Therefore, she bent an angry face toward the fire, her mouth pouting in a rather inviting fashion. Then it rounded slowly into a sanguine O, which of itself suggested osculation, but in reality stood for "observe!" For the paper Billy had thrown into the fire had fallen under the gas-logs, and she remembered his guilty start.
"After all," said Margaret, "it"s none of my business."
So she eyed it wistfully.
"It may be important," she considerately remembered. "It ought not to be left there."
So she fished it out with a big paper-cutter.
"But it can"t be very important," she dissented afterward, "or he wouldn"t have thrown it away."
So she looked at the superscripture on the back of it.
Then she gave a little gasp and tore it open and read it by the firelight.
Miss Hugonin subsequently took credit to herself for not going into hysterics. And I think she had some reason to; for she found the paper a duplicate of the one Billy had taken out of the secret drawer, with his name set in the place of hers. At the last Frederick R. Woods had relented toward his nephew.
Margaret laughed a little; then she cried a little; then she did both together. Afterward she sat in the firelight, very puzzled and very excited and very penitent and very beautiful, and was happier than she had ever been in her life.
"He had it in his pocket," her dear voice quavered; "he had it in his pocket, my brave, strong, beautiful Billy did, when he asked me to marry him. It was King Cophetua wooing the beggar-maid--and the beggar was an impudent, ungrateful, idiotic little _piece!_" Margaret hissed, in her most shrewish manner. "She ought to be spanked. She ought to go down on her knees to him in sackcloth, and tears, and ashes, and all sorts of penitential things. She will, too. Oh, it"s such a beautiful world--_such_ a beautiful world! Billy loves me--really! Billy"s a millionaire, and I"m a pauper. Oh, I"m glad, glad, _glad!_"
She caressed the paper that had rendered the world such a goodly place to live in--caressed it tenderly and rubbed her check against it. That was Margaret"s way of showing affection, you know; and I protest it must have been very pleasant for the paper. The only wonder was that the ink it was written in didn"t turn red with delight.
Then she read it through again, for sheer enjoyment of those beautiful, incomprehensible words that disinherited her. How _lovely_ of Uncle Fred! she thought. Of course, he"d forgiven Billy; who wouldn"t? What beautiful language Uncle Fred used! quite prayer-booky, she termed it. Then she gasped.
The will in Billy"s favour was dated a week earlier than the one they had found in the secret drawer. It was worthless, mere waste paper. At the last Frederick R. Woods"s pride had conquered his love.
"Oh, the horrid old man!" Margaret wailed; "he"s left me everything he had! How _dare_ he disinherit Billy! I call it rank impertinence in him. Oh, boy dear, dear, _dear_ boy!" Miss Hugonin crooned, in an ecstacy of tenderness and woe. "He found this first will in one of the other drawers, and thought _he_ was the rich one, and came in a great whirl of joy to ask me to marry him, and I was horrid to him! Oh, what a mess I"ve made of it! I"ve called him a fortune-hunter, and I"ve told him I love another man, and he"ll never, never ask me to marry him now. And I love him, I worship him, I adore him! And if only I were poor--"
Ensued a silence. Margaret lifted the two wills, scrutinised them closely, and then looked at the fire, interrogatively.
"It"s penal servitude for quite a number of years," she said. "But, then, he really _couldn"t_ tell any one, you know. No gentleman would allow a lady to be locked up in jail. And if he knew--if he knew I didn"t and couldn"t consider him a fortune-hunter, I really believe he would--"
Whatever she believed he would do, the probability of his doing it seemed highly agreeable to Miss Hugonin. She smiled at the fire in the most friendly fashion, and held out one of the folded papers to it.
"Yes," said Margaret, "I"m quite sure he will."
There I think we may leave her. For I have dredged the dictionary, and I confess I have found no fitting words wherewith to picture this inconsistent, impulsive, adorable young woman, dreaming brave dreams in the firelight of her lover and of their united future. I should only bungle it. You must imagine it for yourself.
It is a pretty picture, is it not?--with its laughable side, perhaps; under the circ.u.mstances, whimsical, if you will; but very, very sacred. For she loved him with a clean heart, loved him infinitely.
Let us smile at it--tenderly--and pa.s.s on.
But upon my word, when I think of how unreasonably, how outrageously Margaret had behaved during the entire evening, I am tempted to depose her as our heroine. I begin to regret I had not selected Adele Haggage.
She would have done admirably. For, depend upon it, she, too, had her trepidations, her white nights, her occult battles over Hugh Van Orden. Also, she was a pretty girl--if you care for brunettes--and accomplished. She was versed in I forget how many foreign languages, both Continental and dead, and could discourse sensibly in any one of them. She was perfectly reasonable, perfectly consistent, perfectly unimpulsive, and never expressed an opinion that was not countenanced by at least two competent authorities. I don"t know a man living, prepared to dispute that Miss Haggage excelled Miss Hugonin in all these desirable qualities.
Yet with pleasing unanimity they went mad for Margaret and had the greatest possible respect for Adele.
And, my dear Mrs. Grundy, I grant you cheerfully that this was all wrong. A sensible man, as you very justly observe, will seek in a woman something more enduring than mere personal attractions; he will value her for some sensible reason--say, for her wit, or her learning, or her skill in cookery, or her proficiency in Greek. A sensible man will look for a sensible woman; he will not concern his sensible head over such trumperies as a pair of bright eyes, or a red lip or so, or a satisfactory suit of hair. These are fleeting vanities.
