St. Leon looked at the girl as she made her timid request. Her eyes
drooped from his quickly, and the frightened look came into them again.
He was unaccountably vexed, although a moment before he had been
pleased, because she was afraid of him.
"Why should the little goose fear me? I am not an ogre," he said
to himself, shortly, turning back to the window, while Mrs. Le Roy
answered politely:
"Certainly, child, and I will go with you to show you the way."
They went out together, and St. Leon watched them from the window,
appearing and disappearing among the winding walks, the girl's white
figure bending here and there among the gay _parterres_ of flowers, the
morning sunshine lighting her waving tresses into splendor. Mrs. Le Roy
had given her _carte blanche_ as to the flowers, and she was eagerly
filling her hands with the scented beauties.
After a little, he remembered that his mother was growing old, and that
she must be weary of keeping pace with those light, quick footsteps. He
hesitated, and then went out to them.
"_Chère maman_, you must be tired," he said. "Sit down here on this
garden-seat and rest, and I will take your place with Miss Gordon."
Beatrix turned with quick compunction.
"Are you tired?" she said, looking at Mrs. Le Roy with the long,
curling lashes lifted from her expressive eyes. "I am so sorry. I
forgot that it isn't new to you as it is to me. Shall we go in?"
"By no means," answered the lady. "I will sit here and rest, and St.
Leon shall be your escort."
She flashed him a little glance, quickly withdrawn.
"Perhaps you wouldn't like," she said.
He laughed, and walked on by her side by way of answer, thinking to
himself that she was rather prettier than he had thought at first. The
wide sun-hat was tilted carelessly back from the fair low brow with
its childish fringe of sunny locks, and the dark eyes with their long
curling lashes looked darker still by contrast. A soft color had come
into her face, and shy smiles of pleasure hovered around her lips. She
looked like a child, with the front of her white overskirt held up in
her hands and filled with flowers.
"Do you like flowers?" he asked her.
"I _love_ them," she answered, with a distinct emphasis on the words.
"I love them, and I never saw so many and such lovely flowers as you
have here."
"Then you ought to enjoy your visit to Eden," he said, pleased at her
pleasure in his home, and little thinking how she _would_ enjoy that
visit--how all the joy and sorrow of her life would date from these
summer hours.
"Yes, I should enjoy it--I _know that_--only--only--" she said, and
paused in confusion.
"Only what? Tell me," said St. Leon Le Roy, thinking suddenly of the
lover from whom the girl had been torn by her scheming parents.
"She is thinking of that fortune hunter--that wretched entanglement,"
he said to himself, wondering what her next words would be.
"Only," she went on with childish frankness, and giving him one of
her swift, dark glances, quickly withdrawn, "I am afraid you are--are
_angry_ that I have come here!"
Oh, wondrous perceptions of innocence! He flushed a little under his
handsome brown skin, and pulled nervously at his silky mustache.
"Why should you think so?" he queried.
"I don't know. I--I seemed to feel it in the air," she said, vaguely,
and in a little troubled tone. "You _are_ vexed about it--_aren't_
you?" and she turned on him fully for the first time the full gaze of
those large wondrous black eyes, before whose searching gaze even the
most accomplished Ananias might have hesitated to answer falsely.
"I should be discourteous if I answered in the affirmative," he said.
"You needn't mind that--not the least bit in the world," she said,
eagerly. "You see, I didn't know when I came that _you_ were here. I
thought there was only an old lady--your mamma. If you don't want me
here, I must go back to---- I can go away," she said, growing strangely
pale as the words left her lips.
"Perhaps you would have been better pleased if I had not been here," he
said, curiously, as they walked on down a wide, graveled path, leading
to the river.
"Perhaps so--I don't like men very much," she answered, with innocent
frankness.
"Ridiculous affectation, when she is dead in love with a
fortune-hunting scoundrel!" thought he, gnawing his mustache vexedly.
Somehow since Beatrix Gordon had come to Eden he chose to take the most
contemptible view of her lover.
"Perhaps you would like me to go away?" he said, with fine sarcasm.
They had come to the pretty rustic fence that bordered the lawn. Below
it was the public road, beyond this the wide, beautiful river, with the
white sails coming and going on its glassy breast. Beatrix sunk down on
a convenient seat with a crimson, dismayed face. Some of the flowers
fell from her overskirt in the surprise with which she regarded him.
"Oh, what have I said? I didn't mean _that_--never!" she cried, as he
stooped to restore her treasures. "I wouldn't have you go away from
your beautiful home for me, Mr. Le Roy."
"Very well, I will stay. I dare say Eden is wide enough for us to keep
out of each other's way," he answered, as he sat down by her side.
"Yes, surely," she cried; "and if--if you will only tell me how, I
won't bother you--I won't come in your way at all."
"Very well," grimly. "We will both stay at Eden and compromise that
way. We will try not to intrude upon each other. My favorite haunt is
the library. If you will keep out of there, you may have the right of
way in the rest of the house without materially disturbing me."
Palpable dismay lowered over the lifted face that looked so lovely in
the golden sunlight.
"The library? And the books are all there--aren't they?" she asked,
with a note of keen yearning in her voice.
"Yes; do you like books?" he asked, curiously.
"I love them," she answered, discarding the word "like" as she had done
about the flowers. There was no half way strain in her nature. Fervent,
ardent, impetuous, the word was too cold for her.
Those things that pleased her she _loved_.
"Then, perhaps I will lend you some books sometimes, if you will only
keep out of my sanctum," he said, coolly. "Do you promise?"
"Yes, I promise," she replied, with a gentle, smothered sigh.
Then suddenly she lifted her eyes and asked him the last question he
would have expected to hear from a girl nurtured in the lap of wealth
and luxury.
"Mr. Le Roy, if you were a girl like I am--and if you hadn't any
parents, nor home, nor friends--nor any money--nor any practical
education--what would you do to earn an honest living?"
There was a palpable anxiety in voice and face. She had grown very
pale, her dark eyes were distinctly wistful.
"She is thinking of that obnoxious lover. She would even dare poverty
for his sake," he said to himself in displeasure.
Aloud he answered carelessly:
"It is hard to say what I should do in such a case, Miss Gordon. I
believe I should throw myself into that beautiful river yonder and so
end all."
In the dark after-days he remembered those words.