burst its cocoon and become a butterfly--a butterfly with a charming
face and a most charitable disposition and considerable property!"
Margaret thanked him with a smile, and began to think wistfully of the
Ladies' League accounts. Still, he was a good man; and she endeavoured
to persuade herself that she considered his goodness to atone for his
flabbiness and his fleshiness and his interminable verbosity--which
she didn't.
Mr. Jukesbury sighed.
"A naughty world," said he, with pathos--"a very naughty world, which
really does not deserve the honour of including you in its census
reports. Yet I dare say it has the effrontery to put you down in the
tax-lists; it even puts me down--me, an humble worker in the vineyard,
with both hands set to the plough. And if I don't pay up it sells
me out. A very naughty world, indeed! I dare say," Mr. Jukesbury
observed, raising his eyes--not toward heaven, but toward the Eagle,
"that its conduct, as the poet says, creates considerable distress
among the angels. I don't know. I am not acquainted with many angels.
My wife was an angel, but she is now a lifeless form. She has been for
five years. I erected a tomb to her at considerable personal expense,
but I don't begrudge it--no, I don't begrudge it, Miss Hugonin. She
was very hard to live with. But she was an angel, and angels are rare.
Miss Hugonin," said Petheridge Jukesbury, with emphasis, "
you
are an
angel."
"Oh, dear,
dear
!" said Margaret, to herself; "I do wish I'd gone to
bed directly after dinner!"
Above them the Eagle brooded.
"Surely," he breathed, "you must know what I have so long wanted to
tell you--"
"No," said Margaret, "and I don't want to know, please. You make me
awfully tired, and I don't care for you in the
least
. Now, you let
go my hand--let go at once!"
He detained her. "You are an angel," he insisted--"an angel with a
large property. I love you, Margaret! Be mine!--be my blushing bride,
I entreat you! Your property is far too large for an angel to look
after. You need a man of affairs. I am a man of affairs. I am
forty-five, and have no bad habits. My press-notices are, as a rule,
favourable, my eloquence is accounted considerable, and my dearest
aspiration is that you will comfort my declining years. I might add
that I adore you, but I think I mentioned that before. Margaret, will
you be my blushing bride?"
"No!" said Miss Hugonin emphatically. "No, you tipsy old beast--no!"
There was a rustle of skirts. The door slammed, and the philanthropist
was left alone on the terrace.
XI
In the living-hall Margaret came upon Hugh Van Orden, who was
searching in one of the alcoves for a piece of music that Adèle
Haggage wanted and had misplaced.
The boy greeted her miserably.
"Miss Hugonin," he lamented, "you're awfully hard on me."
"I am sorry," said Margaret, "that you consider me discourteous to a
guest in my own house." Oh, I grant you Margaret was in a temper now.
"It isn't that," he protested; "but I never see you alone. And I've
had something to tell you."
"Yes?" said she, coldly.
He drew near to her. "Surely," he breathed, "you must know what I have
long wanted to tell you--"
"Yes, I should think I
did
!" said Margaret, "and if you dare tell
me a word of it I'll never speak to you again. It's getting a little
monotonous. Good-night, Mr. Van Orden."
Half way up the stairs she paused and ran lightly back.
"Oh, Hugh, Hugh!" she said, contritely, "I was unpardonably rude. I'm
sorry, dear, but it's quite impossible. You are a dear, cute little
boy, and I love you--but not that way. So let's shake hands, Hugh, and
be friends! And then you can go and play with Adèle." He raised her
hand to his lips. He really was a nice boy.
"But, oh, dear!" said Margaret, when he had gone; "what horrid
creatures men are, and what a temper I'm in, and what a vexatious
place the world is! I wish I were a pauper! I wish I had never been
born! And I wish--and I wish I had those League papers fixed! I'll
do it to-night! I'm sure I need something tranquillising, like
assessments and decimal places and unpaid dues, to keep me from
screaming
. I hate them all--all three of them--as badly as I do
him!
"
Thereupon she blushed, for no apparent reason, and went to her own
rooms in a frame of mind that was inexcusable, but very becoming. Her
cheeks burned, her eyes flashed with a brighter glow that was gem-like
and a little cruel, and her chin tilted up defiantly. Margaret had a
resolute chin, a masculine chin. I fancy that it was only at the last
moment that Nature found it a thought too boyish and modified it with
a dimple--a very creditable dimple, by the way, that she must have
been really proud of. That ridiculous little dint saved it, feminised
it.
Altogether, then, she swept down upon the papers of the Ladies' League
for the Edification of the Impecunious with very much the look of a
diminutive Valkyrie--a Valkyrie of unusual personal attractions, you
understand--
en route
for the battle-field and a little, a very
little eager and expectant of the strife.
Subsequently, "Oh, dear,
dear
!" said she, amid a feverish rustling
of papers; "the whole world is out of sorts to-night! I never
did
know how much seven times eight is, and I hate everybody, and I've
left that list of unpaid dues in Uncle Fred's room, and I've got to go
after it, and I don't want to! Bother those little suitors of mine!"
