The Hoyden by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (best value ebook reader TXT) 📖

in the tender light with eyes that seek to read her heart, and he is very pale. She can see that, in spite of the warm, pink glow of the lamps behind them.

"Well--and I?" questions she, with deep agitation.

How handsome he is! how lovable! Oh for the good sweet past she has so madly flung aside!

"You refused me," says he slowly, "you, on whom my soul was set."

"For your own good," in a stifled voice.

"Don't repeat that wretched formula," exclaims he vehemently. "It means nothing. It was not for my good. It was for my damnation, I think. You see how things are going."

He stops abruptly here, as if thinking of something, and she knows and resents the knowledge that his mind has gone back to Tita--resents it, though his thought has been condemnatory of his wife. Why can't he forget her altogether?

"Yes I meant it for your good," says she, in a whisper.

Her heart is beating wildly.

"You refused me," persists he, in a dull tone. "That is all I remember. You refused me--how many times?"

She turns away from him.

"Once too often, at all events," replies she, in a low, wretched voice.

She makes a movement as if to go back to the lighted rooms beyond, but he catches her and compels her to stay with him.

"What do you mean?" demands he sternly. "To say _that_ to me--and now--now, when it is too late."

"Too late, indeed!" echoes she.

Her voice sounds like the voice of one dying. She covers her face with her hands. He knows that she is crying. Very gently he takes down one of the hands and holds it between both his own, and presses it to his lips. How dear she has always been to him! He realizes in this moment how dear she still _is._

"Marian, have pity on me," says he hoarsely. "I have suffered a great deal. And your tears----"

"My tears! They will avail me nothing," says she bitterly. "When _you_ have forsaken me, what is left?"

_ "Have_ I forsaken you?" He pauses, as if to control the agitation that is threatening to overcome him. "When all I cared for was lost to me," he goes on presently, his eyes upon the ground, "when you had told me that marriage between us was impossible, then one thing remained, and one only--ambition. The old place had been ours for two centuries--it had its claim on me. If love was not to be my portion, I felt I might as well do all I could for the old name--the old place."

"And your wife? Was that honourable towards _her?"_ She smiles, but her smile is a sneer. "After all, she would not care," says she. "She carried her point! She has compelled you to raise her from the mud to the sky!"

Rylton draws back suddenly. All at once recollection comes to him. His wife! Yes, Tita _is_ his wife, and honour binds him to her. He drops Mrs. Bethune's hand.

"I have been quite honourable," says he coldly. "I arranged matters with her. She knows--she is content to know--that----"

"What?" Mrs. Bethune has felt the change in his manner ever since she mentioned Tita's name. "That you once loved me!"

"No," frowning, "I have not told her that."

"Ah!" cries she, with a sort of passionate relief, "I thank you for that, even though your love for me may now be dead. I thank you for that; and as for your wife, what is she to you?"

"She is my _wife!"_ returns he gloomily. "I shall remember that--always!"

"Ah! she will _make_ you remember it," cries Marian, with a queer laugh. "I warn you of _that!"_

"You warn me!"

"Yes--yes." She throws out her arms in the moonlight, and laughs again, with a great but cruel delight. "You will see. You don't care for her, she doesn't care for you, and you will see----"

"Marian, take care! I can hear nothing said against my wife, even by you."

"You prefer to hear it, then, from others?" says Mrs. Bethune, leaning back against the railings that overlook the gardens beneath, with a strange smile upon her lips.

"I prefer to believe that there is nothing to hear"--haughtily.

"You can prefer what you like," says she, with a sudden burst of rage; "but hear you shall!"

She takes a step nearer him.

"I shall not," says Rylton firmly, if gently. "She is my wife. I have made her that! I shall remember it."

"And she," says Marian furiously, "what does _she_ remember? You may forget all old ties, if you will; but she--does _she_ forget?"

"Forget what?"

Mrs. Bethune laughs softly, sweetly, wildly.

"Are you blind? Are you _mad?_ Can you see _nothing?"_ cries she, her soft, musical voice now a little harsh and strained. "That cousin--have you seen nothing there?"

"You are alluding to Hescott?"

"Yes--to him, and--Tita!"

"Tita?" His brow darkens. "What are you going to say of her?"

"What you"--deliberately--"do not dare to say, although you know it--that she is absolutely depraved!"

_"Depraved!"_

"There--stand back!" She laughs, a strange laugh. She has shaken herself free from him. "Fancy your taking it like that!" says she. She is laughing still, but panting; the pressure of his hands on her arms is still fresh. "And have you not seen for yourself, then? Is it not open to all the world to see? Is no one talking but _me?_ Why, her flirtation with her cousin is common talk."

"Depraved, you said!" He has recovered out of that first wild passion of his, and is now gazing at her with a certain degree of composure. "Depraved! I will not have that word used. She is young--thoughtless--foolish, if you will, but not depraved!"

