"Handsome!" exclaimed Kate. "He is not handsome, my pretty sister." She took her in her arms again, and kissed her fondly. "My pretty sister!
how much I am going to love you!"
Rose submitted to be kissed with a good grace, but with a little envious pang at her vain, coquettish heart, to see how much more beautiful her superb sister was than herself. She nestled luxuriously in an arm-chair, while Eunice dressed her young mistress, chattering away in French like a magpie. They descended together to luncheon; pale Eeny was totally eclipsed by brilliant Rose, and all the afternoon they spent together over the piano, and sauntering through the grounds.
"Retribution, Eeny," said Grace, kissing Eeny"s pale cheek. "You forgot me for this dazzling Kate, and now you are nowhere. You must come back to Grace again."
"There is n.o.body like Grace," said Eeny, nestling close. "But Kate and Rose won"t be always like this. "Love me little, love me long." Wait until Kate finds out what Rose is made of."
But despite Eeny"s prophecy, the two sisters got on remarkably well together.
Captain Danton did not return next day, according to promise, so they were thrown entirely upon one another. Instead, there came a note from Montreal, which told them that business would detain him in that city for nearly a fortnight longer. "When I do return," ended the note, "I will fetch an old friend to see Kate."
"Who can it be?" wondered Kate. "There is no old friend of mine that I am aware of in Montreal. Papa likes to be mysterious."
"Yes," said Rose; "I should think so, when we have a mystery in the very house."
"What mystery?"
"Mr. Richards, of course. He"s a mystery worse than anything in the "Mysteries of Udolpho." Why can n.o.body get to see him but that soft-stepping, oily-tongued little weasel, Ogden?"
Kate looked at the pretty sister she loved so well, with the coldest glances she had ever given her.
"Mr. Richards is an invalid; he is unable to see any one, or quit his room. What mystery is there in that?"
"There"s a mystery somewhere," said Rose, sagaciously. "Who is Mr.
Richards?"
"A friend of papa"s--and poor. Don"t ask so many questions, Rose. I have nothing more to say on the subject."
"Then I must find out for myself--that is all," thought Rose; "and I will, too, before long, in spite of half a dozen Ogdens."
Rose tried with a zeal and perseverance worthy a better cause, and most signally failed. Mr. Richards was invisible. His meals went up daily.
Ogden and Kate visited him daily, but the baize door was always locked, and Ogden and Kate, on the subject, were dumb. Kate visited the invalid at all hours, by night and by day. Ogden rarely left him except when Miss Danton was there, and then he took a little airing in the garden.
Rose"s room was near the corridor leading to the green baize room; and often awaking "in the dead waste and middle of the night," she would steal to that mysterious room to listen. But nothing was ever to be heard, nothing ever to be seen--the mystery was fathomless. She would wander outside at all hours, under Mr. Richards" window; and looking up, wonder how he endured his prison, or what he could possibly be about--if those dark curtains were never raised and he never looked at the outer world. Once or twice a face had appeared, but it was always the keen, thin face of Mr. Ogden; and Rose"s curiosity, growing by what it fed on, began to get insupportable.
"What can it mean, Grace?" she would say to the housekeeper, to whom she had a fashion, despite no end of snubbing, of confiding her secret troubles. "There"s something wrong; where there"s secrecy, there"s guilt--I"ve always heard that."
"Don"t jump at conclusions, Miss Rose, and don"t trouble yourself about Mr. Richards; it is no affair of yours."
"But I can"t help troubling myself. What business have papa, and Kate, and that nasty Ogden, to have a secret between them and I not know it? I feel insulted, and I"ll have revenge. I never mean to stop till I ferret out the mystery. I have the strongest conviction I was born to be a member of the detective police, and one of these days the mystery of Mr.
Richards will be a mystery no more."
Grace had her own suspicions, but Grace was famous for minding her own business, and kept her suspicions to herself. Rose"s manoeuvring amused her, and she let her go on. Every strategy the young lady could conceive was brought to bear, and every stratagem was skilfully baffled.
"Why don"t you have Doctor Danton to see Mr. Richards, Kate?" she said to her sister, one evening, meeting her coming out of Mr. Richards"
room. "I should think he was skilful."
"Very likely," said Kate, with an air of reserve, "but Mr. Richards does not require medical care."
"Oh, he is not very bad, then? You should bring him down stairs in that case; a little lively society--mine, for instance--might do him good."
Kate"s dark eyes flashed impatiently.
"Rose," she said, sharply, "how often must I tell you Mr. Richards is hypochondriacal and will not quit his room? Cease to talk on the subject. Mr. Richards will not come down-stairs."
She swept past--majestic and a little displeased. Rose shrugged her plump shoulders and ran down stairs, for Doctor Danton was coming up the avenue, and Rose, of late, had divided her attention pretty equally between playing detective amateur and flirting with Doctor Danton. But there was a visitor for Rose in the drawing-room; and the young Doctor, entering the dining-room, found his sister alone, looking dreamily out at the starry twilight.
"Grace," he said, "I come to say good-bye; I am going to Montreal."
Grace looked round at him with a sudden air of relief.
"Oh, Frank! I am glad. When are you going?"
Doctor Frank stared at her an instant in silence, and then hooked a footstool towards him with his cane.
"Well, upon my word, for a sister who has not seen me for six years, that is affectionate. You"re glad I"m going, are you?"
"You know what I mean; it is about Rose Danton."
"Well, what about Miss Rose?"
"I am glad you are going to get out of her way. I am glad she will have no chance to make a fool of you. I am glad you will have no time to fall in love with her."
"My pretty Rose! My dark-eyed darling! Grace, you are heartless."
Grace looked at him, but his face was in shadow, and the tone of his voice told nothing.
"I don"t know whether you are serious or not," she said. "For your own sake, I hope you are not. Rose has been flirting with you, but I thought you had penetration enough to see through her. I hope, I trust, Frank, you have not allowed yourself to think seriously of her."
"Why not?" said Doctor Danton; "she is very pretty, she has charming ways, we are of the same blood, I should like to be married. It is very nice to be married, I think. Why should I not think seriously of her?"
"Because you might as well fall in love with the moon, and hope to win it."
"Do you mean she would not have me?"
"Yes."
"Trying, that. But why? Her conduct is encouraging. I thought she was in love with me."
Again Grace looked at him, puzzled; again his face was in shadow, and his inscrutable voice baffled her.
"I do not believe you ever thought any such thing. The girl is a coquette born. She would flirt with Ogden, for the mere pleasure of flirting. She flirts with you because there is no one else."
"Trying!" repeated the Doctor. "Very! And you really think there is no use in my proposing--you really think she will not marry me?"
"I really think so."
"And why? Don"t break my heart without a reason. Is it because I am poor?"