CHAPTER XXXVII.
Molly looked keenly at the hesitating maid.
“‘It is no wonder’—well, go on,” she said, sharply.
“I beg madame’s pardon, I meant no harm, but I was about to say it was no wonder that Monsieur Cecil admires Miss Barry so much,” answered Florine, deprecatingly.
Molly looked straight into the shifting treacherous black eyes.
“Does my husband admireher?” she asked, in a strange voice.
“La, madame, how should I know? It was but a slip of the tongue. I only judged by appearances,” Florine said, tossing her smart head with its cap and ribbons.
Molly pointed at the package of books.
“Take them away and put them into the fire,” she said, furiously, her heart swelling with jealousy. “I will have nothing to do with the books or the sender!”
“Oui, madame,” said Florine, courtesying.
She took up the books and went out quickly.
Cecil was still lingering in the hall, perhaps awaiting some message from his wife after his overture of kindness. Florine went up to him with a hypocritically sorry face.
“Monsieur, I do not think Madame Laurens is herself quite this morning. She told me to put the books into the fire.”
Cecil stared in incredulous amazement.
“Nonsense, she could not have said that,” he exclaimed.
“Mais, oui, monsieur, I speak her very words. ‘Take them away and put them into the fire, I will have nothing to do with them or the sender,’ she said.”
“Really, Florine?”
“Monsieur, I swear by the saints those were madame’s words. Ask her if you doubt me.”
She had such an air of truth and injured innocence that he believed her, and his face grew so stern and pale that she was frightened.
But he took the package from her hands without a word, and carried it to his room.
“I will keep them here always to remind me of this rebuff when I feel tempted again to show her any kindness,” he said, sternly.
And when Molly made her appearance at dinner that evening he was as cold as ice, merely noticing her presence by a slight sarcastic bow.
The two school girls dined at home that evening by permission of their teacher, and their eager chatter and merry laughter filled up the pauses that would otherwise have been so embarrassing. One of the girls, Nina by name, was of the same age as Molly, the other one was sixteen, and her sweet name, Dora, had been shortened to Dot.
Nina and Dot were pretty, impulsive girls, warm-hearted to a fault, and although they had been told Molly’s story they did not resent it as did the older members of the family. They thought and declared that it was too “romantic for anything.”
When they left their father and brother over the wine and walnuts they each slipped an arm in Molly’sand led her to the parlor and to a sofa, where they placed her between them.
“Now, let us have a real good chat,” said Dot. “School closes next month, you know, and then we are all going back to the United States. Dear old Maple Shade and black mammy, I do really long to see them again, don’t you, Nina?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Are you glad we are going home, Lou—oh, I beg pardon, I forgot,” Dot cried, tenderly, as the hot flush mounted to Molly’s cheek.
“It does not matter,” the latter said, sadly, and Nina exclaimed:
“Do you know I think that your middle name—Ernestine—is beautiful? May we not call you by that? It is softer, I think, than the other.”
“As you please,” Molly answered, and Mrs. Laurens said, coldly:
“I think it will be a good idea, Nina. Ernestine is a more aristocratic name. I’m glad you suggested it.”
Then Dot began again:
“Are you glad, Ernestine, that we are going home so soon?”
“I did not know we were going,” she replied, faintly, wondering if Cecil was going to send her home alone.
Mrs. Laurens moved a little nearer, and said, in her usual cold tones:
“It is principally on your account we are going, that your child may be born at Maple Shade, where all the Laurens family have been born for almost a century.”
Cecil in entering noiselessly that moment caught the words clearly. He could not repress a quick glance at his wife.
He saw the pale face flush to hot, burning crimson one moment, then grow pale and sorrowful again as she put up one hand to shield its emotion from Mrs. Laurens’ cold eyes.
She was about to speak, but at that moment she caught the inquisitive glance of his eyes and the words died unuttered on her lips.
At that moment the loud ringing of the door-bell announced visitors. In a minute more the Barrys were announced.
Louise all in opera dress with diamonds on her neck and in her hair looked radiant. Mrs. Barry in gray satin and ostrich plumes was sulky.
“I shall be glad to get Louise married off my hands,” she exclaimed, tartly. “Here I am dragged out of the house every evening to balls and operas at my time of life until I am nearly dead. Mrs. Laurens, I think I shall have to ask you to chaperone my giddy niece!”
