well he falls upon the buttered side--or something to that effect. I
hate poetry, anyhow--it's so mushy!"
And this from the Miss Hugonin who a week ago was interested in the
French
decadents
and partial to folk-songs from the Romaic! I think
we may fairly deduce that the reign of Felix Kennaston is over. The
king is dead; and Margaret's thoughts and affections and her very
dreams have fallen loyally to crying, Long live the king--his Majesty
Billy the First.
"Oh!" said Margaret, with an indignant gasp, what time her eyebrows
gesticulated, "I think Billy Woods is a meddlesome
piece
!--that's
what I think! Does he suppose that after waiting all this time for the
only man in the world who can keep me interested for four hours on
a stretch and send my pulse up to a hundred and make me feel those
thrilly thrills I've always longed for--does he suppose that now
I'm going to pay any attention to his silly notions about wills and
things? He's abominably selfish! I shan't!"
Margaret moved across the room, shimmering, rustling, glittering like
a fairy in a pantomime. Then, to consider matters at greater ease, she
curled up on a divan in much the attitude of a tiny Cleopatra riding
at anchor on a carpeted Cydnus.
"Billy thinks I want the money--bless his boots! He thinks I'm a
stuck-up, grasping, purse-proud little pig, and he has every right
to think so after the way I talked to him, though he ought to have
realised I was in a temper about Kathleen Saumarez and have paid no
attention to what I said. And he actually attempted to reason with
me! If he'd had
any
consideration for my feelings, he'd have simply
smacked me and made me behave--however, he's a man, and all men are
selfish, and
she's
a skinny old thing, and I
never
had any use for
her. Bother her lectures! I never understood a word of them, and I
don't believe she does, either. Women's clubs are
all
silly, and I
think the women who belong to them are
all
bold-faced jigs! If
they had any sense, they'd stay at home and take care of the babies,
instead of messing with philanthropy, and education, and theosophy,
and anything else that they can't make head or tail of. And they call
that being cultured! Culture!--I hate the word! I don't want to be
cultured--I want to be happy."
This, you will observe, was, in effect, a sweeping recantation of
every ideal Margaret had ever boasted. But Love is a canny pedagogue,
and of late he had instructed Miss Hugonin in a variety of matters.
"Before God, loving you as I do, I wouldn't marry you for all the
wealth in the world," she repeated, with a little shiver. "Even in his
delirium he said that. But I
know
now that he loves me. And I know
that I adore him. And if this were a sensible world, I'd walk right in
there and explain things and ask him to marry me, and then it wouldn't
matter in the least who had the money. But I can't, because it
wouldn't be proper. Bother propriety!--but bothering it doesn't do
any good. As long as I have the money, Billy will never come near me,
because of the idiotic way I talked to him. And he's bent on my taking
the money simply because it happens to belong to me. I consider that
a very silly reason. I'll
make
Billy Woods take the money, and
I'll make him see that I'm
not
a little pig, and that I trust him
implicitly. And I think I'm quite justified in using a little--we'll
call it diplomacy--because otherwise he'd go back to France or some
other objectionable place, and we'd both be
very
unhappy."
Margaret began to laugh softly. "I've given him my word that I'll
do nothing further in the matter till he gets well. And I won't.
But
----"
Miss Hugonin rose from the divan with a gesture of sweeping back her
hair. And then--oh, treachery of tortoise-shell! oh, the villainy of
those little gold hair-pins!--the fat twisted coils tumbled loose
and slowly unravelled themselves, and her pink-and-white face,
half-eclipsed, showed a delectable wedge between big, odourful,
crinkly, ponderous masses of hair. It clung about her, a heavy cloak,
all shimmering gold like the path of sunset over the June sea. And
Margaret, looking at herself in the mirror, laughed, and appeared
perfectly content with what she saw there.
"But," said she, "if the Fates are kind to me--and I sometimes think
I
have
a pull with the gods--I'll make you happy, Billy Woods, in
spite of yourself."
