THE FLUTTER OF A SHEET OF MUSIC
Gail, in a pretty little rose-coloured morning robe, with soft frills of
lace around her white throat and at her white elbows, sat on the floor
of the music room amid a chaos of sheet music. She was humming a gay
little song suggested by one of the titles through which she had leafed,
and was gradually sorting her music for the yacht party; instrumental
pieces here, popular things there, another little pile of old-fashioned
glees which the assembled crowd might sing, just here a little stack of
her own solos, nearby the rector’s favourites, between the two their
duets. It was her part in one of the latter she was humming now,
missing, as she sang, the strong accompaniment of the Reverend Smith
Boyd’s mellow voice. She was more peaceful this morning than she had
been for many days.
The butler came through the hall, and Gail looked up with a suppressed
giggle as she saw him pass the door. She always had an absurd idea that
his hinges should be oiled.
“Miss Gail is not at home, sir,” she heard the butler say, and Gail
paused with a sheet of music suspended in her hand, the whole expression
of her face changing. She had only given instructions that one person
should receive that invariable message.
“I beg your pardon, sir!” was the next observation Gail heard, in a tone
of as near startled remonstrance as was possible to the butler’s wooden
voice.
There was a sound almost as of a scuffle, and then Allison, with his top
coat on his arm and his hat in his hand, strode to the doorway of the
music room, followed immediately by the butler, who looked as if his
hair had been peeled a little at the edges. Allison had apparently
brushed roughly past him, and had disturbed his equanimity for the
balance of his life.
Gail was on her feet almost instantaneously with the apparition in the
doorway, and she still held the sheet of music which she had been about
to deposit on one of the piles. Allison’s eyes had a queer effect of
being sunken, and there was a strange nervous tension in him. Gail
dismissed the butler with a nod.
“You were informed that I am not at home,” she said.
“I meant to see you,” he replied, with a certain determined insolence in
his tone which she could not escape. There was a triumph in it, too, as
if his having swept the butler aside were only a part of his imperious
intention. “I have some things to say to you to which you must listen.”
“You had better say them all then, because this is your last
opportunity,” she told him, pale with anger, and with a quaver in her
voice which she would have given much to suppress.
He cast on her a look which blazed. He had not slept since he had seen
her last. He smiled, and the smile was a snarl, displaying his teeth.
Something more than anger crept into Gail’s pallor.
“I have come to ask you again to marry me, Gail. The matter is too vital
to be let pass without the most serious effort of which I am capable. I
can not do without you. I have a need for you which is greater than
anything of which you could conceive. I come to you humbly, Gail, to ask
you to reconsider your hasty answer of last night. I want you to marry
me.”
For just a moment his eyes had softened, and Gail felt a slight trace of
pity for him; but in the pity itself there was revulsion.
“I can not,” she told him.
“You must!” he immediately rejoined. “As I would build up an empire to
win you, I would destroy one to win you. You spoke last night of what
you called the cruelty and trickery of the building up of my big
transportation monopoly. If it is that which stands between us, it shall
not do so for a moment longer. Marry me, and I will stop it just where
it is. Why, I only built this for you, and if you don’t like it, I shall
have nothing to do with it.” In that he lied, and consciously. He knew
that the moment he had made sure of her his ambition to conquer would
come uppermost again, and that he would pursue his dream of conquest
with even more ardour than before, because he had been refreshed.
“That would make no difference, Mr. Allison,” she replied. “I told you,
last night, that I would not marry you because I do not, and could not,
love you. There does not need to be any other reason.” There was in her
an inexplicable tension, a reflex of his own, but, though her face was
still pale, she stood very calmly before him.
The savageness which was in him, held too long in leash, sprang into his
face, his eyes, his lips, the set of his jaws. He advanced a step
towards her. His hands contracted.
“I shall not again ask you to love me,” he harshly stated; “but you must
marry me. I have made up my mind to that.”
“Impossible!” Angry now and contemptuous.
“I’ll make you! There is no resource I will not use. I’ll bankrupt your
family. I’ll wipe it off the earth.”
Gail’s nails were pressing into her palms. She felt that her lips were
cold. Her eyes were widening, as the horror of him began to grow on her.
He was glaring at her now, and there was no attempt to conceal the
savage cruelty on his face.
“I’ll compromise you,” he went on. “I’ll connect your name with mine in
such a way that marriage with me will be your only resource. I’ll be an
influence you can’t escape. There will not be a step you can take in
which you will not feel that I am the master of it. Marry you? I’ll have
you if it takes ten years! I’ll have no other end in life. I’ll put into
that one purpose all the strength, and all the will that I have put into
the accomplishment of everything which I have done; and the longer you
delay me the sooner I’ll break you when I do get you.”
Out of her very weakness had come strength; out of her overwhelming
humiliation had come pride, and though the blood had left her face waxen
and cold, something within her discovered a will which was as strong in
resistance as his was in attack. She knew it, and trembled in the
knowledge of it.
“You can’t make me marry you,” she said, with infinite scorn and
contempt.
He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Into his eyes there sprang
a blaze which she had never before seen, but dimly, in the eyes of any
man; but she needed no experience to tell her its despicable meaning.
His lips, which had been snarling, suddenly took a downward twitch, and
were half parted. His nostrils were distended, and the blood, flooding
into his face, empurpled it.
“Then I’ll have you anyhow!” he hoarsely told her, and, his arms tensed
and his head slightly lowered forward, he made as if to advance toward
her. He saw in her frightened eyes that she would scream, but he did not
know that at that moment she could not. Her heart seemed to have lost
its action, and she stood, trembling, faint, in the midst of her strewn
music, with the sensation that the room was turning dark.
The house was very quiet. Mrs. Sargent and Mrs. Davies were upstairs.
The servants were all in the rear of the house, or below, or in the
upper rooms, at their morning work. He turned swiftly and closed the
door of the music room, then he whirled again towards her, with ferocity
in his eyes. He came slowly, every movement of him alive with ponderous
strength. He was a maniac. He was insane. He was frenzied by one mad
thought which had swept out of his universe every other consideration,
and the glut to kill was no more fearful than the purpose which
possessed him now.
Gail, standing slight, fragile, her brown eyes staring, her brown hair
dishevelled about her white brow, felt every atom of strength leaving
her, devoured in the overwhelming might of this monstrous creature. The
sheet of music, which she had been holding all this time, dropped from
her nerveless fingers and fluttered to the floor!
That noise, slight as it was, served to arrest the progress of the man
for just an instant. He was in no frame to reason, but some instinct
urged him to speed. He crouched slightly, as a wild beast might. But the
flutter of that sheet of music had done more for Gail than it had for
him. It had loosed the paralysis which had held her, had broken the
fascination of horror with which she had been spellbound. Just behind
her was a low French window which led to a small side balcony. With one
bound she burst this open, she did not know how, and had leaped over the
light balcony rail, and ran across the lawn to the rectory gate, up the
steps and into the side door, and into the study, where the Reverend
Smith Boyd sat toiling over a sermon.