I had to exercise all my self-control to keep from laughing in his face. He was such a poseur, his simulation of emotion was so melodramatic that I wondered if he really imagined I would be impressed by it.
A spirit of mischievous daring stirred in me.
"Don"t tell me just now," I said softly. "Wait till after dinner."
"Afraid?" he challenged.
"Perhaps," I countered.
He gave my hand lying upon his arm a swift, furtive pressure and released it so quickly that there was no possibility of his being observed. I had no time to rebuke him, had I been so disposed, for we had almost reached our places at the table.
I do not remember much of the dinner over which Mother Graham, Katie and I had worked so a.s.siduously. That everything went off smoothly, as we had planned, that from the Casaba melons which were served first to the walnuts of the last course, everything was delicious in flavor and perfect in service I was gratefully but dimly aware.
For I felt as if I were on the brink of a volcano. Not because of Harry Underwood"s elaborate show of attention to me to which I was pretending to respond, much to the disgust of my mother-in-law, but on account of the queer behavior of Robert Gordon.
Lillian, who was making a pitifully brave attempt to bring to the occasion all the airy brightness with which she was wont to make any gathering favored by her presence a success, secured only the briefest responses from him, although he had taken her out to dinner. Sometimes he made no answer at all to her remarks, evidently not hearing them.
He watched me almost constantly, and so noticeable was his action that I saw every one at the table was aware of it. It was a gaze to set any one"s brain throbbing with wild conjectures, so mournful, so elusive it was. The fantastic thought crossed my mind that this mysterious elderly friend of my dead mother"s looked like a long famished man, coming suddenly in sight of food.
By the time the dinner was over I was intensely nervous. Katie served us our coffee in the living room, and when I took mine my hand trembled so that the tiny cup rattled against the saucer. I rose from my chair and walked to the fireplace, set the cup upon the mantel and stood looking into the blazing logs Jim had heaped against the old chimney. My guests could not see my face, and I hoped to be able to pull myself together.
"Ready to have me tell you how you look to me, now?" said Harry Underwood"s voice, softly, insidiously in my ear.
I started and moved a little away from him, which brought me nearer to the fire. The next moment I was wildly beating at little tongues of flame running up the flimsy fabric of my dress.
I heard hoa.r.s.e shouts, shrill screams, felt rough hands seize me, and wrap me in heavy, stifling cloth, which seemed to press the flames searingly down into my flesh, and then for a little I knew no more.
It seemed only a moment that I lost consciousness. When I came back to myself I was lying on the couch with Lillian Underwood"s deft, tender fingers working over me. From somewhere back of me d.i.c.ky"s voice sounded in a hoa.r.s.e, gasping way that terrified me.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Lil, is she--"
Lillian"s voice, firm, rea.s.suring, answered:
"No, d.i.c.ky, no, she"s pretty badly burned, I fear, but I am sure she will be all right. Now, dear boy, get your mother to her room and make her lie down. Mrs. Durkee and I can take care of Madge better with you all out of the way. Did you get a doctor, Alfred?"
"Coming as soon as he can get here," Alfred Durkee replied.
"Good," Lillian returned. "Now everybody except Mrs. Durkee get out of here. Katie, bring a blanket, some sheets, and one of Mrs. Graham"s old nightdresses from her room. I shall have to cut the gown."
Even through the terrible scorching heat which seemed to envelop my body I realized that Lillian, as always, was dominating the situation.
I could hear the snip of her scissors as she cut away the pieces of burned cloth, and the low-toned directions to Mrs. Durkee, which told me that Lillian already had secured our first aid kit and was giving me the treatment necessary to alleviate my pain until the physician should arrive.
I am sorry to confess it, but I am a coward where physical pain is concerned. I am not one of those women who can bear the torturing pangs of any illness or accident without an outcry. And, struggle as I might, I could not repress the moan which rose to my lips.
