Thea was dressing for the ball. It took her a long, long time, she
stopped so often to dream of her new-found happiness, and to thrill
anew at the memory of the looks of love and the passionate caresses
Norman had given to her, his girlish little love.
“Oh, how good he is to me! I will try to make him very, very happy,”
she thought; and in her delirium of love and rapture would have made
slow work with her toilet if thoughtful Mrs. de Vere had not sent her
maid to help her and come herself at the last to see how it progressed.
She sent the maid out, saying that there was no more to do, and then
she took the beautiful creature in her arms and kissed her tenderly.
“So you are going to be my daughter,” she said, fondly. “Norman has
told me. I hope you will be very happy, dear. My son has but one fault;
he has a jealous temperament, and that caused all his trouble with poor
Camille. You must guard against coquetry, Sweetheart; he will never be
able to bear it,” she said, with a sigh; and she honestly believed what
she said.
In her mind Camille had been a martyr.
“I have never flirted, dear Mrs. de Vere, and I shall be most careful
not to do anything to vex him,” cried happy Thea, in eager earnest.
“That is right,” approvingly. “You will be on your guard to-night,
love. Of course you will have many admirers. You can not help it, you
are so lovely in tulle and lilies of the valley. It will be white satin
and orange-blossoms soon, for I know Norman will insist on an early
marriage. But, as I was saying, be careful to treat all alike. If any
one proposes to you, tell him frankly you are engaged to my son. It is
better to have that understood at once. You need not say it is a new
thing; if they understand the engagement has existed some time, it does
not matter, my dear,” anxiously.
“But no one is going to propose to me to-night. I am not vain enough to
fancy two men proposing to me in one day,” laughed the happy girl; but
the event justified Mrs. de Vere’s hint.
When the ball was at its height, Cameron Bentley managed to catch Thea
alone for a few moments in a flowery alcove, and declared his love on
the spot in an incoherent fashion that went very well with a certain
dogged, harassed expression he had worn all the evening.
“I’m going to be quite frank with you, my darling,” he hurried on, not
waiting for her to reply. “I’ve had a little tiff with the governor
over this. He wanted me to wait till something definite could be
learned about you--your origin, you know, Thea. And he is so deuced
proud, he threw out hints of disinheritance if I disobeyed him and
spoke to you before he found out. You won’t mind, will you? I know you
won’t if you love me, and the governor will be sure to come round soon.
Even if he didn’t, I believe my mother would help us; she’s so fond
of me she couldn’t hold out long. I’ve my law practice, anyway, you
know--enough for love in a cottage.”
“Is it your father you’re talking about, Mr. Bentley, please?” Thea
faltered, miserably.
Oh, what had she done to bring this down upon her head?
“Yes, the governor. You don’t mind him, do you, Thea? He will come
round all right, I know. You do like me, don’t you? You will have me? I
love you so madly--have loved you ever since the first time I saw you.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” cried Thea.
She pulled away her hands when he tried to clasp them, and tears came
into her blue eyes.
“Sorry about the governor? Oh, that doesn’t matter, Thea. He will
certainly come round, I tell you!” the young man cried, feverishly,
eagerly.
“Oh, I don’t mean him--it’s you!” she cried, tearfully. “I’m so sorry
you love me. Like that, too, to run such risks for my sake--poverty
and--everything. And I can’t have you, you know. I’m engaged to Mr. de
Vere.”
He recoiled as if she had struck him; his dark eyes caught a haggard,
hunted look.
“You are jesting!” he cried.
“I am not. I am going to marry Mr. de Vere,” she said, proudly.
“That old man! Old enough to be your father! And broke his first wife’s
heart, too! You can’t pretend you love him!” in impatient anger.
“I worship him!” she answered, defiantly. “I do not thank you for
calling him old, either. He is only eighteen years older than I am, and
I don’t want him a day younger. I think him grand, magnificent!”
“Thea, for God’s sake, throw him over and take me! For all his fame he
will not make you happy. He married his first wife for money, and then
broke her heart.”
“But I have no money. He is going to marry me for love,” she replied,
with pretty triumph; then, indignantly, “Mr. Bentley, is it gentlemanly
to censure your host under his own roof?”
“I am not accountable. You have driven me mad!” he answered, hoarsely.
“Good heavens, Thea West, you must be the cruelest coquette in the
world. Every one thought you would be only too glad to marry me. You
certainly seemed fond of me. You know it.”
“It is false. I treated you as I did all the rest. I hope I am kind to
every one; but I was in love with my guardian all the time, and--and--I
won’t stay to hear another word!” Thea panted, turning quickly to leave
him.
