She had not thrown herself into the river, she had not fled with her
lover. He had wronged her in his thoughts. She was here. Like a weary
child she had flung herself down with her pale cheek pillowed on one
round, white arm, and was sleeping deeply, exhaustedly, with the
flowers all fallen from her apron and strewed in odorous confusion
about her.
He bent his dark head low over the golden one--perhaps to listen if she
slept--some murmured words fell from his lips. They sounded like "My
darling," but it must have been the wind sighing in the leaves above
them, or, perchance, the musical ripple of the little streamlet. St.
Leon Le Roy was too proud and cold for such a weakness.
But he did not awake her at once. He bent over her softly, and the
shapely hand with its costly diamond flashing in the moonlight, moved
gently over the waving ripples of golden hair in mute caress as though
she had been a child.
How still and pale she lay. The white radiance of the moonlight made
her look so cold and white it thrilled him with a strange terror.
"What if it were death?" he muttered, darkly, with a shiver. "Death?
Well," with a sudden, baleful fierceness, "what then? Better death than
surrender her to Cyril Wentworth!"
And a red-hot flame of jealousy tore his heart asunder like the keen
blade of a dagger.
He gazed for a moment in almost sullen satisfaction on the white,
sleeping face, then suddenly his mood changed. Something like fear and
dread came into his eyes.
"Am I mad?" he asked himself, with a bitter self-reproach in his voice,
and he shook her gently, while almost unconsciously he called her name
aloud:
"Beatrix--darling!"
With a start she opened her eyes. She saw him bending over her with
an inscrutable expression upon his face. It was frowning, fierce,
almost bitterly angry. Yet all the summer night around her, her languid
pulses, and her beating heart, seemed to thrill and echo to one sweet,
fierce whisper. "Darling!" Had she dreamed it? Was it but the figment
of her slumbering brain?
As she struggled up she put out her hands to shut out the sight of his
face that seemed to frown darkly upon her. A cry broke from her lips,
full of fear and deprecation.
"Do not be angry. Do not scold me!" she wailed. "I am very sorry--I--I
will go away!"
"She is not half awake--she is dreaming," he said to himself, and he
touched her again, gently. "Wake up, Miss Gordon," he said; "you are
dreaming. I am not going to scold you, although you have given us all
a terrible scare falling asleep in the grounds at this hour of the
evening."
The somber, black eyes stared at him affrightedly. She did not
comprehend him yet.
"Oh, Mr. Le Roy, has he told you all?" she cried, clasping her small
hands tightly in the agony of her excitement. "Do you hate me, despise
me? Must I go away, all alone," with a shudder, "into the dark, dark
night?"
"Still dreaming," said St. Leon Le Roy to himself, and with a sudden
impulse of pity he bent down, put his arms about the small white
figure, and lifted her up to her feet. Then holding her gently in the
clasp of one arm, he said, like one soothing a frightened child:
"You have been asleep, Miss Gordon, and your dreams were wild. Rouse
yourself now, and come into the house with me. My mother is greatly
frightened at your absence!"
"Frightened," she repeated, a little vaguely, and nestling
unconsciously nearer to the warm, strong arm that held her.
"Yes, you have been missing several hours, and we have all had a great
fright about you. Clarice searched for you several hours, but I had the
happiness of finding you," he said, gently.
"And--nothing has happened? You are not angry?" she asked, the mists
beginning to clear from her brain.
"Nothing has happened, except that a gentleman came to see you and went
away disappointed. I am not angry, yet I ought to be, seeing what a
fright you gave me. Only think of me, Miss Gordon, rushing about the
garden with my mind full of 'dire imaginings,' and finding you asleep
on the grass like a tired baby. What a descent from the sublime to the
ridiculous!"
She began to comprehend all and drew herself, with a blush, from the
arm that still held her gently.
"Pardon me. You were half asleep and I held you to keep you from
falling," he said, with cool dignity. "Shall we return to the house
now? My mother is in great suspense."
