It was true, that dreadful cablegram that shocked even Rosalind’s cruel
heart! For a moment she gasped with surprise and grew pale even to her
rosy lips.
But the next moment she threw off the spell and laughed gratingly, so
that even the worldly-wise mother said rebukingly:
“How can you laugh, my dear girl? It is really very shocking to think
of that young pair being so terribly injured in an automobile accident
that they must almost certainly die.”
But Rosalind only laughed again.
“Mamma, what is the use of your acting goody-goody when you know what
all this means to me?” she sneered. “In the first place, I hate Charley
Bonair who jilted me, and his wife who supplanted me, with a bitter
hatred that can only rejoice in their deaths, so why should I pull a
long face, when nothing could please me better? And, secondly, if they
had lived, old Moneybags might have revoked his disinheritance of his
son, and cut me out of some of his millions at his death. So what seems
like a calamity to them is a benefit to me, and I rejoice accordingly.
Mother,” she added, as with a sudden thought, “I shall cross the
ocean to my betrothed’s side! I shall have to do the sympathy act, of
course--snivel and whine, and pretend to be sorry they are dead, while
my heart is full of rejoicing! But no matter, so that I gain my end!”
“But, Rosalind, my dear, what can be gained by such proceedings?”
“How stupid you are, to be sure, mamma! You must be getting into your
dotage not to see that if he goes into mourning for his son, and
objects to a public marriage with all its attendant sensation, I can
easily lure him into a quiet, private marriage on the spot, and come
home Mrs. Senator Bonair, don’t you see?”
“Yes, yes, that is a very clever idea, Rosalind--a good idea all
around, for then we shall be spared the trouble and expense of a grand
wedding, for which it would have been hard to raise the money, and your
father’s affairs in such a fix! But for that matter it won’t be easy to
get it for your trip, either. Besides, you know, I cannot leave your
father’s sick bed to chaperon you, and you could not properly go alone.”
“All that can be easily arranged. Our late visitor, Mrs. Brander, sails
in two days for Europe to join her married son in Paris, and she will
be only too glad to have my company on the trip. For the rest, I can
sell some of my jewels for the passage money. I shall have plenty more
as soon as I am married.”
“It is all very easy as you have planned it, and I don’t doubt you
will succeed with such an indomitable will as you are now displaying,”
commended Mrs. Montague.
“We must begin to get you ready to start in the morning to join Mrs.
Brander,” she went on. “I suppose you had better break the news to our
remaining guests, at once, that Senator Bonair has cabled for you to
come to Paris. I hope they will all take their departures quickly, as
under the circumstances they ought to do.”
The guests were all of the same mind with her, and after hearing the
sad news and offering formal condolences suited to the occasion, did
some hasty packing and were all out of the house by nightfall, the last
one to leave being Adrian Vance, who said, as he pressed her hand at
parting:
“I shall lodge in the town to-night and bear you company to New York on
the morning train. Indeed I am not sure but I shall follow you to Paris
on the same steamer.”
“Oh, indeed, you must not! I shall not permit it,” she replied, with
a glance that belied her word, and silently invited him to disobey her
mandate.
As a result he kept his word, and as soon as the steamer left her
moorings he joined Rosalind and her chaperon as their traveling
companion.