"You can delude yourself just as long as you like," returns she, shrugging her shoulders, "but, all the same, I warn you. I----"

She stops suddenly; voices and steps, coming nearer, check her words. She draws a little away from Rylton, and, lifting her fan, waves it indolently to and fro. The voice belongs to Minnie Hescott, who, with her partner, has come out to the balcony, and now moves down the steps to the lighted gardens below. Mrs. Bethune would have been glad at the thought that Miss Hescott had not seen her; but there had been one moment when she knew the girl's eyes had penetrated through the dusk where she stood, and had known her.

Not that it mattered much. The Hescott girl was of little consequence at any time. Yet sharp, too! Perhaps, after all, she _is_ of consequence. She has gone, however--and it is a mere question whether she had seen her with Sir Maurice or not. Of course, the girl would be on her brother's side, and if the brother is really in love with that little silly fool--and if a divorce was to be thought of--the girl might make herself troublesome.

Mrs. Bethune, leaning over the railings lost in such thoughts, suddenly sees something. She raises herself, and peers more keenly into the soft light below. Yes--yes, _surely!_

But Minnie Hescott, who has gone down the steps into the garden, has seen something too--that fair, fierce face leaning over the balcony! The eyes are following Tita and her brother, Tom Hescott.


CHAPTER XXIV.

HOW RYLTON MAKES A MOST DISHONOURABLE BET, AND HOW HE REPENTS OF IT; AND HOW, THOUGH HE WOULD HAVE WITHDRAWN FROM IT, HE FINDS HE CANNOT.


"You have said," says Rylton, when the steps have ceased, "that you would warn me about my wife. Of what?"

She shrugs her shoulders.

"Ah, you are so violent--you take things so very unpleasantly--that one is quite afraid to speak."

"You mean something"--sternly. "I apologize to you if I was rough a moment since. I--it was so sudden--I forgot myself, I think."

"To be able to forget is a most excellent thing--at _times,"_ says she, with a curious smile, her eyes hidden. "If I were you I should cultivate it."

"It?"

"The power to forget--_at times!"_

"Speak," says he. "It is not a moment for sneers. Of what would you warn me?"

"I have told you before, but you took it badly."

"Words--words," says he, frowning.

"Would you have deeds?" She breaks into a low laugh. "Oh, how foolish you are! Why don't you let things go?"

"What did you mean?" persists he icily.

"What a tragic tone!" Her manner is all changed; she is laughing now. "Well, what _did_ I mean? That your wife---- Stay!" with a little comic uplifting of her beautiful shoulders and an exaggerated show of fear, "do not assault me again. That your wife has shown the bad taste to prefer her cousin--her old lover--to you!"

"As I said, words, mere words," returns he, with a forced smile. "Because she speaks to him, dances with him, is civil to him, as she is civil to all guests----"

"Is she _just as_ civil to all her guests?"

"I think so. It is my part to do her justice," says he coldly, "and, I confess, I think her a perfect hostess, if----"

"If?"

"If wanting in a few social matters. As to her cousin, Mr. Hescott--being one of her few relations, she is naturally attentive to him."

_"Very!"_

"And she is----"

"Always with him!" Mrs. Bethune laughs again--always that low, sweet, cruel laughter. _"Could_ attention farther go?"

"Always? Surely that is an exaggeration."

Rylton speaks with comparative calmness. It is plain that his one outbreak of passion has horrified himself, and he is determined not to give way to another whatever provocation may lie in his path.

"Is it?" tauntingly. "Come"--gaily--"I will make a bet with you--a fair one, certainly. Of course, I know as little of your wife's movements at present as you do. I could not possibly know more, as I have been here with you all this time."

"Well--your bet?" darkly.

"That she is now with her old--with Mr. Hescott."

"I take it," says he coldly.

Something in his air that is full of anger, of suppressed fury, gives her pause for thought. Her heart sinks. Is she to win or lose in this great game, the game of her life? Why should he look like that, when only the honour of that little upstart is in question?

"Come, then," says she.

She moves impulsively towards the stairs that lead to the garden--an impulsive step that costs her dear.

"But why this way?" asks Rylton. "Why not here?" pointing towards the ballroom. "Or _here?"_ contemptuously pointing to a window further on that leads to a conservatory.

For a moment Mrs. Bethune loses herself--only for a moment, however. That first foolish movement that betrayed her knowledge of where Tita really is has to be overcome.

"The dance is over," says she, "and the gardens are exquisitely lit. Lady Warbeck has great taste. After all, Maurice," slipping her hand into his arm, "our bet is a purely imaginary one. We know nothing. And perhaps I have been a little severe; but as it _is_ a bet, I am willing to lose it to you. Let us take one turn down this walk that leads to the dahlias, and after that----"

"After that----"

"Why, _you_ win, perhaps."

"As you will," says he listlessly.

His heart is still on fire. Not a word passes his lips as they go down the