Beatrix went swiftly to the pretty dressing-room, where the maid was,
busy sewing on a dinner-dress of pink nuns' veiling for her beautiful
young mistress. She sunk down upon a chair and looked at Clarice with
somber, miserable eyes.
"Oh, Clarice, I shall have to give it all up," she panted. "They
suspect me--I am quite sure they do!"
Clarice looked frightened and disturbed, and even reproachful.
"Oh, Miss Gordon, don't say that," she exclaimed. "After all the
drilling you've had, a clever, pretty girl like you ought to be able to
act your part. But it's just as I told you to-day. You're too timid and
nervous."
"Because I am conscious of my guilt," answered the girl, sadly. "I
should not be timid and nervous in my own proper character, Clarice.
But you know 'conscience makes cowards of us all.' Besides, I am
ignorant on many subjects which Beatrix Gordon ought to know well. The
people and places they ask me about I know nothing of, and they look
surprised. To-day Mrs. Le Roy asked me to play on the piano. When I
said I did not know how, I wish you could have seen their faces!"
"That was rather bad. The most of young ladies know how to play on the
piano," said Clarice. "But anyhow they couldn't make out a case against
you for that. You might have said that you didn't care for music."
"So I did, but the lie almost blistered my lips," said the girl, "for
I love music dearly, and when Mr. Le Roy played a beautiful aria I was
afraid he would see my delight on my face."
"You must be careful over that. Stick to your text," warned the maid.
"If you make them think you don't like music they will not think it
strange you cannot play. Was there anything else unpleasant?"
"Yes; Mrs. Le Roy told me I did not at all resemble my mother. Oh, I
was so frightened when she began. My heart sprung to my lips!"
"What did you say?" asked Clarice, attentively.
"I told them I resembled my father--that was true at least," answered
Beatrix, sighing.
"Well, the game is not lost yet," said Clarice. "Courage, Miss
Gordon--hold your own bravely as you can. Remember all that is lost if
you fail."
"I try to remember it," sighed the girl. "If it were not for _her_,
Clarice, I should break down, I know I should. It is terrible to be
living a lie. Oh, Clarice, do you think she is very happy now?"
"Happy as a queen," said Clarice, enthusiastically: "and she was so
good and sweet she deserved it. Oh, you mustn't regret that you made
a little sacrifice for her! And is it a sacrifice, after all? Look at
this grand, beautiful home, all this luxury around you. Where would you
be if my mistress hadn't sent you here?"
Where, indeed? The false Beatrix Gordon shivered as if with ague, her
face blanched to a pallid hue. She thought of the homeless outcasts in
the horrible streets, of the dark, flowing river, of St. Leon Le Roy's
careless words to her that day: "I would throw myself into the river,
and so end all!"
"I should not do that unless I were driven to desperation," said the
girl to herself with unconscious bravery.
She looked through the window out upon the beautiful grounds.
"It is a lovely home," she said. "I could be very happy here if I had
no shadow on my heart. But I cannot forget my sin. I remember always
some lines that I have read:
'Some flowers of Eden we still inherit,
But the trail of the serpent is over them all.'"
"I would not call it a sin if I were you," said Clarice. "That is too
harsh a name. My mistress did not call it so. She said it was only a
justifiable counter plot, only a harmless, girl's conspiracy."
"She ought to know best. She is older and wiser than I am," said the
girl, with a gleam of hope on her face.
Clarice was very clever for a girl in her situation. As she worked away
steadily on the pink dress, she artfully followed up the impression her
last words had made:
"For my part I think it is the best joke I ever heard of. I do not pity
the Gordons one bit. They deserve to be fooled!" she said. "There was
no fault in Miss Gordon's lover, only he was not as rich as she was."
"Poverty is almost a crime in the eyes of the rich--is it not?" asked
her mistress thoughtfully.
"Yes," Clarice answered, almost tartly, and she began to hum under her
breath:
"'Dollars and dimes, dollars and dimes,
An empty pocket is the worst of crimes!'"
Her young mistress remained gazing thoughtfully from the window, the
sad expression of her face hidden by the falling waves of her golden
hair. Deep, heavy sighs breathed at intervals over her lips.
Several days passed quietly without anything occurring to frighten our
masquerading heroine again. The Le Roys gave no sign of their surprise
at anything that occurred. They had, in fact, concluded that a great
deal of her oddness and originality arose from the fact of the lover in
the case. When she looked sad, as she often did, they concluded she was
thinking of him. When St. Leon actually came upon her weeping silently
one day he thought it was on account of the separation from our hero.
It vexed him. He did not go away and leave her alone, as his mother
would have done. He said to her, sarcastically:
"Are you crying for your mamma, little girl?"
Beatrix flashed him a swift, angry look through her tears, and answered:
"No!"
"At least she has the grace to be honest," he said to himself.
Some curiosity came over him regarding the man who had won the heart
of this girl. He would have liked to know his name, and what he looked
like, and if he was worthy of the prize he had won.
"Confide in me, Miss Gordon," he said, obeying an impulse he could not
himself understand. "Tell me what your trouble is. Perhaps I can help
you."
Beatrix shuddered in horror. Ah, if he knew, how little he would be
inclined to help her. Rather he would spurn her from the proud gates of
Eden.
"You are very kind," she faltered. "I thank you, but it is nothing."
He looked at her a little scornfully.
"I have heard that women cry for nothing," he said. "I suppose it must
be true, as I now hear it confirmed by one of the sex."
She seldom saw him except at meals, and a little while in the
drawing-room of an evening. The most of his time was spent in the
library or out riding and walking. But one day he came to her abruptly.
"I am going up to New York for a few days," he said. "I hope you will
make use of my library while I am out of the way."
"Thank you," she said, radiantly.
"If I should see your parents," he continued, "shall I give them any
message for you?"
She started, and the crimson rose she was holding fell from her hands.
He wondered why she grew so deadly pale, and trembled so. The sudden
radiance of a moment ago had all gone from her face.
"Give them my love," she said in a husky voice, "and tell them--tell
them that I am greatly enjoying my visit to Eden."