When Cinthia recovered her senses she found herself lying on her bed
and the air was heavy with the scent of eau-de-Cologne, with which Mrs.
Varian was gently bathing her face and hands.
“Do you feel better now?” the lady gently inquired, and Cinthia
mechanically answered:
“Oh, yes.”
In fact her head was aching wretchedly, and her heart was heavy as
lead, but she would seek no sympathy from Arthur Varian’s mother, who
had turned against her so cruelly.
“I am glad to hear it. Perhaps you will feel like taking breakfast
now,” touching the bell.
“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Cinthia; feeling as if she could never swallow
a morsel of food again.
“But yes,” returned Mrs. Varian, smiling, as she rose as if to go.
Cinthia raised her heavy head and held out a deprecatory hand.
“You are going,” she said, “and it is not likely that we shall ever
meet again. Wait till I ask you one question. Why is it that you hate
me?”
“I do not hate you, child.”
“Why deny it, when I have read it in your eyes?” cried the girl,
accusingly.
Mrs. Varian’s face worked with emotion, and she started forward as
if she would have embraced the girl, then suddenly drew back, saying
huskily:
“Cinthia, you are mistaken. I--I--do not hate--_you! It was--your
mother!_”
“My mother!” the girl gasped, in bewilderment, gazing in wonder at the
beautiful and agitated face of the lady.
Mrs. Varian continued, hoarsely:
“My feelings toward you are complex, Cinthia. For your own sake, I
could love you--you are beautiful and winning, but between your parents
and me there has been a deadly feud--they both wronged me! I have hated
them both for years and years, and that hatred comes between you and
me, child, like an impassable gulf. That first night I saw you I did
not guess at your parentage, hence my attraction to you. When I learned
the truth upon the return of your father, my feelings changed. I do not
deny it. I could not contemplate with any calmness the thought of a
marriage between you and Arthur.
“Now ask me no more. I have said more than I intended to do, and can
reveal nothing further of that past which lies like a dead weight on my
happiness. I must leave you to return to my son, but I will come back
when you have had your breakfast served to you, and--”
Cinthia was sitting up on the side of the bed, her hair a disheveled
tangle of gold about her pallid face, with its great star-like eyes.
They flashed with sudden pride now as she interrupted:
“Let me beg you to remain away, nor seek to cross again the gulf that
you say yawns between us. I am better alone with my humiliation,”
bitterly.
“Do not call it that, Cinthia--you do not understand! And I must take
charge of you until your father comes,” insisted Mrs. Varian.
“I prefer to remain alone.”
“It would appear cruel in me to leave you like this, seemingly forlorn
and friendless.”
Cinthia laughed mirthlessly, and reiterated:
“I prefer to wait alone for my father.”
“Very well, I must bow to your will. God bless you, my poor girl,” and
the haughty woman moved with a stately step from the room.
Cinthia threw herself back upon the bed with closed eyes and pallid
lips. The agony of that moment no pen could describe.
Was it only two days ago she had been wishing for something to occur
and break up the monotony of her life, and resenting Mrs. Flint’s
homilies upon her discontent?
Something had happened with a vengeance.
The love that had nestled in her heart that day, a shy, sweet
new-comer, had been fanned into strong, passionate life by hurrying
events that now closed round her like a grasp of steel threatening to
crush out all the sweetness of life forever.
She had tasted the sweetness of loving and being loved, she who had
been lonely and heart-hungry so long; but now the sweet cup of joy was
dashed from her lips and bitter dregs offered in its stead.
They had parted her from her heart’s love, Arthur. With his own lips,
that so lately had sworn eternal fealty to her, he had uttered the
edict of their eternal separation, for no cause save that their parents
cherished an old feud.
It was cruel, bitter, and Cinthia’s heart hardened with rebellion
against her fate.
She longed desperately for death to end the agony of love and
humiliation under which she suffered.
“Oh, if I could just slip away out of life now--this moment!” she
cried, in fierce intolerance of her pain; and a lightning temptation
came to her to end it all.
She began to pace restlessly up and down the room, wondering what
would be the easiest way to take her own life--her life that was so
unbearable now!
It would be so easy to close all the apertures for air, turn on the
gas, and lie down on her bed until asphyxiation came to her relief and
wrenched life out of its suffering frame.
