Aimée looked straightly and bravely into the questioner’s face.
“That,” she said, quietly, “is Mr. Kyrle. You do not know him, so we need not discuss his visit. Tell me why you have come for me. Is mamma ill?”
“No,” answered the young man, whosesufficiently good-looking countenance was very much disfigured by the frown with which he was regarding her; “she is very well, but it is necessary that you should go home at once. And I did not come a day too soon, ifthisis how you are engaged.”
“What do you mean bythis?” asked Aimée, indignantly—Mrs. Shreve having withdrawn in search of Mrs. Berrien. “I do not know why you should speak to me in such a manner because you find a visitor—”
“A visitor!” interrupted the other, angrily. “Do your visitors usually leave such cards as that?”
He pointed, as he spoke, to the locket which Aimée had forgotten that she still held in her hand. She now thrust it hastily into her pocket; but, though her face crimsoned, she still regarded him with dauntless eyes.
“It is no affair of yours,” she said. “I am not called upon to give you any explanation. I am here under Aunt Alice’s care.”
“An admirable care it seems to be,” said he, sarcastically. “It is fortunate that I have come to take you out of her hands.”
“I can not understand why any one should have thought it necessary to send you,” said Aimée. “It is a new thing that what I do should be considered of importance by any one.”
Then there was a moment’s silence. It was impossible for Mr. Percy Joscelyn—which was this young gentleman’s name—to deny that it was indeed a very new thing for Aimée’s actions to be of importance in the opinion of her family. Her repeated assertion that it did not matter to any one what she did was founded on most undeniable fact, or had been a short time before. And if all was changed now, if her actions had suddenly become of very great importance, it was for a reason difficult to state when thus confronted with what yesterday had been the truth.
Fortunately, a diversion occurred at this point which relieved him from the inconvenience of answering her remark. The door opened and Mrs. Berrien entered.
“Why, Percy, how do you do?” she said. “This is a great surprise.”
“Yes,” said young Joscelyn, as they shookhands, “I suppose so. But I have come for Aimée.”
“Indeed!” said Mrs. Berrien, looking as much surprised as Aimée herself. “What is the matter? Is her mother ill?”
“No, my stepmother is in very good health,” was the reply. “But it is necessary that Aimée should go home. There has been—ahem!—a great change in her circumstances.”
“In her circumstances!” repeated Mrs. Berrien, while Aimée’s eyes grew wide and startled. “What has happened?”
“She has inherited a fortune,” said the young man in tones of such solemnity as the announcement warranted.
“Aimée—inherited a fortune!” cried Mrs. Berrien. If he had announced that Aimée had suddenly been transformed into a royal princess it could hardly have seemed to her more incredible. “You are surely mistaken.”
Percy Joscelyn smiled with an air of superior knowledge. “In such matters there is not much room for mistake,” he said. “You have heard, I presume, of Henry Dunstan?”
“My brother’s half-brother—my stepmother’s son by another marriage? Of course. But he went to South America and died years ago.”
“On the contrary, he died only last month; and, having lost his wife and only child, he made a will just before he died leaving his fortune to the children of his half-brother, Edward Vincent, of whom, as you know, Aimée is the only child.”
“My dear Aimée, this is indeed a change for you!” exclaimed Mrs. Berrien, turning and embracing the startled girl with honest warmth. “I am as pleased as if a fortune had been left to myself. Now I need feel no more anxiety about your future.”
“I shall never forget who was the only person who ever did feel any,” said Aimée, clinging to her as though some danger threatened.
Mrs. Berrien smiled. She knew that it was true; that she had indeed been the only person who had ever given a thought to the future of the fatherless girl, and she was not sorry that Aimée should recognize the fact.It was the reward for a good action, which she deserved, because no such reward had seemed even remotely possible when the action was performed.
Naturally, however, this was not very pleasant for the representative of the Joscelyns to hear; and, being a young man with a considerable drop of venom in his nature, Mr. Percy Joscelyn felt impelled to reply to the implied charge by bringing a countercharge.
“I am sorry that Aimée imagines you to be the only person who felt any anxiety for her future,” he said, stiffly. “But if I may judge by the position in which I found her when I arrived, it was at least not a troublesome anxiety in the present.”
Mrs. Berrien looked at him with haughty surprise. “May I inquire what you mean?” she asked. “You have found her in exactly the position she would have occupied as my daughter.”
