MILLICENT'S REVOLT
"I really feel mean over it, and, of course, I will pay you back, but
unless I get the money to meet the call, I shall have to sacrifice the
stock," said Henry Leslie, glancing furtively at his wife across the
breakfast-table.
Leslie was seldom at his best in the morning, but he seemed unusually
nervous, and the coffee-cup shook in his fingers as he raised it.
"It's the last I'll ask you for," he continued, "and if you press him,
Thurston will sign the check. He said he was coming, did he not?"
"Yes," was the answer. "Here is his note. It must be the last, Harry,
for I have overdrawn my allowance already. You will notice that
Geoffrey hesitates, and will not sign the check without seeing me. He
will be here on Thursday."
Leslie took the letter with an eagerness which did not escape his wife,
while, as the sum in question was small, she could not quite understand
the satisfaction in his face. It had grown soddened and coarse of
late, and there were times when she looked upon her husband with
positive disgust. Still, she had, in spite of occasional disputes,
resumed her efforts to play the part of a dutiful wife, and it was
easier to pay her husband money than respect, the more so because he
had usually some specious excuse, which appealed both to her ambition
and her gambling instinct. At times he handed her small amounts of
money, said to be her share of the profits on speculations, for which
he required the loans.
"'Pressure of work, but must make an effort to see you as you
suggest,'" Leslie read aloud. "H'm! 'Limit exceeded already. Will be
in town, and try to call upon you on Thursday.'"
"It is very good of him," remarked Millicent. "He evidently finds
every minute precious, and I am very reluctant to bring him here. I
gather that, except for my request, he would have deferred his other
business. Still, I suppose you must have the money, Harry?"
"I must," was the answer, and Leslie, who did not look up, busied
himself with his plate. "Better write that you expect him, and I will
post the note. By the way, I must remind you that we take the Eastern
Fishery delegates on their steamer trip the day after to-morrow, and
though there may be rather a mixed company, I want you to turn out
smartly, and get hold of the best people. It would be well to see a
mention of the handsome Mrs. Leslie in the newspaper report."
Millicent frowned. She was a vain woman, but she had some genuine
pride, and there were limits to her forbearance. By the time her
husband had induced her to withdraw her refusal to accompany him, it
was too late further to discuss Thurston's visit, which was exactly
what Leslie desired. Accordingly, well pleased with himself, he set
out for his office, with a letter in his hand.
Mrs. Leslie had reason to remember the steamer excursion. A party of
prominent persons had been invited to accompany the Fishery delegates
on the maritime picnic, organized for the purpose of displaying the
facilities that coast afforded for the prosecution of a new industry.
It was difficult for the committee to draw a rigid line, and the
company was decidedly mixed, more so than even Millicent at first
surmised. Her husband, who acted as marshal, was kept busy most of the
time, but she noticed a swift look of annoyance on his face when,
before the steamer sailed, a tastefully-dressed young woman ascended
the gangway, where he was receiving the guests. There was nothing
dubious in the appearance of the lady or her elderly companion, and yet
Millicent felt that Leslie was troubled by their presence, and
hesitated to let them pass. The younger lady, however, smiled upon him
in a manner that suggested they had met before, and Leslie stood aside
when Shackleby beckoned him with what looked like an ironical grin.
Then the gangway was run in, and the engines started.
It was a mild day for the season, and Millicent, who found friends,
dismissed the subject from her thoughts, when she saw her husband
exchange no word with his latest guests. She was sitting with a young
married lady, where the sun shone pleasantly in the shelter of the
great white deck-house, when a sound of voices came out, with the odor
of cigar smoke, from an open window.
"You fixed it all right?" observed one voice which sounded familiar,
and there was a laugh which, though muffled, was more familiar still.
While, with curiosity excited, Millicent listened, a companion broke in:
"Where's Mr. Leslie? I have scarcely seen him all morning."
"Making himself useful as usual. Discoursing on fisheries and harbors,
of which he knows nothing, to men who know a good deal, and no doubt
doing it very neatly," said Millicent, smiling.
"Why do you let him?" asked the other, with a little gesture of pride,
which became her. "Now, my husband knows better than to stay away from
me, even if he wanted to. Ah, here he is, bringing good things from
the sunny South piled up on a tray."
Perhaps it was the contrast, for Millicent felt both resentful and
neglected when a young man approached carrying choice fruits and cakes
upon a nickeled tray; but before he reached them a voice came through
the window again:
"You're quite certain? That man has eyes all over him, and it won't do
to take any chances with him. He must be kept right here in Vancouver
all night, and the game will be in our own hands before he gets back
again."
"I've done my best," was the answer, and Millicent fancied, but was not
certain, that it was her husband who spoke. "I have fixed things so
that he will come to Vancouver. The only worry is, can we depend upon
the fellow I laid the odds with?"
"Oh, yes," responded the second voice. "I guess he knows better than
fail me. By the way, you nearly made a fool of yourself over Coralie."