The mirror flashed back a smile. Margaret was strangely interested in
the mirror.
"She has ringlets in her hair," sang Margaret happily--a low,
half-hushed little song. She held up a strand of it to demonstrate
this fact.
"There's a dimple in her chin"--and, indeed, there was. And a dimple
in either cheek, too.
For a long time afterward she continued to smile at the mirror. I am
afraid Kathleen Saumarez was right. She was a vain little cat, was
Margaret.
But, barring a rearrangement of the cosmic scheme, I dare say maids
will continue to delight in their own comeliness so long as mirrors
speak truth. Let us, then, leave Miss Hugonin to this innocent
diversion. The staidest of us are conscious of a brisk elation at
sight of a pretty face; and surely no considerate person will deny its
owner a portion of the pleasure that daily she accords the beggar at
the street-corner.
XXXIII
We are credibly informed that Time travels in divers paces with divers
persons--the statement being made by a lady who may be considered to
speak with some authority, having triumphantly withstood the ravages
of Chronos for a matter of three centuries. But I doubt if even the
insolent sweet wit of Rosalind could have devised a fitting simile for
Time's gait at Selwoode those five days that Billy lay abed. Margaret
could not but marvel at the flourishing proportion attained by the
hours in those sunlit spring days; and at dinner, say, her thoughts
harking back to luncheon, recalled it by a vigorous effort as an
affair of the dim yester-years--a mere blurred memory, faint and vague
as a Druidical tenet or a Merovingian squabble.
But the time passed for all that; and eventually--it was just before
dusk--she came, with Martin Jeal's permission, into the room where
Billy was. And beside the big open fireplace, where a wood fire
chattered companionably, sat a very pallid Billy, a rather thin Billy,
with a great many bandages about his head.
You may depend upon it, Margaret was not looking her worst that
afternoon. By actual count, Célestine had done her hair six times
before reaching an acceptable result.
And, "Yes, Célestine, you may get out that pale yellow dress. No,
beautiful, the one with the black satin stripes on the bodice--because
I don't want my hair cast completely in the shade, do I? Now, let me
see--black feather, gloves, large pompadour,
and
a sweet smile. No,
I don't want a fan--that's a Lydia Languish trade-mark. And
two
silk
skirts rustling like the deadest leaves imaginable. Yes, I think that
will do. And if you can't hook up my dress without pecking and pecking
at me like that, I'll probably go stark,
staring
crazy, Célestine,
and then you'll be sorry. No, it isn't a bit tight--are you perfectly
certain there's no powder behind my ears, Célestine? Now,
please
try
to fasten the collar without pulling all my hair down. Ye-es, I think
that will do, Célestine. Well, it's very nice of you to say so, but I
don't believe I much fancy myself in yellow, after all."
Equipped and armed for conquest, then, she came into the room with a
very tolerable affectation of unconcern. Altogether, it was a quite
effective entrance.
"I've been for a little drive, Billy," she mendaciously informed him.
"That's how you happen to have the opportunity of seeing me in all my
nice new store-clothes. Aren't you pleased, Billy? No, don't you dare
get up!" Margaret stood across the room, peeling off her gloves and
regarding him on the whole with disapproval. "They've been starving
you," she pensively reflected. "As soon as that Jeal person goes away,
I shall have six little beefsteaks cooked and see to it personally
that you eat every one of them. And I'll cook a cherry pie--quick as
a cat can wink her eye--won't I, Billy? That Jeal person is a decided
nuisance," said Miss Hugonin, as she stabbed her hat rather viciously
with two hat-pins and then laid it aside on a table.
Billy Woods was looking up at her forlornly. It hurt her to see the
love and sorrow in his face. But oh, how avidly his soul drank in the
modulations of that longed-for voice--a voice that was honey and gold
and velvet and all that is most sweet and rich and soft in the world.
"Peggy," said he, plunging at the heart of things, "where's that
will?"
Miss Hugonin kicked forward a little foot-stool to the other side of
the fire, and sat down and complacently smoothed out her skirts.