“Indeed!” said he, with what Aimée inwardly called “Percy’s disagreeable smile.” “You are, of course, the best judge of that. But I found her with a young man, evidentlyexchanging love-tokens. If that is a liberty you would allow your daughter, I can only say I am sure my stepmother would prefer an anxiety that would take another form.”
Regarding him for a moment as if she thought he had taken leave of his senses, Mrs. Berrien then turned to Aimée:
“What is the meaning of this?” she asked, “What is he talking about? There is nothing that I can imagine more improbable than that you were ‘with a young man exchanging love-tokens.’”
“I was not—O Aunt Alice, I was not!” cried poor Aimée, divided between indignant wrath and the desire to burst into tears. “Percy did find a—young man here; but he was only a—visitor.”
“But when have you taken to receiving such visitors?” said Mrs. Berrien with amazement. “And I was not even aware that you knew any young men—O Aimée, this is indeed a shock. I could not have believed it. I should have said that you were one of the last girls in the world to be guilty of such conduct.”
“I have not been guilty of any conduct to which you need object, Aunt Alice,” said Aimée earnestly. “I would not deceive you—indeed, I would not.”
“Then who was the visitor Percy found with you?” asked Mrs. Berrien.
Aimée looked at her piteously without speaking—for did not loyalty to Fanny seal her lips? Had not Fanny been as anxious to keep the knowledge of Lennox Kyrle’s visit from her mother as from Mr. Meredith? The girl was so absorbed in this thought that she forgot how useless it was to attempt to conceal a name which had been revealed to Percy Joscelyn, and which he now hastened to supply.
“Aimée seems to have forgotten the name of her visitor,” he said, “but she informed me that it was Kyrle.”
“Kyrle!” repeated Mrs. Berrien. The truth flashed on her. She gave a searching glance at Aimée, and read the whole story in the girl’s beseeching eyes. She remembered then that Mrs. Shreve had told her that Mr. Meredith was in the parlor with Fanny.What could be plainer than that Fanny had sent Aimée to ward off anything so undesirable as the appearance of her old lover? But with this knowledge came also the consciousness of an unpleasant dilemma. To tell the truth for Aimée’s justification would be to put Fanny in the power of Percy Joscelyn, who would take pleasure, Mrs. Berrien felt sure, in injuring her by letting the truth be known. Could she do this? Was such a sacrifice demanded of her? The woman whose heart was set upon her daughter’s brilliant marriage, yet who was of an upright nature and had honestly done her best for this orphan girl, knew an instant of sharp struggle—and then Aimée spoke:
“Yes, it was Mr. Kyrle, Aunt Alice,” she said. “I hesitated to tell you, because I know you do not like him. He was here only a few minutes, and he is going away immediately.” She paused for an instant, then added, “I do not expect Percy to trust me, butyouwill, I am sure.”
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Berrien, with a sense of mingled shame and relief. “I shouldhave to forget all that I have ever known of you if I could not trust you. I am glad to hear that Mr. Kyrle is going away. But Percy”—looking at that young man—“may be sure that the visit to you had no such significance as he was quick to imagine.”
“I have not much imagination,” said Mr. Joscelyn, “but I am quick to trust the evidence of my eyes; and if Aimée will kindly produce a locket which she put in her pocket a minute ago, you may change your opinion with regard to the significance of Mr. Kyrle’s visit.”
“I can trust Aimée,” repeated Mrs. Berrien, trembling lest Aimée should produce the demanded locket, “and I will not attempt to force her confidence. It is not to-day for the first time that her actions have become of importance to me,” she added with much stateliness of manner, “and therefore I do not need to be schooled in my duty toward her. Now we will dismiss the subject. When do you wish to take her away?”
“The sooner the better, I think,” replied the young man with considerable spitefulnessof emphasis. “There is, of course, much to be done.”
“But Aimée is too young to do anything with regard to business,” said Mrs. Berrien.
“Her mother is anxious to see her,” said Mr. Joscelyn—a statement which made Mrs. Berrien smile, and produced in Aimée a sense of deepening amazement—“and it is necessary that she should begin at once to prepare for the position she will occupy.”
“What will that be?” asked Mrs. Berrien, a little dryly. “Have you learned the amount of her fortune?”
“Not precisely; but the letters received from Rio speak of it as very large.”
“And so you are transformed into a South American heiress, my dear little Aimée?” said Mrs. Berrien, with a smile, putting her arm caressingly around the girl, who answered, between a laugh and a sob:
“I do not know what to think of myself under such a transformation.”