"Somebody inside there talking secrets," observed the younger lady. "I
think it is Mr. Shackleby, and I don't like that man. Charley, set
down that tray and carry my chair and Mrs. Leslie's at least a dozen
yards away."
Millicent, at the risk of being guilty of eavesdropping, would have
greatly preferred to stay where she was; but when the man did his
wife's bidding, she could only follow and thank him. Lifting a cluster
of fruit from the tray, she asked one question.
"Can you tell me, Mr. Nelson, who is Coralie?"
Nelson looked startled for a moment, and found it necessary to place
another folding chair under the tray. He did not answer until his wife
said:
"Didn't you hear Mrs. Leslie's question, Charley? Who is Coralie?"
"Sounds like the name of a variety actress," answered the man, by no
means glibly. "Why should you ask me? I really don't know. I'm not
good at conundrums. Isn't this a beautiful view? I fancied you'd have
a better appetite up here than amid the crowd below."
Millicent's curiosity was further excited by the speaker's manner, but
she could only possess her soul in patience, until presently it was
satisfied on one point at least. She sat alone for a few minutes on
the steamer's highest deck against the colored glass dome of the great
white and gold saloon. Several of the brass-guarded lights were open
wide, and, hearing a burst of laughter, she looked down. The young
woman, who had spoken to Leslie at the gangway, sat at a corner table,
partly hidden by two carved pillars below. She held a champagne glass
in a lavishly jeweled hand, and there was no doubt that she was pretty,
but there was that in her suggestive laugh and mocking curve of the
full red lips, something which set Millicent's teeth on edge. If more
were needed to increase the unpleasant impression, a rich mine promoter
sat near the young woman, trying to whisper confidentially, and another
man, whose name was notorious in the city, laughed as he watched them.
But Millicent had seen sufficient, and turning her head, looked out to
sea. There were, however, several men smoking on the opposite side of
the dome, and one of them also must have looked down, for his comment
was audible.
"They're having what you call a good time down there! Who and what is
she?"
"Ma'mselle Coralie. Ostensibly a _clairvoyante_," was the dry reply.
"_Clairvoyante_!" repeated the first unseen speaker, who, by his clean
intonation, Millicent set down as a newly-arrived Englishman. "Do you
mean a professional soothsayer?"
"Something of the kind," said the other with a laugh. "We're a curious
people marching in the forefront of progress, so we like to think, and
yet we consult hypnotists and all kinds of fakirs, even about our
business. Walk down ---- Street and you'll see half-a-dozen of their
name-plates. When they're young and handsome they get plenty of
customers, and it's suspected that Coralie, with assistance, runs a
select gambling bank of evenings. The charlatan is not tied to one
profession."
"I catch on--correct phrase, isn't it?" rejoined the Englishman. "Of
course, you're liberal minded and free from effete prejudice, but I
hardly fancied the wives of your best citizens would care to meet such
ladies."
"They wouldn't if they knew it!" was the answer. "Coralie's a
newcomer; such women are birds of passage, and before she grows too
famous the police will move her on. In fact, I've been wondering how
she got on board to-day."
"Leslie passed her up the gangway," said another man, adding, with a
suggestive laugh as he answered another question: "Why did he do it?
Well, perhaps he's had his fortune told, or you can ask him. Anyway,
although I think he wanted to, he dared not turn her back."
Millicent, rising, slipped away. Trembling with rage, she was glad to
lean upon the steamer's rail. She had discovered long ago that her
husband was not a model of virtue, but the knowledge that his
shortcomings were common property was particularly bitter to her. Of
late she had dutifully endeavored to live on good terms with him, and
it was galling to discover that he had only, it seemed, worked upon her
softer mood for the purpose of extorting money to lavish upon illicit
pleasures. She felt no man could sink lower than that, and determined
there should be a reckoning that very night.
"My dear Mrs. Leslie," said a voice beside her. "Why, you look quite
ill. My husband brought a bottle of stuff guaranteed to cure steamboat
malady. Run and get it, Charley," and Millicent turned to meet her
young married friend.
"Please don't trouble, Mr. Nelson. I am not in the least sea-sick,"
Millicent replied. "You might, however, spread out that deck chair for
me. It is a passing faintness which will leave me directly."
She remembered nothing about the rest of the voyage, except that, when
the steamer reached the wharf, her husband, who helped her down the
gangway, said:
"I have promised to go to the conference and afterwards dine with the
delegates, Millicent, so I dare say you will excuse me. I shall not be
late if I can help it, and you might wait up for me."
Millicent, who had intended to wait for him, in any case, merely
nodded, and went home alone. She sat beside the English hearth all
evening with an open book upside down upon her knee, and her eyes
turned towards the clock, which very slowly ticked away the last hours
she would spend beneath her husband's roof. There was spirit in her,
and though she hardly knew why, she dressed herself for the interview
carefully. When Leslie entered, his eyes expressed admiration as she
rose with cold dignity and stood before him. Leslie was sober, but
unfortunately for himself barely so, for the delegates had been treated
with lavish Western hospitality, and there had been many toasts to
honor during the dinner. He leaned against the wall with one hand on a
carved bracket, looking down upon her with what seemed to be a leer of
brutal pride upon his slightly-flushed face.
