Una commenced to fasten her laces with strangely trembling fingers.
"Eliot and I love each other!" she said, slowly.
"Oh, indeed?" said Sylvie, with a very incredulous giggle. "You did not
when I went away. Have you done your courting since, as you had no time
for it before you were married?"
The wonder, the half-dazed comprehension in the girl's pale face ought
to have made her less pitiless, but it had been her dream and Bryant's
to marry Ida to Eliot. She had said to herself many times that she
could never forgive the Little Nobody that had thwarted her plans.
So with an angry heart and pitiless eyes she had thrust the point of a
dagger into Una's heart.
But with proud, somber eyes the girl-wife said, gravely:
"You said you wanted these rooms for Miss Hayes. Very well, you can
have them. I dare say Maud will give me another room."
"Oh, dear no, I would not turn you out of your room for the world,
child!" suavely. She knew that Eliot would not permit it. "I only
thought that if you had given them up and gone to Eliot's these would
suit Ida. She always had them when she came before, and it does seem
foolish, does it not, for man and wife to occupy six rooms when three
would be enough? I hoped you and Eliot had become reconciled to your
forced marriage ere this."
Driven to bay, Una cried out, angrily:
"Mrs. Van Zandt, you are talking the wildest nonsense. There was no
forced marriage."
"Then why did Eliot write such a letter to my husband? Come to my room,
I will show it to you since you dispute my word."
She caught Una's cold hand and half dragged her with her to her own
room, where behind locked doors she gave the ignorant wife that fatal
letter to read--fatal, because in Eliot's haste and worry he had stated
only the bare facts of the case, and Una could not read between the
lines the love that had filled his heart.
She read it--the lovely, trusting girl--every word. She comprehended
it in part. What she could not fathom Sylvie pointed out in clearest
language, and when she had made her cruel meaning clear as day, she
said, maliciously:
"_Noblesse oblige_!"
A gasp, and the girl's heavy eyes turned dumbly on her face--dumb with
a bitter, humble humiliation. Sylvie said, half deprecatingly:
"He did not love you at first, of course. How could he? When he came he
asked me to give you a separate suite. I remonstrated, but he insisted.
Of course I thought you would win him while I was away, and he would
get over his foolishness."
Una had folded her white arms on the dressing-table, and was looking
into her face with dazed, heavy eyes. She muttered, hoarsely:
"Oh, this is too dreadful! What must he, what must you all think of me?"
Sylvie replied, with cruel frankness:
"Of course we all felt angry with you at first. We were disappointed,
too, for we had all expected that he would marry sister Ida. There had
been no engagement, but it was understood. But there, no one blames you
or him, child. As I said before, Eliot could not have acted any other
way. _Noblesse oblige_!"
As if forgetful of her presence, Una murmured, sadly:
"_Mon Dieu_! what shall I do?"
Sylvie answered, with more sense than she had displayed in making these
cruel revelations:
"Do? Why, nothing but make the best of it, as Eliot and the rest of us
have done. What has happened can not be altered now, so you must try
to make him fond of you, so that he shall no longer regret taking you
and losing Ida; and, for one thing, you ought not to be so extravagant.
There is that pony he bought you. I know he could not afford it,
really, for he is poor. And to-night I saw him bring you hot-house
flowers. I am afraid he is running into debt just to pamper your whims.
Now, if he had married Ida, it would have been different. She would
have brought him a fortune, and could have paid her own bills."
Pale as she would ever be in her coffin, Una stood listening, her heart
beating wildly.
"I am in his way. Oh, I wish I could die now!" she was thinking wildly.
Sylvie, who had done all this out of sheer malice, gloated over the
sight of her misery.
To herself she said spitefully:
"I am paying her back, the little pauper and nobody, for Ida's
disappointment."
Then suddenly she remembered that it was almost dinner-time. She said
carelessly:
"You had better go back to your room and finish dressing, Una; and
remember, I would not have told you what I have, only that you disputed
my word. I hope you will not run to Edith with it. It will only make
matters worse. I dare say he will learn to love you in time."
"I shall run to no one with it," Una answered, in a strange voice.
She moved to the door as she spoke, and passed out. Sylvie laughed
mockingly.
"I have paid Eliot now for his insolence. I know he loves her to
madness. I saw it in his eyes when she met him so coolly this evening.
Well, this will put a stumbling-block between them that he will not
easily pass."
And humming an opera air with heartless indifference, she made some
slight addition to her already elaborate toilet, and went down-stairs.
Una's toilet, the light-blue surah silk with square neck and
elbow-sleeves, was complete but for the handsome corsage bouquet Eliot
had brought her an hour ago. She did not pin it on her breast; she took
it in her hand and ran along the hall, then tapped softly at the door
of the apartment that she knew had been designed for Miss Hayes's use.
Ida opened it, dazzling Una's eyes with the glitter of her satin and
jewels. She frowned slightly at the intruder.
"I have brought you these flowers to wear," Una said, rapidly,
thrusting them into Ida's white hand. Then she turned away and went
along the hall with slow, lagging footsteps, down the broad, shallow
staircase, and so to the drawing-room, her young face pale with
emotion, and a strange, excited glitter in her dark eyes.