I kept down my tone, though I couldn"t master my excitement. "That"s not my reason. If I don"t marry him it"s precisely because I have the power.
There are people--cowards they are at heart, as a rule--who because they have the power use it to be insolent, especially to those who are weaker. I"m not one of those. There"s a _n.o.blesse oblige_ that compels one in spite of everything. In dealing with an elderly man, who I suppose loves his son, and with a lady who"s been so kind to me as Mrs.
Rossiter--"
"You"ve been hired, and you"re paid. There"s no special call for grat.i.tude."
"Grat.i.tude is in the person who feels it; but that isn"t what I specially want to say."
"What you specially want to say apparently is--"
"That I"m not afraid of you, sir; I"m not afraid of your family or your money or your position or anything or any one you can control. If I don"t marry Hugh, it"s for the reason that I"ve given, and for no other.
As long as he"s dependent on your money I shall not marry him till you come and beg me to do it--and that I shall expect of you."
He smiled tolerantly. "That is, till you"ve brought us to our knees."
I could barely pipe, but I stood to my guns. "If you like the expression, sir--yes. I shall not marry Hugh--so long as you support him--till I"ve brought you to your knees."
If I expected the heavens to fall at this I was disappointed. All J.
Howard did was to lean on his arm toward Mrs. Billing and talk to her privately. Mrs. Rossiter got up and went to her father, entering also into a whispered colloquy. Once or twice he glanced backward to his wife, but she was now gazing sidewise in the direction of the house and over the lines of flowers that edged the terraces.
When Mrs. Rossiter had gone back to her seat, and J. Howard had raised himself from his conversation with Mrs. Billing, he began again to address me tranquilly:
"I hoped you might have sympathized with my hopes for Hugh, and have helped to convince him how useless his plans for a marriage between him and you must be."
I answered with decision: "No; I can"t do that."
"I should have appreciated it--"
"That I can quite understand."
"And some day have shown you that I"m acting for your good."
"Oh, sir," I cried, "whatever else you do, you"ll let my good be my own affair, will you not?"
I thought I heard Mrs. Billing say, "Brava!" At any rate, she tapped her fingers together as if in applause. I began to feel a more lenient spirit toward her.
"I"m quite willing to do that," my opponent said, in a moderate, long-suffering tone, "now that I see that you refuse to take Hugh"s good into consideration. So long as you encourage him in his present madness--"
"I"m not doing that."
He took no notice of the interruption. "--I"m obliged to regard him as nothing to me."
"That must be between you and your son."
"It is. I"m only asking you to note that you--ruin him."
"No, no," I began to protest, but he silenced me with a movement of his hand.
"I"m not a hard man naturally," he went on, in his tranquil voice, "but I have to be obeyed."
"Why?" I demanded. "Why should you be obeyed more than any one else?"
"Because I mean to be. That must be enough--"
"But it isn"t," I insisted. "I"ve no intention of obeying you--"
He broke in with some haste: "Oh, there"s no question of you, my dear young lady. I"ve nothing to do with you. I"m speaking of my son. He must obey me, or take the consequences. And the consequences will last as long as he lives. I"m not one to speak rashly, or to speak twice. So that"s what I"m putting to you. Do you think--do you honestly think--that you"re improving your position by ruining a man who sooner or later--sooner rather than later--will lay his ruin at your door and loathe you? Come now! You"re a clever girl. The case is by no means beyond you. Think, and think straight."
"I am thinking, sir. I"m thinking so straight that I see right through you. My father used to say--"
"No reminiscence, please."
"Very well, then; we"ll let the reminiscence go. But you"re thinking of committing a crime, a crime against Hugh, a crime against yourself, a crime against love, every kind of love--and that"s the worst crime of all--and you haven"t the moral courage to shoulder the guilt yourself; you"re trying to shuffle it off on me."
"My good woman--"
But nothing could silence me now. I leaned forward, with hands clasped in my lap, and merely looked at him. My voice was low, but I spoke rapidly:
"You"re talking to bewilder me, to throw dust in my eyes, to snare me into taking the blame for what you"re doing of your own free act. It"s a kind of reasoning which some girls would be caught by, but I"m not one of them. If Hugh is ruined in the sense you mean, it"s his father who will ruin him--but even that is not the worst. What"s worst, what"s dastardly, what"s not merely unworthy of a man like you but unworthy of any man--of anything that calls itself a male--is that you, with all your resources of every kind, should try to foist your responsibilities off on a woman who has no resources whatever. That I shouldn"t have believed of any of your s.e.x--if it hadn"t happened to myself."
But my eloquence left him as unmoved as before. He whispered with Mrs.
Billing. The old lady was animated, making beats and lunges with her lorgnette.
"So that what it comes to," he said to me at last, lifting himself up and speaking in a tired voice, "is that you really mean to pit yourself against me."
"No, sir; but that you mean to pit yourself against me." Something compelled me to add: "And I can tell you now that you"ll be beaten in the end."
Perhaps he didn"t hear me, for he rose and, stooping, carried on his discussion with Mrs. Billing. There was a long period in which no one paid any further attention to my presence; in fact, no one paid any attention to me any more. To my last words I expected some retort, but none came. Ethel Rossiter joined her father at the end of the table, and when Mrs. Billing also rose the conversation went on _ trois_. Mrs.
Brokenshire alone remained seated and aloof.
But the moment came when her husband turned toward her. Not having been dismissed, I merely stood and looked on. What I saw then pa.s.sed quickly, so quickly that it took a minute of reflection before I could put two and two together.
Having taken one step toward his wife, Howard Brokenshire stood still, abruptly, putting his hand suddenly to the left side of his face. His wife, too, put up her hand, but palm outward and as if to wave him back.
At the same time she averted her face--and I knew it was his eye.
It was over before either of the other two women perceived anything.
Presently, all four were out on the gra.s.s, strolling along in a little chattering group together. My dismissal having come automatically, as you might say, I was free to go.
CHAPTER VIII
An hour later I had what up to then I must call the greatest surprise of my life.
I was crying by myself on the sh.o.r.e, in that secluded corner among the rocks where Hugh had first told me that he loved me. As a rule, I don"t cry easily. I did it now chiefly from being overwrought. I was desolate.
I missed Hugh. The few days or few weeks that must pa.s.s before I could see him again stretched before me like a century. All whom I could call my own were so far away. Even had they been near, they would probably, with the individualism of our race, have left me to shift for myself.
Louise and Victoria had always given me to understand that, though they didn"t mind lending me an occasional sisterly hand, my life was my own affair. It would have been a relief to talk the whole thing out philosophically with Larry Strangways. As I came from the house I tried, for the first time since knowing him, to throw myself in his path; but, as usual when one needs a friend, he was nowhere to be seen.