CHAPTER XIII.
Molly Trueheart walked under the trees with that mysterious “Johnny” for a long half hour. While Cecil Laurens in the hammock raved and fretted against the little fraud, as he began to call her in his thoughts.
“Suppose I go and bring her aunt upon the scene?” he thought, with grim resentment.
Then he mentally shook himself.
“Cecil Laurens, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Where is your honor that you can be led away like this by petty spite? Let the girl alone. This is no business of yours!”
A few minutes later Molly and her good-looking, shabby companion came back to the rustic seat, still unobservant of the hammock and its occupant. By leaning forward a little he could look into both faces, and he noticed that Molly’s was pale and annoyed, the man’s eager and excited.
“You must not come here again,” he heard her say. “It would not be safe. And you must not go afterher. She would be furious if you interfered with her plans. Better keep quiet for awhile. I will help you all I can, Johnny,” with a sob, “but you know how little I can do.”
“You are an angel,” said the man, tenderly. “If she were only you, there would be no trouble. My dear, you’ll write to me?”
“Yes, yes, only do keep quiet and not go afterher,or you’ll spoil everything! I’ll write to you at the old address! Johnny, I’m sorry for you from my heart, but I’m under her thumb as well as you. We must both have patience. Good-bye, now, some one will be coming.”
“Good-bye, dear,” said the man, sadly, and Cecil saw him clasp her little rosy fingers tightly in his broad palm. “God bless you, little one. I shall look for a letter soon. Write me everything abouther, and I’lltryto stay away, hard as it seems!”
He sighed and turned away, going straight across the lawn to the broad gates that led to the railroad. There was something pathetic in his worn, shabby garments and slow, dejected pace in that scene of wealth and gayety, and Cecil would have been touched only for that fierce pain tugging at his heart. But he turned his eyes away from the man back to Molly, who had dropped down on her seat and was gazing after him with sad, wet eyes. He heard her murmur passionately, “It is a shame!” then she dropped her face in her hands and sobs shook her slender form.
Cecil had seen Molly in many moods, but here was a new one, and it excited in him a strange feeling, that of pity mixed with a bitter resentment, as if he had suffered some personal wrong at her hands. After a minute, and still watching the sobbing girl, he began to analyze his emotions, and as a result the color flew hotly to his face and he muttered:
“I have actually taken an undue and sentimental interest in this girl—pshaw, why mince matters? Through some unexplainable madness I have lost my heart to a madcap, and am suffering all the torments of jealousy because another man has a claim on her.Mrs. Barry was wiser than I thought, and is no doubt laughing in her sleeve this moment at my folly.”
The flush deepened on his face, and he remained for some moments watching Molly in moody silence.
It was a dangerous occupation for a man who had just found out that she was fatally fair, for Molly, as she crouched in a forlorn and drooping position on the hard bench, was a very tempting little specimen of femininity.
The day was warm and she wore a dress of thin white mull, through whose transparent texture her plump arms and shoulders gleamed rosy-white. Her hat had fallen off, and the loose dark curls half confined by a scarlet ribbon, drooped against the graceful neck, and contrasted with the warm pink of a round cheek nestled in a dainty hand. On this picture of beauty in distress fell pretty flecks of sunlight from between the green boughs overhead, bringing out glints of brightness from the wavy curls, that in the shade always looked so dark and rich, and Cecil remembered that there were golden lights in her eyes, too, when she was pleased and happy.
Then he caught himself up again with a jerk.
“Happy! How can she ever be happy again with that tramp of a lover on her mind?” angrily.
Something—he scarce knew what, but most probably that sullen misery that was so new, so bitter, and so humiliating—drove him to her side. Slipping noiselessly from the luxurious hammock he stole around the tree and sat down by her side, touching the bowed head lightly with his hand, and murmuring with uncontrollable fondness:
“Louise!”
Molly gave a great, frightened start and whirled around.
“Oh, it’s you, Cecil Laurens, is it? Well, then, what do you want?” she demanded, wrathfully, angered because he had caught her in distress.
For once he was not angered at her sharp retort. He comprehended now something of what she was enduring, and made patient allowance for her pain.
“Do not be angry, Louise. I want nothing only to tell you how sorry I am for you, and how gladly I would help you in your trouble,” he said so gently that she stared at him in amazement, although she said brusquely:
“Trouble! I have no trouble!”
“Ah, Louise, you can not deceive me any longer. Look yonder! I was in that hammock just now and saw your companion, also heard some of his words!”
“Spy!” she exclaimed indignantly, although she grew pale and trembled like the leaves on the tree above her head.
Again he put a stern guard on himself, and would not resent her rudeness.
“It is despair that makes her hard!” he thought, and answered gently:
“I did not mean to be a spy, Louise, I was in the hammock when you came here, and presentlyhecame and spoke to you. I could not help hearing what was said until you walked away with him. But—do not look so frightened—I did not follow you!”
He saw a gleam of palpable relief flash into the white face, and comprehended that she was glad he had not heard what was spoken in that walk under the trees.
“ButI had heard enough!” he said slowly, after a pause. “Ah, Louise, I was right when I told you that it was a lover who was drawing your heart back to your old home.”
She looked at him pale and startled, but with mute defiance.
“A—a—lover!” she echoed, wildly. “Now I suppose you will go and tell Aunt Thalia of your wonderful discovery!” in a tone of terrified entreaty.
“Why will you wrong me so?” he cried, smarting under the lash of her injustice. “You know I did not betray you before?”
“But—but—why do you meddle with me so?” she cried, with a bewildered air. “You are always finding out things—and—and always blaming me!”
“No, no, child, I do not always blame you, I do not want to meddle—yet I—yet you—seem so ignorant, I ought to—to advise you. Will you listen to me kindly, Louise?”
“Go on,” she answered, folding her hands in her lap and looking so like a martyr that he cried out hastily:
“Do not look as if a big bear was going to eat you, Louise. I only want to tell you that it is not right to have secrets from your good aunt—to have a shabby lover whom you write to and meet by stealth. No good will come of such a clandestine affair.”
“Heaven give me patience!” cried Molly indignantly. “Poor Johnny, to think of this rich man calling you shabby! But, Mr. Laurens, that was no meeting by stealth just now. If you heard his first words you must know that it was not an appointment.”
“No, he came because he had heard you were here—thatwas the difference,” dryly. “But the first time I met you, you know—when Hero flung you over his head at my feet—perhaps you met him that night, perhaps—”
“Perhaps you are a great simpleton, Cecil Laurens!” Molly cried, indignantly. “I did not meet him that night, nor any night. Morover, he is no lover of mine. I never had a lover in my life!”
“You have one now!” Cecil Laurens said softly, but Molly did not comprehend.
“I have not!” she declared angrily. “Poor Johnny came here because he thought that my step-sister was here. They have been engaged two years, and he can not get a salary large enough to support them, and Lou—I mean my sister Molly,” crimsoning, “is angry and wants to break it off. And I promised to beg her to make it up with the poor fellow, and to write to him, so there!”
“That step-sister again! It is the first time I ever was glad to hear her name!” exclaimed Cecil, radiant. “Oh, Louise, how glad I am that he was her lover and not yours!”
“What have you got to do with it any way?” she demanded pettishly.
“I love you!” he replied, audaciously.