"I knew it!" said she. "I never saw such a one-idea'd person in my
life. I knew that would be the very first thing you would ask for,
Billy Woods, because you're such an obstinate, stiffnecked
donkey
.
Very well!"--and Margaret tossed her head--"here's Uncle Fred's will,
then, and you can do
exactly
as you like with it, and
now
I hope
you're satisfied!" And Margaret handed him the long envelope which lay
in her lap.
Mr. Woods promptly opened it.
"That," Miss Hugonin commented, "is what I term very unladylike
behaviour on your part."
"You evidently don't trust me, Billy Woods. Very well! I don't care!
Read it carefully--very carefully, and make quite sure I haven't been
dabbling in forgery of late--besides, it's so good for your eyes, you
know, after being hit over the head," Margaret suggested, cheerfully.
Billy chuckled. "That's true," said he, "but I know Uncle Fred's fist
well enough without having to read it all. Candidly, Peggy, I
had
to
look at it, because I--well, I didn't quite trust you, Peggy. And
now we're going to burn this interesting paper, you and I." "Wait!"
Margaret cried. "Ah, wait, just a moment, Billy!"
He glanced up at her in surprise, the paper still poised in his hand.
She sat with head drooped forward, her masculine little chin thrust
out eagerly, her candid eyes transparently appraising him.
"Why are you going to burn it, Billy?"
"Why?" Mr. Woods, repeated, thoughtfully. "Well, for a variety of
reasons. First is, that Uncle Fred really did leave his money to you,
and burning this is the only way of making sure you get it. Why, I
thought you wanted me to burn it! Last time I saw you--"
"I was in a temper," said Margaret, haughtily. "You ought to have seen
that."
"Yes, I--er--noticed it," Mr. Woods admitted, with some dryness; "but
it wasn't only temper. You've grown accustomed to the money. You'd
miss it now--miss the pleasure it gives you, miss the power it gives
you. You'd never be content to go back to the old life now. Why,
Peggy, you yourself told me you thought money the greatest thing in
the world! It has changed you, Peggy, this--ah, well!" said Billy, "we
won't talk about that. I'm going to burn it because that's the only
honourable thing to do. Ready, Peggy?"
"It may be honourable, but it's
extremely
silly," Margaret
temporised, "and for my part, I'm very, very glad God had run out of a
sense of honour when He created the woman."
"Phrases don't alter matters. Ready, Peggy?"
"Ah, no, phrases don't alter matters!" she assented, with a quick lift
of speech. "You're going to destroy that will, Billy Woods, simply
because you think I'm a horrid, mercenary, selfish
pig
. You think I
couldn't give up the money--you think I couldn't be happy without it.
Well, you have every right to think so, after the way I've behaved.
But why not tell me that is the real reason?"
Billy raised his hand in protest. "I--I think you might miss it," he
conceded. "Yes, I think you would miss it."
"Listen!" said Margaret, quickly. "The money is yours now--by my act.
You say you--care for me. If I am the sort of woman you think me--I
don't say I am, and I don't say I'm not--but thinking me that sort of
woman, don't you think I'd--I'd marry you for the asking if you kept
the money? Don't you think you're losing every chance of me by burning
that will? Oh, I'm not standing on conventionalities now! Don't you
think that, Billy?"
She was tempting him to the uttermost; and her heart was sick with
fear lest he might yield. This was the Eagle's last battle; and
recreant Love fought with the Eagle against poor Billy, who had only
his honour to help him.
Margaret's face was pale as she bent toward him, her lips parted a
little, her eyes glinting eerily in the firelight. The room was dark
now save in the small radius of its amber glow; beyond that was
darkness where panels and brasses blinked.
"Yes," said Billy, gravely--"forgive me if I'm wrong, dear, but--I
do think that. But you see you don't care for me, Peggy. In the
summer-house I thought for a moment--ah, well, you've shown in a
hundred ways that you don't care--and I wouldn't have you come to me,