The Unseen Bridgegroom by May Agnes Fleming (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

seen it better played than he saw it to-night.

"She will make the world ring with her name if she adheres to the stage," Carl Walraven said to himself, enthusiastically; "and she never will play anything better than she plays the 'Cricket.' She is Fanchon herself--saucy, daring, generous, irresistible Fanchon! And she is beautiful as the angels above."

The play went on; Fanchon danced, and sobbed, and sung, and wept, and was mischievous as a scratching kitten, and gentle as a turtle-dove; took all the hearts by storm, and was triumphantly reunited to her lover at last.

I don't know how many young men in that audience were left without an atom of heart, how many would have given their two ears to be in handsome Landry Barbeaud's boots.

The roof nearly rose with the thunders of applause when the curtain fell, and Carl Walraven got up with the rest, his head whirling, his brain dizzy.

"Good Heaven!" he thought, stumbling along the dark, chilly streets to his hotel, "what a perfectly dazzling little witch she is! Was there ever such another sparkling, bewildering little fairy in the world before?"

Mr. Walraven spent the night in a fever of impatience. He was one of those men who, when they set their hearts on anything, find no peace, no rest, until they obtain it. He had come here partly through curiosity, partly because he dare not refuse Miriam; he had seen Mary Dane, and lo! at first sight he was dazzled and bewitched.

Next morning, at breakfast, Mr. Walraven obtained all the information he desired concerning Miss Mollie Dane. Some half dozen of the actors were stopping at the hotel, and proved very willing, under the influence of brandy and water, to give the free-handed stranger Miss Dane's biography as far as they knew it.

She was just as charming off the stage as on; just as pretty, just as saucy, just as captivating. She was wild and full of tricks as an unbroken colt; but she was a thoroughly good girl, for all that, lavish of her money to all who needed, and snubbing lovers incontinently. She was stopping up the street at another hotel, and she would in all probability be easily accessible about noon.

The seedy, strolling players drank their diluted brandy, smoked their cigars, and told Mr. Walraven all this. They rather laughed at the New York millionaire when he was out of sight. He had fallen in love with pretty, blue-eyed Mollie, no doubt, and that was a very stale story with the shabby players.

Noon came, and, speckless and respectable to the last degree, Mr. Walraven presented himself at the other hotel, and sent up his card with a waiter to Miss Dane.

The waiter ushered him into the hotel parlor, cold and prim as it is in the nature of hotel parlors to be. Mr. Walraven sat down and stared vaguely at the papered walls, rather at a loss as to what he should say to this piquant Mollie, and wondering how he would feel if she laughed at him.

"And she will laugh," he thought, with a mental groan; "she's the sort of girl that laughs at everything. And she may refuse, too; there is no making sure of a woman; and then what will Miriam say?"

He paused with a gasp. There was a quick patter of light feet down the stairs, the last two cleared with a jump, a swish of silken skirts, a little gush of perfume, and then, bright as a flash of light, blue-eyed Mollie stood before him. She held his card in her fingers, and all the yellow hair fell over her plump shoulders, like amber sunshine over snow.

"Mr. Carl Walraven?" Miss Dane said, with a smile and a graceful little bow.

Mr. Carl Walraven rose up and returned that pretty courtesy with a salute stiff and constrained.

"Yes, Miss Dane."

"Pray resume your seat, Mr. Walraven," with an airy wave of a little white hand. "To what do I owe this visit?"

She fluttered into a big black arm-chair as she spoke, folded the little white hands, and glanced across with brightly expectant eyes.

"You must think this call, from an utter stranger, rather singular, Miss Dane," Mr. Walraven began, considerably at a loss.

Miss Dane laughed.

"Oh, dear, no! not at all--the sort of thing I am used to, I assure you! May I ask its purport?"

"Miss Dane, you must pardon me," said Mr. Walraven, plunging desperately head first into his mission, "but I saw you play last night, and I have--yes, I have taken a violent fancy to you."

Miss Mollie Dane never flinched. The wicked sparkle in the dancing eyes grew a trifle wickeder, perhaps, but that was all.

"Yes," she said, composedly; "go on."

"You take it very coolly," remarked the gentleman, rather taken aback himself. "You don't appear the least surprised."

"Of course not! I told you I was used to it. Never knew a gentleman of taste to see me play yet and not take a violent fancy to me. Pray go on."

If Miss Dane wished, in her wickedness, to utterly disconcert her middle-aged admirer, she could not have adopted a surer plan. For fully five minutes he sat staring in hopeless silence.

"Have you anything more to say?" queried the dauntless Mollie, pulling out her watch. "Because, if you have, you will please say it at once. My time is precious, I assure you. Rehearsal is at three, and after rehearsal there are the spangles to sew on my dress, and after that--"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Dane; I have a great deal more to say, and if you will listen you need never attend rehearsal again, and never sew on spangles any more."