“Cruel Aunt Thalia!” cried Louise, affecting to take it all as a joke.
Then she caught sight of Molly, and after a moment’s hesitation sailed forward.
“My dear girl, and so you are well enough to be out at last,” she exclaimed, sweetly, holding out her jeweled hand.
Molly did not look at the offered hand, did not open her lips, did not even bend her head. She was looking at old Mrs. Barry who did indeed appear older and grayer than ever with new lines of care and age on her homely face.
The old shame and pain at deceiving the aged gentlewoman swelled again at Molly’s heart as it had done a year ago at Ferndale. She rose impetuously, pushedaside Louise with a touch of her slender hand, and went quickly over to Mrs. Barry’s side.
The old lady looked up angrily, but Molly did not shrink as she would have done at Cecil’s frown. She stood before the grim old dame like a child that has done wrong, and exclaimed impetuously like a child:
“I am sorry I deceived you, Mrs. Barry, I was sorry all the time. Sometimes I could hardly go on with the deceit. Won’t you please forgive me?”
Louise had followed her across the room. She saw Mrs. Barry’s hard face change and soften, and gave a gasp of terror. Then, affecting not to have noticed Molly’s words, she exclaimed:
“Come, Aunt Thalia; we shall be late for the opera. Excuse us, Molly, but we only came by to see how you were, and as you are so much better, we must hurry. Good-bye all;” and without ceremony she hustled Mrs. Barry past Molly, and out of the room.
Molly stood gazing after them like one dazed, until she felt a hand touch her shoulder. It was Cecil’s father, who said, low but firmly:
“Sit down, child, and do not look so frightened.”
He pushed her gently into a chair, the same chair that Mrs. Barry had sat in, and she remained there quietly a moment; then, feeling their wondering, disapproving glances burning her sensitive face, she rose to go. She had an impression that Cecil opened the door for her, that he stood gazing after her as she moved down the hall. She felt the scorn of his glance keenly.
“Surely I did not do wrong,” she thought. “I had acted badly to that poor old lady, and I thought I must ask her forgiveness; but Louise hustled her out beforeshe could answer me. She does not want her to forgive me; she does not want me to have a single friend.”
She opened her door and went in, thinking sadly that, only for her promise to Doctor Charley, she would not try to mingle with the family again.
“They hate me—all of them; they will never forgive me for being the daughter of an actress, instead of a Barry. Perhaps if they knew that my father was Sir Edward Trueheart’s son, they would respect me more. But I shall not tell them. I can be proud, too; and if they can not love me and forgive me for myself, I will keep my pleasant secret.”
Florine looked at her narrowly.
“Madame, I can not help thinking you look worse every time you leave your room. I am sure you are not strong enough to bear company,” she said, with pretended solicitude.
“I believe you are right, Florine,” Molly answered, with sudden bitterness, and she resolved that she would not go among them again as long as she could help it.
Florine fostered the resolve. She made Molly believe she was sicker than she was. She excluded every one from the room, declaring that her mistress was nervous and could not bear company. Even the Truehearts were, without Molly’s knowledge, denied admittance.
Her craft had a different effect from what she intended.
The report of Molly’s illness began to soften Cecil’s obdurate heart.
His love, which had been smothered but not destroyed by the discovery of her falsity, began to burnagain with its pristine warmth and ardor, augmented by sympathy with her illness, loneliness, and her delicate condition of health.
He tried at first to beat down this reviving tenderness, this exquisite pity, and to keep up the old feud; but the memory of the past, when they had loved each other so well, pleaded now for the lonely, humbled, neglected wife.
“How happy we were, and how quickly the time passed. I shall never be so happy again,” he said to himself, sadly, and there came over him, in the words of the poet, a yearning
“To be friends; to be reconciled.”
“To be friends; to be reconciled.”
“To be friends; to be reconciled.”
“To be friends; to be reconciled.”
“I am foolish even to think of her,” he muttered, impatiently. “But she looks so sad, so ill—what if she should die?”
That thought frightened him, and showed him first with what a passion he loved the frail creature who had deceived him.
He went to his mother and asked her advice.
“Is it not time for me to forgive that poor girl? What if she should die, mother?” he said.
“She will not die. There is no such good luck,” Mrs. Laurens said, bitterly.
“For shame, mother! I did not know you could be cruel enough to wish for any one’s death,” he exclaimed, and flung out of the room hurt and indignant.