While that terrible scene was transpiring by the river, Norman de Vere
was sitting quietly in his mother’s room with pretty Little Sweetheart
on his knee, talking to her of the nice ride that the doctor said she
was to have to-morrow in the pretty pony-phaeton with his mother. The
wan, pathetic little face brightened into smiles at the prospect, for
the poor little one was very weary of her close confinement to the
house.
Norman was very glad to see a smile in the little invalid’s face again.
She had been so ill and weak that with the first return of health she
had become petulant and fretful, sobbing bitterly sometimes when Norman
had to tear himself away to rejoin his exacting wife, who begrudged
every moment spent with his little protégée.
“Why don’t the pritty yady tum to see me?” she had asked, wistfully,
more than once, and Mrs. de Vere had been obliged to explain to her
that Camille feared infection from the fever. The child was quite
intelligent, and comprehended so clearly that she asked no more for
the proud woman, only looked with wistful longing for Norman’s daily
visits, and the pretty gifts of toys that he always brought to amuse
her in her loneliness. She had one formula always for thanking him,
and that was the simple one, “I ’ove oo,” with which she had charmed
him on their first acquaintance. That she truly meant it was quite
evident from the confiding way in which it was said as she leaned her
dear little head against him and looked up at him with the beautiful
deep-blue eyes that looked so large now in the little pearl-fair face.
She loved Mrs. de Vere, her faithful, tender nurse, too, but not in
the absorbing way that she did Norman. When he was with her she seemed
to care for no one else, and his mother sighed even while the little
one’s devotion amused her, for she felt that this strange bond of
tenderness between her son and the child whose life he had saved only
lent color to Camille’s degrading suspicions of her husband. The mother
knew her son too well to share in these suspicions, and the knowledge
of them in her daughter-in-law’s breast was hard to bear.
“The child will live. What will be her future if her friends are never
found?” she said to herself after the crisis of the fever had passed,
and Sweetheart had lived instead of dying, as every one expected.
She prayed daily that Sweetheart’s friends might be found, for she did
not trust Camille’s protestations of regard for the child. She had not
been deceived like Norman by Finette’s clever lie. She comprehended all
Camille’s jealous hatred and deceit, yet not for worlds would she have
whispered her suspicions to Norman. No, let him go on living in his
Fool’s Paradise as long as it would last, she thought, sadly.
“And it will come to an end the sooner if this beautiful little one
remains here. His penchant for the child will drive Camille desperate,”
thought the clear-headed woman, and she prayed all the more earnestly
that Sweetheart’s people might be found.
All unconscious of the trouble she had brought into Verelands, Little
Sweetheart lavished a full heart’s affection on these two who were so
kind to her, never seeming to think of the past until this twilight
hour when she sat on Norman de Vere’s knee, with her golden head
against his breast.
There was a thoughtful expression on the sweet little face, And all at
once she murmured, pathetically:
“I want Mattie.”
Mother and son bent eagerly to hear, hoping to gain some clew to the
mystery that seemed to surround the little one.
“Do you mean the lady that was on the train with you?” asked the young
man.
“Yes--Mattie,” eagerly.
“Was she your mamma, dear?” Mrs. de Vere inquired.
“No, no!” said Sweetheart, quickly. “Not mamma; only Mattie!”
“Your nurse, perhaps?”
“Only des Mattie, dat’s all,” was the uncompromising reply; and
although they questioned her closely, they could get nothing definite
from her. She had only some vague ideas of a beautiful mamma, who
called her Sweetheart, and who taught her to sing some pretty little
song. The shock of all she had gone through had somehow blunted the
keenness of her memory, and after that one flash of recollection when
she had called for Mattie so eagerly, she said no more of the past, and
presently the tired head drooped to Norman’s arm and she slept heavily.
The young man laid her softly on the bed, kissed the sweet little
sleeping face, and turned to go.
“Mother, won’t you join us in the drawing-room this evening? I should
think Nance might sit awhile with Sweetheart,” he said.
“Perhaps,” she answered, evasively; and then he went away, wondering
uneasily whether Camille would be angry because he had stayed longer
than he had intended, for the simple reason that he had feared to put
the sleeping child out of his arms, lest she should be awakened.
To his relief, Camille was not yet in the drawing-room.
“She has not yet finished dressing for dinner,” he thought, and rushed
upstairs to make his own toilet for the eight-o’clock dinner. He
hurried some, but he looked wondrously handsome when he came down again.
“No Camille yet!” he exclaimed, in wonder; and it was several minutes
more before the queenly woman entered the room, elegantly attired
as usual, her eyes glittering with excitement, her cheeks even more
colorless than their usual wont.