his desertion of his wife proved
that--but I did not dream he would go to such lengths as you tell
me. What must have been your fate had you not met your mother so
opportunely?" he exclaimed to Geraldine.
"What, indeed!" she shuddered, and then a low cry from Cissy made her
turn her head.
"Look! there is the wretch now!" cried Cissy, excitedly.
They followed her glance, and saw the face of Clifford Standish peering
at them from behind a pillar in the orchestra circle.
When their indignant eyes turned on him, he realized that he was being
observed, and hastily dodged from sight.
They saw him no more that evening, but when they left the theatre he
was near enough to have touched Geraldine with his hand.
He had come to the theatre from his interview with Miss Erroll, and had
triumphed over her bitterest prejudices by representing that his wife
was dead, and that he really meant to marry Geraldine once he got her
into his power.
"I will teach her to love me after marriage," he boasted; and the
poor governess, who had once loved him madly, and was still somewhat
under the glamour of that old passion, did not doubt his power to win
Geraldine's heart. She knew how fascinating he could be when he chose.
For one moment, indeed, a jealous pang tore her heart, and she said,
pleadingly:
"If your wife is dead, as you say, Clifford, you ought to marry me. You
owe it to me, after all I gave up for your sake. You know I trusted in
your promises."
"You were a fool for your pains," he replied, with brutal frankness.
"You had knowledge enough of the world to be sure that a silly married
woman who deserts her husband for another man will surely reap what she
has sown."
"You swore you would marry me when Cameron Clemens secured a divorce."
"You were very silly to believe me, Azuba. I was only amusing myself
with your credulity. A man never means the vows he makes in an affair
of that kind. The time is sure to come when he will meet some pure
young girl, and give her the best of his heart. Then he despises the
weak victims of his past passions."
"As you despise me?" she demanded, bitterly.
"It would not be polite to say so," he replied, indifferently, and
hearing her stifled sob, he added, impatiently: "Bah, Azuba! I have
quite got over my old fancy for you, and your sniveling cannot warm
over the old coals. I never really loved you--never knew the power of
love until I met pretty Geraldine, and the only way for you to get a
kind thought from me is to help me to win the little beauty."
Crushed and humiliated by his scorn, she would have defied him if she
had dared, but she was in his power, and dared not do it; so, ere
they parted, the plot for Geraldine's abduction was made, and nothing
remained but to carry it out that night.
"Do not dare to fail me, or the weight of my vengeance will crush you,"
he said, threateningly, and with a shudder she promised to obey.
They parted, and he hurried to the theatre, where she had told him
Geraldine had gone.
Securing a seat in the orchestra circle, in the desirable concealment
of a pillar, he alternately watched the heiress and the play.
An angry sneer curled his lips as he saw the new leading man in the
play was even superior to himself in the role of the hero.
"So I can never get back my position in that company," he mused. "Well,
no matter! I shall marry the heiress, and if the old woman cuts up
rough and won't give us any of her daughter's money, we can go on the
stage, and the elopement will be an advertisement for us."
As he watched Geraldine in all her beauty, sitting with her friends,
his passion for her grew deeper, and he mentally hugged himself at the
thought of how soon he would have her in his power.
When her carriage rolled away, and he noted the lingering glance sent
after it by Cameron Clemens, he sneered, grimly:
"Bah! what fools love makes of us all! There is Clemens as madly in
love with that hateful Cissy Carroll as I am with pretty Geraldine. He
has been in love with her ever since Azuba Aylesford forced them apart,
to marry him herself. Egad! I did them a good turn when I flattered
Mrs. Clemens into eloping with me; and if the Carroll girl ever gets
him back she may thank me for ridding him of his incumbrance, though
she hates me like poison!"
He turned away with a harsh laugh, and went his way through the gloomy
shadows of the winter night, like a thing of evil omen.
And in all that vast city of Chicago where crime stalks abroad under
the cover of darkness, there was not a soul more lost to goodness than
that of this man.