“You shall repent your cruelty, by Heaven!” the young man cried,
madly. He detained her a moment, catching her hand and pressing his
burning lips upon it, then rushed from the room and the house, mad with
disappointment and despair.
Even Thea’s own great happiness could not make her enjoy the ball after
that. She was no longer the careless child who had laughed at the
devotion of her earlier lovers. She knew what love was like now--all
its rapture, all its pain, and she could sympathize with Cameron
Bentley in his bitter disappointment. She forgave him the unjust
reproaches he had uttered because she knew that he was suffering,
and she paid no heed to his parting threat. But the memory of his
haggard, despairing looks did not leave her until her blue eyes closed
wearily in slumber after the ball was over--the ball that, in spite
of Cameron Bentley, had been the very happiest of her young life, for
her betrothed husband had been near her constantly, and his pride in
her was so unmistakable that no one could doubt his happiness in the
betrothal which was duly announced by his mother, and which certainly
created a great sensation. It was the theme of the evening, and
effectively refuted the malicious slander which had been circulating
the past week in social circles, and of which almost every one was
cognizant except Thea herself, who, in her airy tulle robe and lilies
of the valley, looked angelically fair and peaceful.
The Bentleys had been present with all of their guests except the
obdurate Miss Faris, but they left rather early because they learned
that Cameron had already gone, and, they feared, in despair over the
announcement of Thea’s engagement to her guardian. Now, when too late,
they regretted their harshness in forbidding Cameron’s proposal to
Thea, for the betrothal to Norman put an effectual damper on malicious
reports, and they reflected that if Cameron had spoken first he might
have won the coveted prize.
Mad with reckless despair at his disappointment, the young man had
hurried home, and to drown thought, indulged heavily in drink.
Locking himself into his room, he spent the night hours in a wild
bacchanalia of drink and despair, until the early hours of the morning,
when a loud pistol-shot startled every one from slumber and brought
them rushing to the scene. The door was burst open, and Cameron was
found senseless in a pool of blood on the floor, his right hand
grasping a smoking pistol. He had aimed for his heart, but his unsteady
hand had slipped aside, and he had only succeeded in giving himself a
serious but not fatal wound.
When the news of the attempted suicide came to Verelands, Thea was
dismayed.
“I believe I will make a vow never to speak to a young man again!” she
exclaimed, tearfully.
“You might do something more sensible than that--marry me soon, and you
will no longer be a temptation to young men who go crazy over a pair of
blue eyes,” said Norman de Vere.
She blushed, and trilled saucily:
“‘I’m ow’re young to marry yet.’”
“If you put off the wedding-day long, I shall be getting gray. You
would not like that,” he answered, getting in return the sweetest,
shyest look of love that seemed to bid defiance to the frosty
encroachments of age.
But by and by she found that he was quite in earnest in pleading for
an early marriage. He did not want to seem selfish, but he knew in his
heart that it would be better to marry Thea as soon as possible, and
take her away from Verelands, lest some echo of the vile rumors that
had been circulating should reach her ears and sully her pure spirit
with their venom.
“Mother, what is to hinder your taking Sweetheart to New York at once
and ordering the wedding things for a month hence?” he asked; and Mrs.
de Vere replied that it would please her very much to do so.
“The wedding and traveling-dress after all will be the most we
will have to buy there, for if you go abroad on your wedding-tour,
Sweetheart can get lots of pretty things in Paris,” she said.
“Paris? Oh!” cried the girl, in a rapture of pleasure.
“Then you will like to go abroad?” her lover asked, smiling; and she
clapped her pretty hands in childish delight, and offered no objections
to being married in a month. She said, naïvely, no one would think of
falling in love with her for her eyes and curls when she was a married
woman, and though Norman smiled at that, he did not contradict her
assertion.
Then Mrs. de Vere decided that she would call upon the Bentleys at
once to express her sympathy in their trouble. Thea need not go, she
thought, as the girl had owned frankly to all that had passed between
herself and Cameron last night.
“They would rather not see you, I know, for it is natural they should
feel some little resentment against you,” she said.
“But, dear Mrs. de Vere, I am not to blame. I never gave him any
encouragement,” opening her blue eyes reproachfully.
“The Bentleys will believe the reverse for awhile, of course, but when
Cameron gets well they will get over their nonsense, especially as you
will be married and gone.”
So Mrs. de Vere went alone to Orange Grove, where she had the
satisfaction of learning that Cameron’s wound was by no means as
serious as supposed, and that if all went well he would be out again in
a few weeks.
“Miss Faris is playing her part very skillfully, and if Cameron is as
fickle as he is reckless, it is likely that she will catch his heart
in the rebound. So do not worry yourself, dear, over the fate of this
desperate youth,” she said, consolingly, to Thea.