"I am very sorry," she began, penitently, as she moved on quietly by
his side. "I did not mean to frighten any one. You--you were very kind
to come and look for me."
In her heart she was secretly singing pæans of gladness. She was not
discovered yet. Her clever move that evening had thrown her enemy off
his guard. Trying to keep the tremor out of her voice, she asked with
apparent carelessness:
"Who was my visitor, Mr. Le Roy?"
"Whom do you imagine?" he responded.
"Was--was it Mr. Wentworth?" she inquired, with artless innocence and
something in her voice that he interpreted as hope and longing.
"Do you suppose that Mr. Wentworth would be admitted inside the doors
of Eden?" he inquired, with grim anger.
"Why not?" said she, timidly.
"You must know that we have our instructions from your mother," he
answered, stiffly.
Laurel decided that it would be in keeping with her character of
Beatrix Gordon to argue the point a little with Mr. Le Roy.
"Do you not think that mamma is a little harsh, Mr. Le Roy?" she
ventured, timidly. "Mr. Wentworth is good and noble and handsome. His
only fault is that he is poor."
"Therefore, he is no mate for you," St. Leon answered, almost savagely.
"But why?" she persisted, longing to hear his opinion on the subject.
"You are almost too young to understand these questions, Miss Gordon,
but it ought to be perfectly obvious to you that the wealthy well-born
daughter of Mr. Gordon should not descend to a simple clerk without
connections, without money, and without prospects," he answered, almost
brusquely.
"Must one take no account of love?" she asked, timidly.
"Unequal marriages seldom result happily, Miss Gordon," he said, his
voice full of underlying bitterness.
"You would have the rich to always wed the rich then?" she said,
smothering a long, deep, bitter sigh as she awaited his answer.
"Other things being equal--yes," he responded, cruelly, and for a
time they walked on silently through the moonlit paths with the thick
shrubberies casting fantastic shadows along their way. St. Leon was in
a savage mood, Laurel in a bitter one. She was silently recalling her
maid's favorite song:
"Dimes and dollars, dollars and dimes!
An empty pocket is the worst of crimes.
If a man's down, give him a thrust--
Trample the beggar into the dust!
Presumptuous poverty is quite appalling--
Knock him over! Kick him for falling!
Dimes and dollars, dollars and dimes,
An empty pocket is the worst of crimes!"
"The popular creed--why should I try to fight against it?" she asked
herself, with a sinking heart. She looked up into the dark, stern face
beside her. "Then I need never ask you to feel sorry for us--you will
never help us to happiness--poor Cyril and me!" she said.
His dark eyes flashed.
"You do not know what you are talking about, Miss Gordon!" he said,
almost savagely. "No; never ask me to help you to happiness with Cyril
Wentworth. I would sooner see you dead!"
She shrunk back appalled at his burst of resistless passion.
"He is hard and cruel, proud as Lucifer, and cold as ice," she sighed,
inly. "I was mad to dream that he called me darling in my sleep! One
of those stars will sooner fall from the heavens than that he should
descend to Laurel Vane!"
They were at the foot of the marble steps now. Just touching her arm,
he led her up to the door, and turned away.
"You may go in alone and tell them the ridiculous finale to our grand
scare--that you had simply fallen asleep on the grass," he said, in
a brusque, careless tone. "I shall go down to the river and smoke my
cigar."
And no wildest stretch of her girlish fancy could have made her believe
that St. Leon Le Roy went back to the place where he had found her
sleeping; that he took into his hands some of the scattered, forgotten
flowers, on which her arm and cheek had lain; that he kissed them, and
hid them in his breast, and then--almost cursed himself for his folly.
"I, St. Leon Le Roy, whom the fairest, proudest women in the world have
loved vainly!" he cried, "I, to make myself a dolt over another man's
baby-faced, childish sweetheart!"