Far away from the spot where Countess Vera broods over her oath of
vengeance, in far America, away in the green heart of the langourous
south, is the white marble palace where Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter
dwelt, hidden from the knowledge of the man they had wronged, and who
had sworn to bring home to them the ruin they had wrought.
To-day, a lovely morning in the autumn of that summer in which the
Earl of Fairvale died, Mrs. Cleveland comes out on the piazza of her
stately southern home, with a frown upon her brow. Behind her, in the
magnificent saloon she has just quitted, high words are raging.
"You never loved me, or you would do as I wish you," wails the weak
voice of Ivy to her husband, as, dissolved in tears, she flings herself
upon a costly sofa.
"I begin to think I never did, but all the same you and your mother
have ruined me by your cursed extravagance. I have not a thousand
dollars to my name in bank. This place will have to be sold and we can
live on the proceeds a little longer, perhaps," Leslie Noble answers,
in a sharp, high-pitched voice, as he strides up and down the floor,
cursing within his heart the weak fancy that had led him to marry this
shrewish creature.
"Ruined! I do not believe one word of it!" Mrs. Noble breaks out,
starting up and glaring at him with her pale, blue eyes. "It is a
falsehood you have trumped up to keep from taking mamma and me to
Europe where our hearts are just breaking to go! You know very well we
have not spent a fortune in the little year and a half we have been
married. We couldn't have done it."
"We _have_ done it, anyhow," he answers, sullenly. "It was no difficult
manner, considering the way in which you and your mother have forced me
to live. Furniture fit for a palace, jewels costly enough for a queen,
entertainments costing thousand of dollars, recklessly repeated over
and over. We are at the end of the line at last, and you may yet have
to take in washing for a living."
"You brute!" she exclaims, flashing him a glance of wrath and scorn.
"To begrudge us the pleasant time we have had! I did not know you could
be so mean and stingy! Of course I knew that your bachelor uncle in
Philadelphia--the one you are named for--would leave you his money
when he died. I wish he would die now. He's mortally slow about it. I
should think he must be a hundred years old."
"Good God, Ivy! what a heartless and mercenary woman you are!" her
husband cries, stormily. "That poor old man, my uncle, who never harmed
living soul, how dare you wish for his death? Upon my soul, I am
tempted to write to him to leave his money to some orphan asylum or art
gallery just to disappoint your hopes."
"You would not dare!" she sobs, hysterically.
"Try me too far, and see what I will not dare," he answers,
threateningly, and she stops her sobbing and looks up, fearfully, at
the dark, handsome face bent sternly upon her with two smouldering
fires in his gloomy black eyes.
It is not as handsome and refined a face as Leslie Noble could boast of
two years ago. There are lines of dissipation on it. There is a certain
hardness and coarseness upon it, as if engendered by ill-nature and the
free indulgence of evil passions. Association with such a woman as Ivy
Cleveland would naturally bring that look into a man's face. Coarse,
selfish, and unprincipled herself, she has dragged the man's weak,
easily-moulded nature down upon a level with her own.
"When I married you, Ivy," pursues Mr. Noble, "I desired to take you to
Europe on a bridal tour, but you and your mother, for no earthly reason
that I can imagine, declined to go. You refused my offers to take you
to my own home in Philadelphia, preferring, as you said, the sunny
south for a home. Now you have changed your minds, and declare American
life monotonous and unendurable, and fancy you would like to figure in
the courts of Europe. You had just as well cry for the moon. You have
recklessly dissipated your own property and mine, and must bear the
consequences. I cannot afford to take you abroad, and I do not desire
to be badgered about it any longer."
"You shall hear about it day and night until I get my wish," Ivy cries,
with passionate defiance. "Sell this house and all our fine furniture
if you choose. It will bring enough with what you have in bank to
afford us a brilliant season in London. Then by the time we return old
Noble will have died, perhaps, and left us his fortune."
"Did I not tell you I will not have Uncle Leslie's death counted on so
coarsely?" cries Mr. Noble, furiously. "You are a perfect harpy."
"And you are a brute!" Mrs. Noble retorts. "Aren't you ashamed to call
your wife such names? and you pretended to be in love with me when you
married me, you cruel, unfeeling wretch!"
"You dropped your mask as soon as I made you my wife, and showed me
what you really were," Leslie Noble answers, with bitter anger and
scorn. "I was only a tool for you, and a stepping-stone to power. Your
mother's money was well-nigh exhausted, and you married me so that you
could squander mine. Then, too, you have the most horrible temper in
the world. Do you think any man could continue to love such a woman?"
"How dare you talk to poor, dear Ivy so cruelly?" Mrs. Cleveland
exclaims, stepping back through the low, French window, and glaring at
her son-in-law with tigerish hate in her keen, black eyes. "You have
frightened her into hysterics, you unfeeling wretch!"
"I would thank you not to interfere between me and my wife," he
answers, stung to defiance by the insolence of both mother and
daughter. "You have always thrust yourself into my affairs. You have
been the power behind the throne and moved Ivy like a puppet at your
will. I wish to Heaven you would go away and leave us to fight our own
battles. It would be something to be rid of even one of you!"
A scream of rage from Ivy, who proceeds to roll on the floor in violent
hysterics. Such scenes as these are of frequent occurrence, but Mr.
Noble has seldom spoken his mind so plainly, especially on the subject
of his mother-in-law. There is no telling what might have happened,
for Mrs. Cleveland looks furious enough to spring upon the offender
and rend him limb from limb, but at this moment there appears upon the
scene a messenger with one of those yellow-covered envelopes which
carry joy or sorrow to so many hearts.
"A telegram," Mr. Noble exclaims, and tears it hurriedly open.
As he reads, a look of sorrow, strangely blended with relief, comes out
upon his features. His wife, forgetful of her sham hysterics, springs
up and regards him, intently.
"A telegram! From whom? And what does it mean?" she exclaims.
"It is from my lawyer," Mr. Noble answers, bitterly, "and it means
that the devil takes care of his own so well that you will be able to
gratify your latest whim. My uncle is dead and has left me his whole
fortune."
"Glorious news!" Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter echo with one accord.