PURE GOLD AND GILDED DROSS.
The half-brothers were indeed having high words in the library. They
stood glaring at each other, both tall, strong, handsome--Byrd, blond
and stately bearing his thirty-two years with grace--Delmar, younger,
of slighter build, with his striking Italian-like beauty of raven hair
and flashing dark eyes.
But blue eyes can blaze, too, and Byrd’s were alight with scorn as he
demanded:
“Is it true as Josephine implied that you married Maisie for spite?”
Delmar, in his passionate excitement, writhing under the sense of his
wrongs, answered recklessly:
“It is partly true, but I had two reasons--the other was to revenge
myself on you. I knew that all your ill-gotten wealth could not console
you for her loss.”
The shaft struck home, and Byrd quivered under it.
“You were right. Her love would have outweighed millions to me! And to
think you won it, and did not prize it, oh, God!” he groaned.
Delmar, driven mad by his own wrongs, simply gloated over his brother’s
misery.
“I have paid you back in your own coin. By poisoning my father’s mind
against me so that he left me poor, you robbed me of Josephine’s love.”
Byrd answered sneeringly:
“Bah, it was not worth having! Contrast her fickle fancy with Maisie’s
womanly faith and love, and you have pure gold and gilded dross!
Besides, how easy it would be to retaliate by marrying Josephine
myself! Do you not see that two can play at the same game?”
There was dogged recklessness in the other’s reply:
“Oh, yes, easily. Josephine told me herself last night that she would
jump at an offer from you, and that Maisie was a little fool for not
taking you!”
“I agree with Josephine--under the circumstances! Better be the adored
wife of a rich husband than the deserted, unloved bride of one who
married her for spite!” Byrd answered cuttingly, and again they glared
at each other.
For once Delmar did not seem to know what to say, and his brother,
drawing a long breath, added scathingly:
“You have done innocent little Maisie a dastardly wrong.”
The charge put Delmar on his mettle. He cried out eagerly, in
self-defense:
“It is not for you to prate of wrongs, Byrd Barrington! You whose
accursed influence with the dead, whose revenge for your rejection made
her penniless! As for me I have only done her a kindness. I met her
last night when I came away from my parting with Josephine stealing
away from this house, a forlorn little soul going out into the cold
world to earn her daily bread, she knew not how. I offered to marry
her, and she accepted willingly, owning that she loved me. She is
happy, believing that I love her, and by and by everything will come
right. In my absence she will have what my father left to me--a home
and a small income. When I return we will take up life together, and
having by then gotten over the pain of losing Josephine, I am sure it
will be easy to learn to love my pretty little Maisie.”
Was it only their fancy, or did a long quivering, stifled sigh seem to
follow the young man’s excited speech?
They started and gazed, questioningly, at each other, but after a
moment’s hesitation Byrd said reassuringly:
“How like a sigh that sounded! But we are quite alone. It was only the
wind in the pines.”
“Now I must go and bid adieu to my bride, for time runs short,” said
Delmar, with an air of relief that the whole farce would soon be over.
“I am sure that Aunt Constance will take care of Maisie, and as for
you, Byrd,” with a short, mirthless laugh, “if you do marry that little
cat Josephine, don’t for Heaven’s sake send me wedding-cards! I shall
not have money enough to send a bridal-gift, and I had as lief not know
when the sale comes off, so, _adios_!” and with a mocking bow he strode
from the room and the presence of his elder brother, the proud master
of Castellane.
He was proud, indeed, and in many things he had been most successful,
but as he was left alone and the mask of pride fell from his face he
did not look like a happy man. How indeed could any one look happy
on whom the weight of an oath of vengeance had rested heavily from
childhood’s hours?
He had kept his promise to the dead; he had been faithful to his vow,
but did it recoil heavily on his own heart?
It looked like it, as he flung himself down with a groan into his
favorite chair, and wiped from his high white brow the cold sweat of
excitement, muttering to himself:
“Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.”
His eyes closed, and he fell into a deep and painful reverie, so deep
and absorbing that he did not see a slender white-gowned form gliding
softly from the room with a single startled, backward glance, fearful
of detection.
It was Maisie who had been hiding in a curtained alcove in plain
hearing of every word.
Not that she had gone there purposely to eavesdrop, but only to hide
herself and her misery from mocking eyes until Delmar should be gone.
Josephine’s sudden revelation of the truth had for the moment almost
driven her mad with shame and pain and humiliation.
While Delmar’s startled eyes had been fixed on Josephine’s hurried exit
with her mother, Maisie had also fled from the room observed only by
Byrd and Mrs. French.
Naturally they thought she had gone to her own room, but feeling too
well that she would be followed there, and too furious with rage and
grief to endure human pity in this hour of humiliation, the girl
blundered into the library and concealed herself in the curtained
alcove where she felt sure no one would dream of looking.
Angrily and authoritatively Byrd had called his younger brother to
account in the library, where Maisie, crouching in her unwisely
chosen concealment, had heard every word, too crushed and wretched to
interrupt and betray herself.
Heaven only knew what bitter thoughts passed through her tortured mind
as she listened to their quarrel, but as Byrd sank with closed eyes
into that most unhappy reverie she stole from the room with a startling
purpose in her mind.