"Indeed!"

The blue eyes opened very wide in a fixed, unwinking stare.

"I like you very much, Miss Dane--so much that I think it is a thousand pities you should waste your youth, and beauty, and genius on desert air. So--"

"Yes," said Miss Dane--"so you have fallen in love with me at first sight. Is that what you are trying to say?"

"No!" responded Mr. Walraven, emphatically. "I am not in the least in love with you, and never mean to be--in that way."

"Oh, in what way, then, Mr. Walraven?"

"I am a rich man, Miss Dane, and a lonely man very often, and I should like to have a daughter to cheer my old age--a daughter like you, Mistress Cricket, saucy and bright, and so pretty that it will be a pleasure only to look at her."

"And a very complimentary papa you will make. Have you no daughters of your own, Mr. Walraven?"

"None, Miss Mollie. I have the misfortune to have no wife."

"And never mean to have?"

"Can't say about that. I may one day."

"And you are quite sure you will never want me to fill that vacant honor?"

"Surer than sure, my dear little girl I want you only for my adopted daughter."

"And you never saw me before last night?"

"Never," said Carl Walraven, unflinchingly.

"You are a very rich man, you say?"

"Very rich--a millionaire--and you shall be my heiress when I die."

"I am afraid I shall be a very long time out of my inheritance, then. Well, this is a surprise, and you are the oddest gentleman I have met for some time. Please let me catch my breath! You are quite certain you are not playing a practical joke at my expense all this time?"

"No! upon my word and honor, no! I mean precisely what I say."

"And supposing I say yes--supposing I agree to go with you, for the fun of the thing, what do you mean to do with me, Mr. Walraven?"

"To treat you as I would a Miss Walraven of seventeen years old, if there were such a person; to fill your pockets with money, and your wardrobe with fine clothes; to give you a horse to ride, and a piano to play, a carriage to drive in, and a waiting-maid to scold. What more can I do? I will give you masters to teach you everything under the sun. Balls, parties, and the opera at will--everything, in short, your heart can desire."

The starry eyes sparkled, the rose-tinted cheeks flushed with delight.

"I can not believe it; it is too good to be true. Oh, you can't mean it, Mr. Walraven. No one ever had their wildest flight of fancy realized in this manner."

"You shall if you will become my daughter. If my promise proves false, are you not free to return? There are no ogres nowadays to carry young ladies off to enchanted palaces and eat them. Come with me to my home in New York. If I fail in aught I have promised, why, return here."

Mollie brought her two little palms together with an enthusiastic slap.

"I'll do it, Mr. Walraven! I know it's all a dream and an illusion, but still I'll see the dream to the end; that is, if you can make it all right with Mr. Harkner, the manager."

"I can make it all right!" exclaimed Mr. Walraven. "Money can do anything under the sun. He has his price, like other men, and I can pay it. If Mr. Harkner and I come to terms, will you be ready to start with me to-morrow, Mollie?"

"Quite ready. But you won't make it right. He will never let me go; you will see."

"I am not afraid. I will call upon him at once, and after the interview I will let you know the result. He is in the house now, is he not?"

"Down at the bar, very likely. I will wait for you here."

Mr. Walraven took his hat and left, delighted with his success.

The manager was at the bar, as Miss Dane had predicted, and eyed Mr. Walraven suspiciously from head to foot when he found his business concerned his star actress.

He was accustomed to gentlemen falling in love with her, and quite willing to take little bribes from them; but he stared in angry amazement when he heard what Carl Walraven had to say.

"Carry off Mollie!" exclaimed Mr. Harkner, "and adopt her as your daughter! What do you take me for, to believe such a story as that?"

Mr. Harkner was pretty far gone, and all the more inclined to be skeptical. Mr. Walraven saw it, and knew that appearances were dead against him, and so swallowed his wrath.

"It is the truth, upon my honor. Miss Dane believes me and has consented. Nothing remains but to settle matters with you."

"I won't settle matters! I won't hear of it! I won't part with my best actress!"

"Yes you will for a fair price. Come, name the sum; I'll pay it."

Mr. Harkner opened his eyes. Mr. Walraven opened his check-book.

"You do mean it, then?"

"Don't I look as if I meant it? Quick, I say! If you don't look sharp I will take her without any price!"

"She's a priceless treasure!" hiccoughed the manager--"worth her weight in gold to me, and so--"

He named a sum that made even Carl Walraven wince; but he was a great deal too reckless to draw back.

"It is a most cold-blooded extortion," he said; "but you shall have it. And at your peril you ever interfere with my adopted daughter afterward."

He signed the check