St. Leon came home one afternoon and made his way straight to the
library. The thickly carpeted floor gave back no echo to his footfalls,
and he stood on the threshold of the room several minutes gazing in at
the open door unobserved by the single occupant of the apartment.
As he had shrewdly suspected, his mother's guest had availed herself to
the full of his permission to use the library in his absence.
Quite oblivious of his near presence now, Beatrix was curled up in his
great easy-chair in a cozy, kittenish attitude, her warm flushed cheek
buried in the hollow of one small hand, her dark eyes bent in rapt
interest on an open book in her lap. A ray of sunshine stealing through
the lace curtains at the window penciled golden bars on her white
dress and bright hair, making her look like a picture to whose beauty
St. Leon's cultured eyes were by no means oblivious. He hesitated to
startle her from her pretty negligent attitude, but as he gazed his
mesmeric eyes irresistibly attracted hers. She glanced up and met his
dark, burning eyes fixed with a strange inscrutable expression upon her
own.
Instantly Beatrix sprung up, the book falling to the floor, a little
cry of surprise on her lips, her face paling, a look of inexplicable
terror in her dark eyes.
"Am I an ogre that you do me the honor to be frightened at me, Miss
Gordon?" he inquired, advancing into the room, a tone of displeasure in
his deep, musical voice.
"I--I was not frightened--only startled, sir," said Beatrix, faintly,
as she stooped to recover her book.
She laid it upon the table and was about to leave the room when he
stopped her with a slight wave of his gloved hand.
"Resume your seat, Miss Gordon. I shall not believe you are not
frightened if you run away like this," he said.
She sat down with a gasp and waited. She had been full of vague fears
and suspicions regarding his visit to New York. She waited with a
beating heart and a pale face for his next words. He would say, with
that fine scorn his mobile face was so capable of expressing:
"You are found out in your miserable conspiracy, Laurel Vane. You have
come here pretending to be Mr. Gordon's daughter while you covered her
elopement with her lover. The true Beatrix Gordon is far away, married
to the man she has chosen, in defiance of her parents and friends.
Punishment cannot reach her, but you, Laurel Vane, will have to suffer
for the outrage you have helped to perpetrate on the Gordons and on us."
While she waited with a sick horror to hear him utter those words, she
wondered vaguely what they would do to her for her share in Beatrix
Gordon's conspiracy. Could they cast her into prison? She had seen
the outside of a penitentiary once. How grim and dark and forbidding
it looked with its iron doors and grated windows? Would they shut her
up in all her youth and beauty in such a horrible place as that, and
for how long? She shuddered as she thought that it might be for life.
She had no idea, in her youth and innocence, how far and how long the
powerful arm of the law could reach.
But the dreadful words for which she waited while a hand of ice seemed
to grip her throat, remained unspoken.
Mr. Le Roy seated himself leisurely and drew off his dark kid gloves.
Then he took up the volume she had been reading, and glanced at the
title.
"I hope you have enjoyed your monopoly of my library," he said.
"Yes," she answered, faintly.
"And you are sorry I have returned to oust you from its
enjoyments--aren't you?" he asked, studying her young face keenly.
"I should be very rude to say so," she answered, gaining courage as the
dreadful charge for which she waited was delayed.
"As to that you cannot be ruder than I was in desiring you to stay
out of this room while I was at home," he replied, with an air of
insincerity. "Will you pardon my selfishness, Miss Gordon, and permit
me to remove the embargo?"
She could scarcely believe her ears. His tone was distinctly kind. Had
he, then, found out nothing? Was her secret safe yet a little longer?
Seeing that she hesitated, and did not speak, he continued:
"I give you _carte blanche_ as to the use of this room whether I am
absent or present. Will you come here whenever you choose, to read, or
write, or study? You will not disturb me, neither shall I disturb you."
"Thank you," she murmured, not yet daring to look at him.
"You thank me, but you do not say you will come," he said. "Will you
please to look at me a moment, Miss Gordon? I like to be looked at when
I am talking."
