Madame Ray looked on at the little by-play with rather puzzled eyes.
For once Cinthia’s pride had enabled her to keep her own confidence.
She told her friend nothing of what had passed between her and Arthur
Varian, choosing to let her believe that indifference had triumphed
over love at last.
Madame Ray simply did not believe it, but she was mystified by the new
attitude of the quondam lovers, and she resented in secret Arthur’s
reappearance on the scene. She wished eagerly that Cinthia would lose
her heart to Fred Foster or some of her other lovers, but she did not
believe that there was the least chance of it.
But the more she saw of Arthur Varian the more she was attracted by
his true manliness, until her first opinion of him, her preconceived
detestation, dissolved into thin air, and she became more and more
convinced that not simply a slavish submission to his mother’s will,
but some mysterious, impassable barrier, separated him from Cinthia.
She had carried out her intention of questioning old Uncle Rube
as to the name of Mrs. Varian’s divorced husband, but he had
suddenly pretended an amazing stupidity and loss of memory that
was inconceivable, measured by his former sprightliness. On being
perniciously pressed by the lady, he admitted that the name, “as well
as he could _recomember_, was Brown.”
She did not guess that an interview with Arthur Varian had caused the
loss of memory in the old servitor of the Varian family.
“It was money in his pocket to forget the past when questioned by any
one,” Arthur cautioned him.
“Brown, Brown--that sounds rather like Dawn,” cogitated Madame Ray; but
she could make nothing further of the old negro, and desisted, thinking
that after all she was sure to blunder on the truth at last, being in
the neighborhood of the Varians.
Perhaps Arthur felt this also. They were bitter days for him when he
felt as if he were walking over a powder mine that might at any moment
explode and bring ruin and disaster.
In his earnest way he fathomed Madame Ray’s feelings closely enough
to feel her vague suspicions, and he was sorely tempted to confide
his trouble to her sympathetic keeping, and beg her to assist him in
getting Cinthia happily married. That fact accomplished, nothing else
mattered. The whole world was welcome to his sad story.
It was pitiful, his eagerness over Cinthia’s happiness. Madame Ray
observed it and marveled, saying to herself:
“He put upon her the greatest insult almost that man can offer woman,
deserting her at the very altar; but he is as eager for her happiness
as if she belonged to him by the dearest ties. I believe he would give
his life freely to save her one pang. What _is_ the mystery? Is there
insanity in one family or the other? Or were some of _her_ relations
hung or in prison, thus making her ineligible for alliance with the
noble Varians? I would give the world to know the truth, for Cinthia’s
sake.”
She and Arthur became almost unconsciously great friends, for when the
cousins came to call together at Lodge Delight, Fred Foster always
tacitly appropriated Cinthia, while the hostess was left to Arthur,
who never failed to make himself entertaining.
He, too, had his little curiosity over certain things--namely, the
connection between the actress and Cinthia.
“Are you related, you two, who are so fond of each other?” he asked
her, frankly, one day, when they had been acquainted going on three
weeks.
“No, we are not related at all. I suppose it looks like it to you
because we are so exceedingly fond of each other,” she replied, with a
gentle sigh.
“You surprise me,” he replied, in wonder. “There is so marked a
resemblance between you that I do not see how you escaped relationship.”
“It must be your fancy, that is all. My eyes are blue and Cinthia’s
dark, my hair is light-brown and hers pure gold. Still, I might have
had a dark-eyed daughter, but I lost her in her infancy, and that is
one reason why I love Cinthia so--first, because she is so near the age
of my lost daughter, and again, because she is so sweet and good--and
unhappy,” she replied, pointedly.
Arthur Varian winced, and replied:
“I insist that Cinthia resembles you closely enough to be your own
child.”
“Alas, I would that she were!” she cried, with sudden emotion.