"Nothing," she replied, keeping her eyes fastened as if fascinated on the offending daisies he wore on his breast.
"I left you an hour ago smiling and happy. I find you white and worn.
There are strange lights in your eyes like the slumbrous fire of a volcano; even your voice seems to have lost its tenderness. What is it, Pluma?"
She raised her dark, proud face to his. There was a strange story written on it, but he could not tell what it was.
"It--it is nothing. The day is warm, and I am tired, that is all."
"You are not like the same Pluma who kissed me when I was going away,"
he persisted. "Since I left this house something has come between you and me. What is it, Pluma?"
She looked up to him with a proud gesture that was infinitely charming.
"Is anything likely to come between us?" she asked.
"No; not that I know of," he answered, growing more and more puzzled.
"Then why imagine it?" she asked.
"Because you are so changed, Pluma," he said. "I shall never perhaps know the cause of your strange manner toward me, but I shall always feel sure it is something which concerns myself. You look at me as though you were questioning me," he said. "I wish you would tell me what is on your mind?"
"I do not suppose it could make the least difference," she answered, pa.s.sionately. "Yes, I will tell you, what you must have been blind not to notice long ago. Have you not noticed how every one watches us with a peculiar smile on their lips as we come among them; and how their voices sink to a whisper lest we should overhear what they say? What is commented upon by my very guests, and the people all about us?
Listen, then, it is this: Rex Lyon does not love the woman he has asked to be his wife. The frosts of Iceland could not be colder than his manner toward her. They say, too, that I have given you the truest and deepest love of my heart, and have received nothing in return.
Tell me that it is all false, my darling. You do care for me, do you not, Rex? Tell me," she implored.
"Good heavens!" cried Rex, almost speechless in consternation; "do they dare say such things? I never thought my conduct could give rise to one reproach, one unkind thought."
"Tell me you do care for me, Rex," she cried. "I have been almost mad with doubt."
There was something in the lovely face, in the tender, pleading eyes, and quivering, scarlet mouth, that looked as if it were made for kisses--that Rex would have had to have been something more than mortal man to have resisted her pleading with sighs and tears for his love, and refuse it, especially as she had every reason to expect it, as he had asked her to be his wife. There was such a look of unutterable love on her face it fairly bewildered him. The pa.s.sion in her voice startled him. What was he to do with this impetuous girl?
Rex looked as if he felt exceedingly uncomfortable.
He took her in his arms and kissed her mechanically; he knew that was what she wanted and what she expected him to do.
"This must be my answer, dear," he said, holding her in a close embrace.
In that brief instant she had torn the daisies from the lapel of his coat with her white, jeweled fingers, tossed them to the earth, and stamped her dainty feet upon them, wishing in the depths of her soul she could crush out all remembrance from his heart of the young girl for whose memory this handsome lover of hers wore these wild blossoms on his breast.
As Rex looked down into her face he missed them, and quickly unclasped his arms from around her with a little cry.
Stooping down he instantly recovered his crushed treasures and lifted them reverently in his hand with a sigh.
"I can not say that I admire your taste, Rex," she said, with a short, hard laugh, that somehow grated harshly on her lover"s ears. "The conservatories are blooming with rare and odorous flowers, yet you choose these obnoxious plants; they are no more or less than a species of weeds. Never wear them again, Rex--I despise them--throw them away, and I will gather you a rare bouquet of white hyacinths and starry jasmine and golden-rod bells."
The intense quiver in her voice pained him, and he saw her face wore the pallor of death, and her eyes were gleaming like restless fire.
"I will not wear them certainly if you dislike them, Pluma," he said, gravely, "but I do not care to replace them by any other; daisies are the sweetest flowers on earth for me."
He did not fasten them on his coat again, but transferred them to his breast-pocket. She bit her scarlet lips in impotent rage.
In the very moment of her supreme triumph and happiness he had unclasped his arms from about her to pick up the daisies she had crushed with her tiny heel--those daisies which reminded him of that other love that still reigned in his heart a barrier between them.
CHAPTER XXIX.
"I do think it is a perfect shame those horrid Glenn girls are to be invited up here to Rex"s wedding," cried little Birdie Lyon, hobbling into the room where Mrs. Corliss sat, busily engaged in hemming some new table-linen, and throwing herself down on a low ha.s.sock at her feet, and laying down her crutch beside her--"it is perfectly awful."
"Why," said Mrs. Corliss, smoothing the nut-brown curls back from the child"s flushed face, "I should think you would be very pleased. They were your neighbors when you were down in Florida, were they not?"
"Yes," replied the little girl, frowning, "but I don"t like them one bit. Bess and Gertie--that"s the two eldest ones, make me think of those stiff pictures in the gay trailing dresses in the magazines. Eve is nice, but she"s a Tom-boy."
"A wh--at!" cried Mrs. Corliss.
"She"s a Tom-boy, mamma always said; she romps, and has no manners."
"They will be your neighbors when you go South again--so I suppose your brother thought of that when he invited them."
"He never dreamed of it," cried Birdie; "it was Miss Pluma"s doings."
"Hush, child, don"t talk so loud," entreated the old housekeeper; "she might hear you."
"I don"t care," cried Birdie. "I don"t like her anyhow, and she knows it. When Rex is around she is as sweet as honey to me, and calls me "pretty little dear," but when Rex isn"t around she scarcely notices me, and I _hate_ her--yes, I do."
Birdie clinched her little hands together venomously, crying out the words in a shrill scream.
"Birdie," cried Mrs. Corliss, "you _must not_ say such hard, cruel things. I have heard you say, over and over again, you liked Mr.
Hurlhurst, and you must remember Pluma is his daughter, and she is to be your brother"s wife. You must learn to speak and think kindly of her."
"I never shall like her," cried Birdie, defiantly, "and I am sure Mr.
Hurlhurst don"t."
"Birdie!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the good lady in a fright, dropping her scissors and spools in consternation; "let me warn you not to talk so again; if Miss Pluma was to once hear you, you would have a sorry enough time of it all your after life. What put it into your head Mr. Hurlhurst did not like his own daughter?"
"Oh, lots of things," answered Birdie. "When I tell him how pretty every one says she is, he groans, and says strange things about fatal beauty, which marred all his young life, and ever so many things I can"t understand, and his face grows so hard and so stern I am almost afraid of him."
"He is thinking of Pluma"s mother," thought Mrs. Corliss--but she made no answer.
"He likes to talk to me," pursued the child, rolling the empty spools to and fro with her crutch, "for he pities me because I am lame."
"Bless your dear little heart," said Mrs. Corliss, softly stroking the little girl"s curls; "it is seldom poor old master takes to any one as he has to you."
"Do I look anything like the little child that died?" questioned Birdie.
A low, gasping cry broke from Mrs. Corliss"s lips, and her face grew ashen white. She tried to speak, but the words died away in her throat.