“I wonder if it would be painful. I don’t want to suffer,” she said to
herself, with keen physical shrinking, while her active mind pictured
the scene when they should come to seek her and find her cold and
dead--her cruel father, fickle Arthur, and his revengeful mother, who,
for the sake of an old-time wrong, was willing to break two fond young
hearts.
What keen remorse would pierce their hearts when they saw that they had
driven her to desperation and death! Perhaps they would repent when it
was all too late. At the moving thought, Cinthia dissolved into floods
of tears.
She knelt down by a chair, with her head on her arm, and heavy sobs
shook her slight frame like a reed in the wind.
She cried out that she wished she had never seen Arthur Varian, who had
taught her the sweet meaning of love only to make her more lonely and
wretched than she had been before.
But a rap on the door made her start up in alarm and hastily dash away
her tears before she opened it to a white-clad waiter bearing a tray
containing a dainty breakfast, which he arranged on a little table,
then withdrew.
Then Cinthia, in spite of her grief, discovered that she was
unromantically hungry.
On yesterday, while sulking in her chamber at home she had refused food
all day, and on the train last night had only taken some fruit.
The appetizing aroma of hot rolls, broiled birds, and steaming
chocolate began to appeal to her irresistibly, and she ended by drawing
up a chair and making a tolerable meal for a girl who thought her heart
was broken and was actually contemplating suicide.
She did not feel half so morbid when she finished her chocolate. Life
was bitter still, but death did not seem so desirable.
Her first temptation to suicide changed to a thought of flight.
“What if I should slip away and hide myself in the great world, where
they could never find me again? I might make a career for myself,
become a great actress, maybe, and when they saw me successful on the
stage, they would think I had forgotten cruel Arthur, as I wish them
to do, for I would not have him think I love him still,” she thought,
bitterly, her mind running on novels she had read in which romantic
girls, thrown alone on the world, had encountered wonderful adventures,
and finally carved their names on the rock of love.
Cinthia was utterly wretched and despairing, and in the mood for
anything reckless.
She flung on her hat and jacket, and turned toward the door.
She was actually going to venture out into the world alone, a desperate
victim whom fate had used most cruelly, and who longed to escape from
everything she had known into some new, untried sphere.
She had no idea where she was going. She would escape into the street,
and wander aimlessly up and down with the busy throngs; that was just
now her only thought.
She stretched out her hand to the door-knob, and at the instant a light
rap on the outside startled her.
“It is Mrs. Varian; but she cannot forbid my going,” she thought,
defiantly, and flung wide the door.
A stranger stood on the threshold--a lovely woman richly dressed,
faint, delicate perfume exhaling from her silks and furs.
“Ah, you are going out? I beg pardon; but will you permit me to enter
your room for a moment? I have lately occupied it--in fact, only went
away this morning--and I have discovered that I forgot two of my
rings,” she exclaimed in a sweet, silvery voice like liquid music.
Cinthia stood aside to let her enter; and, floating to the
dressing-case, she lifted the scarf and displayed two sparkling rings.
“See! It is fortunate that the chamber-maid is honest, or that she
did not discover these. I thank you for your courtesy. But, excuse
me, you were going out. My dear young lady are you feeling well? I
assure you that you look extremely ill; and there is a sharp east wind
blowing outside. You are trembling; your face is as pale as chalk; your
beautiful hair is all in disorder. You ought to be in bed with your
mother watching over you.”
“My mother, alas!” cried Cinthia; and again her slight form shook with
a tempest of sobs and tears that startled the handsome stranger, who
forced her gently into a chair.
Meanwhile, Everard Dawn was speeding to Washington on the fastest
train. He arrived there at dusk, and took a cab to the hotel where Mrs.
Varian was staying, immediately sending up his card to that lady, and
receiving a summons to her private parlor.
She was waiting there alone, and their greeting was cold and formal,
though she could not help noting the signs of last night’s agitation on
his pale face.
Waving him to a seat, she recounted briefly all that had transpired
since their meeting yesterday.
“I came away last night--frankly, I could not breathe the same air with
you--and I found them here. It was one of the greatest shocks of my
life,” she said, and he bowed coldly.
She continued, stiffly:
“She is here waiting for you, but in a most rebellious mood: in fact,
forbade me to re-enter her room to-day, so she must have spent a lonely
time, poor girl! But before you go to her, Arthur wishes an interview
with you on a very particular subject relating to Cinthia. You will
find him alone in there,” indicating a door.
Everard Dawn looked fixedly at her a moment then bowed and left her
standing there, while he went in to Arthur Varian.