"You excelled yourself to-day, Millicent. I saw no end of folks
admiring you," he said. "Most satisfactory day! Everything went off
famously! Enjoyed yourself, eh?"
"I can hardly say I did, but that is not what you asked me to wait
for," was the cold answer, and Millicent with native caution waited to
hear what the man wanted before committing herself.
"No. I meant it, but it wasn't. I couldn't help saying I was proud of
you." Leslie paused, doubtless satisfied, his wife thought, that he
had smoothed the way sufficiently by a clumsy compliment. His
abilities were not at their best just then. Millicent's thin lips
curled scornfully as she listened.
"Thurston will be here on Thursday," he continued. "Never liked the
man, but he has behaved decently as your trustee, and I want to be fair
to him. Besides, he's a rising genius, and it's as well to be on good
terms with him. Couldn't you get him to stay to dinner and talk over
the way they've invested your legacy?"
"Do you think he would care to meet you?" asked Millicent, cuttingly.
"Perhaps he mightn't. You could have the Nelsons over, and press of
business might detain me. Anyway, you'll have no time to settle all
about that money and your English property if he goes out on the
Atlantic train. You two seem to have got quite friendly again, and I'm
tolerably sure he'd stay if you asked him."
Millicent's anger was rising all the time; but, because her suspicions
increased every moment, she kept herself in hand. Feeling certain this
was part of some plot, and that her husband was not steady enough to
carry out his _role_ cleverly, she desired to discover his exact
intentions before denouncing him.
"Why should I press him?"
Had it been before the dinner Leslie might have acted more discreetly.
As it was, he looked at the speaker somewhat blankly. "Why? Because I
want you to. Now don't ask troublesome questions or put on your
tragedy air, Millicent, but just promise to keep him here until after
the east-bound train starts, anyway. I'm not asking for caprice--I--I
particularly want a man to see him who will not be in the city until
the following day."
Then, remembering what she had heard outside the steamer's deck house,
a light suddenly broke in upon the woman. The man whose keen eyes
would interfere with Shackleby's plans must be Thurston, and it was
evident there was a scheme on hand to wreck his work in his absence.
Once she had half-willingly assisted her husband to Thurston's
detriment; but much had changed since then, and remembering that she
had already, without knowing it, played into the confederate's hands by
writing to him, her indignation mastered her.
"I could not persuade him against his wishes, and would not do so if I
could," she declared, turning full upon her husband.
"You can and must," replied Leslie, whose passion blazed up. "I'm
about sick of your obstinacy and fondness for dramatic situations. You
could do anything with any man you laid yourself out to inveigle, as I
know to my cost, and in this case--by the Lord, I'll make you!"
"I will not!" Millicent's face was white with anger as she fixed her
eyes on him. "For a few moments you shall listen to me. What you and
Shackleby are planning does not concern me; but I will not move a
finger to help you. Once before you said--what you have done--and if I
have never forgotten it I tried to do so. This time I shall do
neither. I have borne very much from you already, but, sunk almost to
your level as I am, there are things I cannot stoop to countenance.
For instance, the draft I am to cajole from Thurston is not intended
for a speculation in mining shares, but--for Coralie."
The little carved bracket came down from the wall with a crash, and
Leslie, whose face was swollen with fury, gripped the speaker's arm
savagely. "After to-morrow you can do just what pleases you and go
where you will," he responded in a voice shaking with rage and fear.
"But in this I will make you obey me. As to Coralie, somebody has
slandered me. The money is for what I told you, and nothing else."
Millicent with an effort wrenched herself free. "It is useless to
protest, for I would not believe your oath," she said, looking at him
steadily with contempt showing in every line of her pose. "Obey--you!
As the man I, with blind folly, abandoned for you warned me, you are
too abject a thing. Liar, thief, have I not said
sufficient?--adulterer!"
"Quite!" cried Leslie, who yielded to the murderous fury which had been
growing upon him, and leaning down struck her brutally upon the mouth.
"What I am you have made me--and, by Heaven, it is time I repaid you in
part."
Millicent staggered a little under the blow, which had been a heavy
one, but her wits were clear, and, moving swiftly to a bell button, the
pressure of her finger was answered by a tinkle below.
"I presume you do not wish to make a public scandal," she said thickly,
for the lace handkerchief she removed from her smarting lips was
stained with blood. Then, as their Chinese servant appeared in the
doorway, "Your master wants you, John."
Before Leslie could grasp her intentions she had vanished, there was a
rustle of drapery on the stairway, followed by the jar of a lock, and
he was left face to face was the stolid Asiatic.
"Wantee someling, sah?" the Chinaman asked.
Leslie glared at him speechless until, with a humble little nod, the
servant said:
"Linga linga bell; too much hullee, John quick come. Wantee someling.
Linga linga bell."
"Go the devil. Oh, get out before I throw you," roared Leslie, and
John vanished with the waft of a blue gown, while Millicent's book
crashed against the door close behind his head.