CHAPTER XVII.A DISAPPOINTED LOVER.
Gladys stole away from the crowd as soon as she could do so without attracting attention, and sped down to the reception-room to find her lover.
He was there and alone, fortunately, as nearly all the guests were still in the hall above, and his face lighted with a luminous smile as she sprang toward him, gladness beaming through every feature.
“Dear old Geoff!”
“My darling!” was all the salutation that passed betweenthem, and then for an instant Gladys was folded close to her lover’s breast in a fond embrace.
“Oh, Geoff, I thought you had not come; I never got a glimpse of you until almost the last minute, and was so disappointed that I was about ready to break down,” Gladys said, with a little nervous shiver, as she remembered how nearly her courage had failed her.
“I was late, dear, and I knew you would feel it; but I do not believe you would have failed even if you had not seen me at all,” he answered, as he fondly smoothed back the clustering rings of hair from her throbbing temples.
“No, I do not think I should, really; but I could not have done as well; it was like a sudden inspiration to me when I found you at last.”
“Then I am thankful I was here, dear, for your effort was the grand event of the day,” Geoffrey said, smiling.
“You are very good to say so, Geoff,” Gladys replied, modestly.
“Very good to say so,” he repeated, laughing. “Why should I not say it, when your praises are on every lip, and a pin might have been heard, if one had dropped, while you were addressing the faculty and bidding your classmates farewell. Poor girls! the crystal drops were plentiful over the thought of parting.”
“It is a little hard to leave school, Geoff, and all the pleasant friends one has made; don’t you think so?”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “I presume it is harder for you than it will be for me, because I am so eager to make a place for myself in the world, and a nest for somebody else.”
Gladys blushed at this reference to coming events.
“Did I not see Mapleson here?” Geoffrey asked, after a moment.
“Yes; and at first I thought he was you; but I soon discovered my mistake.”
“I wonder what he is here for?” mused the young lover.
“To see me graduate, of course,” Gladys responded, roguishly.
“Did you invite him?”
“No. A long time ago he asked me to exchange tickets with him for commencement, and I think he has spoken of it every time that we have met since; so, of course, I could hardly help sending him one.”
“You have seen a good deal of him during the last two years, haven’t you, Gladys?”
“Yes, he has appeared at almost every place that we have visited the last two summers, and he was always in New York during the shorter recesses. I met him constantly in society, and I didn’t like it very well, either.”
“Why?”
“Because it rather annoyed me to receive his attentions,” Gladys confessed.
“Then hehasbeen attentive to you?” the young man asked, studying the face he loved very closely.
“Yes, quite so,” Gladys answered; then noticing her lover’s grave, anxious look, she added: “You do not like it, either, do you, Geoff?”
“No, dearest, I do not,” Geoffrey replied, frankly, then continued: “Pray, do not misunderstand me—do not suppose that I am disturbed by a petty feeling of jealousy, but there are some traits in Mapleson’s character which make me feel that he is not a proper companion or escort for you.”
“Then, Geoff, I will never accept any attention again from him,” Gladys said, quickly. “He has never been very congenial to me in any way, and somehow I have always resented his resemblance to you.”
“Why should you?”
“I do not know—I cannot account for the feeling, but I have always had it. It may be because I have detected something not quite true in him, and did not like to have him look like you on that account, while it almost seems sometimes as if he were usurping a place that rightfully belongs to you.”
“That is impossible, dear, and I am afraid, a sort of morbid fancy,” Geoffrey replied, with gentle reproof. “I have never had such a thought, nor envied him either his high position in the world, or the immense wealth which I have heard will some time be his.”
Gladys raised herself on tiptoe and softly touched her lips to her lover’s cheek.
“How noble you are!” she whispered, “and I’d rather have my Geoff without a penny!”
“You will have your ‘rather,’ then,” the young man returned, laughing, although he fondly returned her caress, “for he hasn’t even a penny that is rightfully his own. But,” he added, drawing himself up resolutely, “that shall not be said of me long—another year, I trust, will find me established in something that need not make me ashamed to take my place among other men.”
“Oh, Geoffrey! who is indulging in morbid fancies now?” queried Gladys, chidingly.
“I do not mean to do so,” he replied, cheerfully, “but I long to begin to do something for myself and for you, my darling. But I must not keep you here—people will be wondering what has become of the fair valedictorian. There!” as steps were heard approaching the door, “I’ll venture that some one is looking for you now.”
It proved to be even so, and Gladys was in great demand during the next few hours. Indeed, Geoffrey saw but comparatively little of her after that one interview, for he was obliged to leave at an early hour in order to reach New Haven that night.
There was to be a brilliant reception that evening for the graduating class, and it was quite a disappointment to Gladys that Geoffrey could not be present, but she strove to make the best of it, knowing that they would meet again in a few days; besides Mr. and Mrs. Huntress were to remain to accompany her when she should leave the next day.
Everet Mapleson also remained.
He had hardly been able to get a word with Gladys all day, and when he found that Geoffrey was obliged to leave, he resolved that he would attend the reception and devote himself to the fair girl whom he was learning every hour to love more devotedly.
When he presented himself in the evening before her a slight frown contracted her brow, and for a moment she was tempted to pass on and leave him to himself. But he made that impossible by instantly taking his stand by her side, and devoting himself exclusively to her, and thus it was out of her power to avoid him without being positively rude.
“Well, all this will soon end,” she said to herself, with a sigh of resignation, “and for once I may as well surrender myself to the inevitable; after he leaves college we shall probably not meet again, and I should not like to have it on my conscience that I had been rude even to him.”