With an effort she lifted her long fringed lashes, and forced herself
to meet his proud, glittering dark eyes.
"I am a spoiled child. I like to be humored," he said, with a smile
that lighted his face into a subtle sweetness that first showed her how
dangerously fascinating the master of Eden could be when he willed.
"I want you to tell me, Miss Gordon, that you forgive my selfishness
the other day, and that you will come to this room as freely as to any
other room in the house. You will promise me, will you not? No one ever
refuses _me_ anything!"
"There is nothing to forgive--you had a right"--she said, incoherently.
"If there was--and mind, I do not admit there was--I forgive you
freely."
"Thank you. And you will come?"
"Sometimes--perhaps," she stammered.
He pulled at his dark mustache impatiently.
"I must have a more definite promise than that," he said. "I am used to
having my way about everything."
Though the words were arrogant, the tone was kind. He was thoroughly
in earnest. She hesitated. She did not want to be drawn into such a
promise, standing too much in awe of the stately master of Eden.
"You will not promise," he said, piqued. "Very well. But you are the
first woman who ever refused a request of St. Leon Le Roy's. Your
forgiveness was only half hearted."
He was more vexed than she knew. His wonderful condescension had not
borne the fruit he expected. He leaned back in his chair with his elbow
on the table, and pulled at his dark mustache with his shapely fingers,
the costly diamond on his hand flashing luridly.
"What a stubborn little mite it is to refuse to humor me," he thought
to himself in displeasure.
While the small object of his displeasure watched the door with longing
eyes, yearning to escape from the oppressive dignity of his presence,
she felt herself growing crimson under his cold, proud gaze.
"You have not asked me yet if I saw your parents," he said, after some
minutes of that oppressive silence.
"It is coming now," thought the small culprit in despair, and she felt
guiltily that the color was all fading out of her cheeks under those
watchful eyes. She could only stammer, faintly, "Did you?"
To her infinite joy and relief, he answered in the negative.
"No, I did not see them. I called twice, but at both times they were
out--once driving in the park, and again attending a reception."
"You do not look sorry, Miss Gordon, although it was purely out of
courtesy to you that I went there."
"Indeed, I am very sorry," she murmured, but she could not make her
face look so.
His words were so great a relief to her that she could not look
disappointed. He did not tell her how disappointed he was. He would
not have owned to himself that he had hoped to hear something about
that lover from whom they had separated her. He would even have liked
to have seen him. It was a new thing for the _blasé_, world-weary St.
Leon Le Roy to feel curious over anything; but he had a great deal of
curiosity over the man whom Beatrix Gordon loved.
"I should like to know if he is worthy of her," was his excuse to his
own heart.
But he had not seen the Gordons, and he had found out nothing about
their daughter's lover.
"If he is good and true and noble I should like to help the child to
happiness," he said to himself. "If he is an ignoble fortune-hunter, as
they say, I should most decidedly try to forward the Gordons' plot."
And it was rather curious that in his own mind he had quite decided
that the unknown young man was a villain of the deepest dye. He pitied
Beatrix for having fallen in love with a scamp who was only after her
money. But as the days went by a change came over Beatrix that puzzled
him.
Some of her shyness, her timidity, her sadness wore off. A look of
contentment dawned on the fair face and in the dark eyes. Her cheeks
gained color and roundness. She even laughed sometimes, a mellow laugh
that was so sweet and glad it thrilled one's heart to hear it. Mrs. Le
Roy was puzzled.
"She is certainly not pining for her lover," she said to her son. "At
first she was so strange and sad I thought she was breaking her heart
over him. But she is so young it is likely that change of scene has
driven him completely out of her mind. The Gordons did well to send her
here."
The day came when she changed her mind on that latter point.
In her heart Mrs. Le Roy had a secret fancy that the charms of her
son had quite blotted out the image of Beatrix's absent lover from
her young heart. Not that St. Leon or Beatrix gave her any reason to
think so, but the wish was father to the thought. She would have been
delighted if these two had fallen in love with each other, for the
greatest desire of her heart was to see St. Leon married.