“I HAVE SWORN AN OATH AND I SHALL HAVE TO KEEP IT.”
Talbot Strangemore could not repress a smile at the absurd action of
his exceedingly high-tempered aunt. He said, hastily:
“Do not leave us, Aunt Drusilla. We are very glad of your company.”
But Miss Strangemore’s stiff black silk had already rustled across the
threshold. He looked at Nina, half pityingly.
“I am afraid that my aunt has not been a very charming companion for
you all these years,” he said.
“She has been all kindness,” Nina answered hastily. “Then, too, I had
my governess. She was a very gentle, lovable lady.”
“She has left you?” he asked.
“A year ago,” she answered, simply.
“You should have retained her when your education was finished, as a
companion,” said Talbot Strangemore.
“Do you think so?” she asked, “but you see that was impossible. She
was engaged to be married all those years, and she left me to become a
companion to a husband who worshiped her, and who had grown impatient
of waiting.”
The light of the lamps shining full on his splendidly handsome face,
showed that the delicate shaft had struck home. He winced slightly,
said, “Ah-h?” in an embarrassed tone, and then a silence ensued, which
he broke at length by an abrupt change of the subject:
“There is something that I ought to tell you, Nina, as the mistress
of Selwyn Heights. My friends with whom I have been yachting--Cameron
and the rest--have threatened to make an unceremonious descent upon us
to-morrow. Of course I would rather they did not--so soon--but they
have been so kind to me, I could really say nothing when they said they
were so anxious to meet my young wife, and as they were yachting in
these waters, they would run into Selwyn Heights to-morrow. Can you,
will you, receive them, Nina? Or will it be inconvenient for you to
entertain them?”
He wondered why she grew as pale as her trailing white robe, why she
held her white hands so tightly together in her lap, why she was silent
so long before she answered in a dull, strange voice:
“I will receive them.”
“The thought does not please you,” he said, quickly, and with a ring
of offended pride in his tone. “Very well, Nina, you shall not be
disturbed. This is your house, your home, and I will see that my
friends do not intrude upon you.”
She rose quickly from her seat and looked him through with her proud,
pure gaze.
“You quite misunderstood me, Mr. Strangemore,” she said, with quiet
dignity. “You are master here as I am mistress. Your friends have a
right to come to Selwyn Heights, I am ready to welcome them here. I
had no intention of declining the honor of their visit. I will go
now and consult with Aunt Drusilla, as to the arrangements for their
entertainment.”
She swept to the door with queenly grace. He followed her almost
against his own will, for her looks and tones although quiet and
well-bred, had been a tacit repulse to him.
“You will come back,” he said.
She paused on the threshold, a slim, white figure, full of enchanting
girlish curves and supple grace, looking back at him.
“No, this is my good-night,” she answered.
“But I shall see you again to-night,” he said, taking her hand in his
and looking tenderly at the beautiful face.
She drew it quickly away and a hot blush stained her white brow and
cheeks. Her young bosom heaved beneath its lace and flowers.
“No, not until to-morrow,” she answered, with something like a
passionate protest in her young voice. “You know we are like strangers
yet.”
“Good-night, then, my beautiful Nina,” he said, gently, but she shrank
from the offered caress, and ran swiftly away from him.
He watched the pretty bride-like figure disappear with something like
regret.
“By Jove, how beautiful she is,” he cried. “Mother was right, she has
developed into a beauty of the rarest type. She is not like Sibyl or
the rest; charming as they are there is something rarer yet about this
girl my mother chose for my wife. What if I should suddenly fall in
love with the fate I have raved against for long years! But, heavens,
how angry Sibyl would be if she knew that I was actually thinking
tenderly of my lovely and reserved young wife? What a pity that fate
ever threw that little enchantress in my way again!”
He went out on the terrace alone and smoked a cigar in a fierce,
irritated fashion, gazing up now and then at the tall, dark front of
the house, and wondering idly which was his wife’s window, while all
alone at the darkened casement of her room, Nina watched him with
heavy, woeful eyes.
She had gone up to her dressing-room and hastily huddled out of Kitty’s
keen sight a grey traveling-dress and cloak, that she had laid out to
don that night.
“I shall not need them yet,” she said. “How strange that instead of
my going away to seek my rival to-night, she is coming here under my
own roof to-morrow. He will actually bring her here, that fair woman
he loves, and they will flaunt their love under my wretched eyes and
madden me with misery, until I give him the freedom he craves, either
through the horrible mire of a divorce court, or--or, by the straight
road of death! I have sworn an oath, and I shall have to keep it.
Oh, mamma, did you realize what you were doing when you bade me give
your son all my love and all my life, and to try always to secure his
happiness? I do not believe you even dreamed that you were pledging me
to a terrible sacrifice!”
Very different are Miss Drusilla’s thoughts and feelings, for she is
scolding vigorously in the house-keeper’s room over the influx of
unexpected guests to-morrow.
“It don’t make one bit of difference to me, Miss Strangemore,” that
worthy person placidly assures her. “I prides myself on never being
taken at a disadvantage! All will be in readiness for your friends,
ma’am.”
“Don’t call them _my_ friends!” snaps the irate spitfire. “They’re no
friends of mine, let me tell you; and I think they might have stayed
away for decency’s sake, until Talbot Strangemore got acquainted with
his wife. It’s outrageous, I say, crowding into Selwyn Heights at such
a delicate time!”
Perhaps Talbot Strangemore thinks the same thoughts, pacing up and down
the terrace before the tall, dark house, idly admiring its splendid
proportions, and all unconscious of the brooding shadow of a coming
tragedy.