She introduced him to several of her classmates, and tried thus to attract his attention from herself and slip away unobserved; but at her first movement he was at her side.
During the latter part of the evening he managed to draw her into the circle of promenaders who were pacing up and down the main hall, to the delicious strains of a fine band, where, after a few turns he led her, almost beforeshe was aware of his intention, to a balcony at one end, and out of the hearing of the crowd within.
“Perhaps I am taking a great liberty, Miss Huntress,” he began, before she could utter a word of protest, “but I must bid you good-night presently, and I have something very important which I wish to say to you first.”
Gladys shivered at his words, although the night was intensely warm, for instinctively she knew why he had brought her there.
But she could not help herself now, and she thought perhaps it would be best to have their future relations definitely settled once for all.
“I am obliged to return to New York on the midnight train,” the young man continued, “but I could not go without first telling you what has long been burning on my lips for utterance. Gladys, I love you, and all my future happiness depends upon my winning you to be my wife. Will you give me your love in return? will you give me yourself?”
It was a manly, straightforward declaration, and worthy a better man than Everet Mapleson was at that time.
It impressed Gladys as being earnest and genuine, and she was grieved to know that she must wound and disappoint him.
“I cannot tell you how sorry I am, Mr. Mapleson, that you should have said this to me,” she returned, in a low, pained tone, “for I cannot respond as you desire; my answer must be a decided refusal of your suit.”
“Do not say that!” he burst out in an agonized tone. “Oh, my darling, you must not ruin my life with one fatal blow. Let me wait—ever so long, if I may only hope that some day you will be mine.”
“I cannot let you hope,” Gladys replied, greatly agitated, “what I have said must be final. I do not love you—I can never become your wife.”
“Perhaps you do not love me now, but you can learn to do so; I will teach you. I will be very patient; I will not press you. Oh, Gladys, my beautiful, brown-haired darling, do not break my heart! do not ruin my life!”
A quivering sigh burst from the young girl’s pale lips. No one can tell how painful the interview had become to her, for she saw that he was a lover in deadly earnest, and that his affection for her was deep and true.
She impulsively reached out her hand and laid it upon his arm.
“Mr. Mapleson,” she pleaded, “pray do not importuneme further; for, truly, I can give you no other answer; my feelings can never change; I do not love you—I can never love you.”
He seized her hand in an eager, trembling grasp, and bent his proud head until his forehead rested upon it.
“Why do you say that?” he cried, “that you can never love me? You do not know. I will serve for you—I will prove my devotion; oh! give me time, Gladys, before you discard me utterly, and no slave ever served more faithfully for the coveted gift of freedom, than I will serve, in any way, to win you, my fair love.”
“No, no; please say no more, it is useless,” she murmured, brokenly.
He raised his head and looked eagerly into her face.
“There can be but one reason for such a persistent refusal, such a decided answer,” he said, in a low, concentrated tone; “you have given the wealth of your love to another!”
Even by the dim light of the moon which came struggling in upon them through the network of vines upon the balcony, he could see the vivid color which shot up over her cheek and brow, and dyed even the fair shoulders, beneath their gauzy covering, at this direct charge.
He grew pale as death.
“It is true! I know it must be true!” he said, in the tones of one who has suddenly been calmed or benumbed by a terrible shock.
“You never could have resisted an appeal like mine,” he went on, between his tightly shut teeth, “if it were not so. Tell me,” he continued, growing excited again, “is it so? have I guessed rightly?”
There was so much of concentrated passion in his voice, and such an authoritative ring in his tone, that it aroused something of resentment and antagonism in Gladys’ heart, in spite of her sympathy for him.
She turned and faced him, standing straight and tall and calm before him.
“You have no right to speak in this way to me, Mr. Mapleson,” she said, with quiet dignity, “and I am under no obligation to explain why I do not favor your suit. The chief reason in any such case, I think, is that persons are not congenial to each other.”
“Do you mean to tell me that I am not congenial to you, Miss Huntress?” the young man interrupted, almost fiercely.
“You have it in your power to be a very pleasantfriend, Mr. Mapleson; but more than that you could never be to me under any circumstances,” Gladys answered, coldly. Her tone more than her words drove him almost to despair.
“Tell me, is it because you love another?” he persisted.
“I could not truthfully give that asthereason.”
“That does not answer me.Do you lovesome one else?”
“Yes,” answered the beautiful girl, briefly and proudly.
“Are you betrothed?”
Gladys lifted her head haughtily.
“Mr. Mapleson,” she said, “I question your right to interrogate me in this authoritative manner, but if a plain answer will convince you that there can be no change in my decision, I am willing to acknowledge to you that I am pledged to another.”
“To Geoffrey Huntress?” Everet Mapleson demanded, hoarsely.
“Yes, to Geoffrey,” she repeated, with a tender intonation of the name that betrayed how dear it was to her.
At this confession the young man dropped the hand that he had clung to in spite of her efforts to release it, as if it had been a coal of fire, all the evil in his nature aroused by this triumph of his enemy over him.
“That low-born beggar!” he hissed.
“Sir!”
He shrank for an instant beneath the word as if she had smitten him. Then his passion swept all before it once more.
“He has opposed and thwarted me from the first moment of our meeting. He offered me an indignity once, which I have never forgotten or forgiven; he has robbed me of my honors at college and now he has robbed me of you!I—hate—him!and he shall yet feel the force of my hatred in a way to make him wish that he had never crossed my path.”