"I know, child." Lillian"s tender hands held my writhing ones, her pitying eyes looked into mine; but she turned from me the next moment in amazement, for Robert Gordon, the mysterious man who had loved my mother, appeared, as if from nowhere, at her side, twisting his hands together and muttering words which I could not believe to be real, so strange and disjointed were they. I felt that they must be only fantasies of my confused brain.
"Mr. Gordon, this will never do," Lillian said sternly. "I thought I had sent every one out of the room except Mrs. Durkee."
"I know--I am going right away again. But I had to come this time. Is she going to die?"
"Not if I can get a chance to attend to her without everybody bothering me. I am very sure she is not seriously injured. Now, you must go away."
Mr. Gordon fled at once. And Lillian, and Mrs. Durkee worked so swiftly and skillfully that when the physician, a kindly, elderly pract.i.tioner from Crest Haven arrived, my pain had been a.s.suaged.
By his direction I was carried to my own room. I must have fainted before they moved me, for the next thing I remember was the sound of the doctor"s voice.
"There is nothing to be alarmed over," the physician was saying to a shadowy some one at the head of my bed, a some one who was breathing heavily, and the trembling of whose body I could feel against the bed.
"Of course, the shock has been severe, and the pain of moving her was too much for her. But she is coming round nicely. You may speak to her now."
The shadowy some one moved forward a little, resolved itself to my clearing sight as my husband. He knelt beside the bed and put his lips to my uninjured hand.
"Sweetheart! Sweetheart!" he murmured, "my own girl! Is the pain very bad?"
"Not now," I answered faintly, trying to smile, but only succeeding in twisting my mouth into a grimace of pain. The flames had mercifully spared my hair and most of my face, but there was one burn upon one side of my throat, extending up into my cheek, which made it uncomfortable for me to move the muscles of my face.
"Don"t try to talk," d.i.c.ky replied. "Just lie still and let us take care of you. Lil will stay, I know, until we can get a nurse here, won"t you, Lil?"
As a frightened child might do, I turned my eyes to Lillian, beseechingly.
"No--nurse--just--Lillian," I faltered.
Lillian stooped over me rea.s.suringly.
"No one shall touch you but me," she said decisively, and then turning to the physician, said demurely:
"Do you think I can be trusted with the case, doctor?"
"Most a.s.suredly," the physician returned heartily. "Indeed, if you can stay it is most fortunate for Mrs. Graham. Good trained nurses are at a premium just now, and great care will be necessary in this case to prevent disfigurement!"
A quick, stifled exclamation of dismay came from d.i.c.ky.
"Is there any danger of her face being scarred?" he asked worriedly.
"Not while I"m on the job," Lillian returned decisively, and there was no idle boasting in her statement, simply quiet certainty.
But there was another note in her voice, or so it seemed to my feverish imagination, a note of scorn for d.i.c.ky, that he should be thinking of my possible disfigurement when my very life had been in question but a moment before.
A sick terror crept over me. Did my husband love me only for what poor claims to pulchritude I possessed? Suppose the physician should be mistaken, and I be hideously scarred, after all, as I had seen fire victims scarred, would I see the love light die in his eyes, would I never again witness the admiring glances d.i.c.ky was wont to flash at me when I wore something especially becoming?
I had often wondered since my marriage whether d.i.c.ky"s love for me was the real lasting devotion which could stand adversity. I knew that no matter how old or gray or maimed or disfigured d.i.c.ky might become he would be still my royal lover. I should never see the changes in him.
But if I should suddenly turn an ugly scarred face to d.i.c.ky would he shrink from me?
An epigram from one of the sanest and cleverest of our modern humorists flashed into my mind. d.i.c.ky and I had read it together only a few weeks before.
"Heaven help you, madam, if your husband does not love you because of your foibles instead of in spite of them."
Did all women have this experience I wondered, and then as Lillian"s face bent over me I caught my breath in an understanding wave of pity for her.