However--
You have doubtless heard ere this, my dear madam, that had Cleopatra"s nose been an inch shorter the destiny of the world would have been changed; had she been the woman you describe--perfectly reasonable, perfectly consistent, perfectly sensible in all she said and did--confess, dear lady, wouldn"t Antony have taken to his heels and have fled from such a monster?
XIV
I regret to admit that Mr. Woods did not toss feverishly about his bed all through the silent watches of the night. He was very miserable, but he was also twenty-six. That is an age when the blind bow-G.o.d deals no fatal wounds. It is an age to suffer poignantly, if you will; an age wherein to aspire to the dearest woman on earth, to write her halting verses, to lose her, to affect the _cliches_ of cynicism, to hear the chimes at midnight--and after it all, to sleep like a top.
So Billy slept. And kind Hypnos loosed a dream through the gates of ivory that lifted him to a delectable land where Peggy was nineteen, and had never heard of Kennaston, and was unbelievably sweet and dear and beautiful. But presently they and the Colonel put forth to sea--on a great carved writing-desk--fishing for sharks, which the Colonel said were very plentiful in those waters; and Frederick R. Woods climbed up out of the sea, and said Billy was a fool and must go to college; and Peggy said that was impossible, as seventeen hundred and fifty thousand children had to be given an education apiece, and they couldn"t spare one for Billy; and a missionary from Zambesi Land came out of one of the secret drawers and said Billy must give him both of his feet as he needed them for his working-girls" cla.s.ses; and thereupon the sharks poked their heads out of the water and began, in a deafening chorus, to cry, "Feet, feet, feet!" And Billy then woke with a start, and found it was only the birds chattering in the dawn outside.
Then he was miserable.
He tossed, and groaned, and dozed, and smoked cigarettes until he could stand it no longer. He got up and dressed, in sheer desperation, and went for a walk in the gardens.
The day was clear as a new-minted coin. It was not yet wholly aired, not wholly free from the damp savour of night, but low in the east the sun was taking heart. A mile-long shadow footed it with Billy Woods in his pacings through the amber-chequered gardens. Actaeon-like, he surprised the world at its toilet, and its fleeting grace somewhat fortified his spirits.
But his thoughts pestered him like gnats. The things he said to the roses it is not necessary to set down.
XV
After a vituperative half-hour or so Mr. Woods was hungry. He came back toward Selwoode; and upon the terrace in front of the house he found Kathleen Saumarez.
During the warm weather, one corner of the terrace had been converted, by means of gay red-and-white awnings, into a sort of living-room.
There were chairs, tables, sofa-cushions, bowls of roses, and any number of bright-coloured rugs. Altogether, it was a cosy place, and the glowing hues of its furnishings were very becoming to Mrs.
Saumarez, who sat there writing industriously.
It was a thought embarra.s.sing. They had avoided one another yesterday--rather obviously--both striving to put off a necessarily awkward meeting. Now it had come. And now, somehow, their eyes met for a moment, and they laughed frankly, and the awkwardness was gone.
"Kathleen," said Mr. Woods, with conviction, "you"re a dear."
"You broke my heart," said she, demurely, "but I"m going to forgive you."
Mrs. Saumarez was not striving to be clever now. And, heavens (thought Billy), how much nicer she was like this! It wasn"t the same woman: her thin cheeks flushed arbutus-like, and her rather metallic voice was grown low and gentle. Billy brought memories with him, you see; and for the moment, she was Kathleen Eppes again--Kathleen Eppes in the first flush of youth, eager, trustful, and joyous-hearted, as he had known her long ago. Since then, the poor woman had eaten of the bread of dependence and had found it salt enough; she had paid for it daily, enduring a thousand petty slights, a thousand petty insults, and smiling under them as only women can. But she had forgotten now that shrewd Kathleen Saumarez who must earn her livelihood as best she might. She smiled frankly--a purely unprofessional smile.
"I was sorry when I heard you were coming," she said, irrelevantly, "but I"m glad now."
Mr. Woods--I grieve to relate--was still holding her hand in his.
There stirred in his pulses the thrill Kathleen Eppes had always wakened--a thrill of memory now, a mere wraith of emotion. He was thinking of a certain pink-cheeked girl with crinkly black-brown hair and eyes that he had likened to chrysoberyls--and he wondered whimsically what had become of her. This was not she. This was a.s.suredly not Kathleen, for this woman had a large mouth--a humorous and kindly mouth it was true, but undeniably a large one--whereas, Kathleen"s mouth had been quite perfect and rather diminutive than otherwise. Hadn"t he rhymed of it often enough to know?
They stood gazing at one another for a long time; and in the back of Billy"s brain lines of his old verses sang themselves to a sad little tune--the verses that reproved the idiocy of all other poets, who had very foolishly written their sonnets to other women: and yet, as the jingle pointed out,
Had these poets ever strayed In thy path, they had not made Random rhymes of Arabella, Songs of Dolly, hymns of Stella, Lays of Lalage or Chloris-- Not of Daphne nor of Doris, Florimel nor Amaryllis, Nor of Phyllida nor Phyllis, Were their wanton melodies: But all of these-- All their melodies had been Of thee, Kathleen.
Would they have been? Billy thought it improbable. The verses were very silly; and, recalling the big, blundering boy who had written them, Billy began to wonder--somewhat forlornly--whither he, too, had vanished. He and the girl he had gone mad for both seemed rather mythical--legendary as King Pepin.