Miss Hugonin rose, and went out from her own rooms, carrying a bunch
of keys, across the hallway to the room in which Frederick R. Woods
had died. It was his study, you may remember. It had been little
used since his death, but Margaret kept her less important papers
there--the overflow, the flotsam of her vast philanthropic and
educational correspondence.
And there she found Billy Woods.
XII
His back was turned to the door as she entered. He was staring at a
picture beside the mantel--a portrait of Frederick R. Woods--and his
eyes when he wheeled about were wistful.
Then, on a sudden, they lighted up as if they had caught fire from
hers, and his adoration flaunted crimson banners in his cheeks, and
his heart, I dare say, was a great blaze of happiness. He loved her,
you see; when she entered a room it really made a difference to this
absurd young man. He saw a great many lights, for instance, and heard
music. And accordingly, he laughed now in a very contented fashion.
"I wasn't burglarising," said he--"that is, not exactly. I ought to
have asked your permission, I suppose, before coming here, but I
couldn't find you, and--and it was rather important. You see," Mr.
Woods continued, pointing to the great carved desk. "I happened to
speak of this desk to the Colonel to-night. We--we were talking of
Uncle Fred's death, and I found out, quite by accident, that it hadn't
been searched since then--that is, not thoroughly. There are secret
drawers, you see; one here," and he touched the spring that threw
it open, "and the other on this side. There is--there is nothing of
importance in them; only receipted bills and such. The other drawer is
inside that centre compartment, which is locked. The Colonel wouldn't
come. He said it was all foolishness, and that he had a book he wanted
to read. So he sent me after what he called my mare's nest. It isn't,
you see--no, not quite, not quite," Mr. Woods murmured, with an odd
smile, and then laughed and added, lamely: "I--I suppose I'm the only
person who knew about it."
Mr. Woods's manner was a thought strange. He stammered a little in
speaking; he laughed unnecessarily; and Margaret could see that his
hands trembled. Taking him all in all, you would have sworn he was
repressing some vital emotion. But he did not seem unhappy--no, not
exactly unhappy. He was with Margaret, you see.
"Oh, you beauty!" his meditations ran.
He had some excuse. In the soft, rosy twilight of the room--the study
at Selwoode is panelled in very dark oak, and the doors and windows
are screened with crimson hangings--her parti-coloured red-and-yellow
gown might have been a scrap of afterglow left over from an unusually
fine sunset. In a word, Miss Hugonin was a very quaint and colourful
and delectable figure as she came a little further into the room. Her
eyes shone like blue stars, and her hair shone--there must be pounds
of it, Billy thought--and her very shoulders, plump, flawless,
ineffable, shone with the glow of an errant cloud-tatter that is just
past the track of dawn, and is therefore neither pink nor white, but
manages somehow to combine the best points of both colours.
"Ah, indeed?" said Miss Hugonin. Her tone imparted a surprising degree
of chilliness to this simple remark.
"No," she went on, very formally, "this is not a private room; you owe
me no apology for being here. Indeed, I am rather obliged to you, Mr.
Woods, for none of us knew of these secret drawers. Here is the key to
the central compartment, if you will be kind enough to point out the
other one. Dear, dear!" Margaret concluded, languidly, "all this is
quite like a third-rate melodrama. I haven't the least doubt you will
discover a will in there in your favour, and be reinstated as the
long-lost heir and all that sort of thing. How tiresome that will be
for me, though."
She was in a mood to be cruel to-night. She held out the keys to
him, in a disinterested fashion, and dropped them daintily into his
outstretched palm, just as she might have given a coin to an unusually
grimy mendicant. But the tips of her fingers grazed his hand.
That did the mischief. Her least touch was enough to set every nerve
in his body a-tingle. "Peggy!" he said hoarsely, as the keys jangled
to the floor. Then Mr. Woods drew a little nearer to her and said
"Peggy, Peggy!" in a voice that trembled curiously, and appeared to
have no intention of saying anything further.
Indeed, words would have seemed mere tautology to any one who could
have seen his eyes. Margaret looked into them for a minute, and her
own eyes fell before their blaze, and her heart--very foolishly--stood
still for a breathing-space. Subsequently she recalled the fact
that he was a fortune-hunter, and that she despised him, and also
observed--to her surprise and indignation--that he was holding her
hand and had apparently been doing so for some time. You may believe
it, that she withdrew that pink-and-white trifle angrily enough.
"Pray don't be absurd, Mr. Woods," said she.
Billy caught up the word. "Absurd!" he echoed--"yes, that describes
what I've been pretty well, doesn't it, Peggy? I
was
absurd when I
let you send me to the right-about four years ago. I realised that
to-day the moment I saw you. I should have held on like the very
grimmest death; I should have bullied you into marrying me, if
necessary, and in spite of fifty Anstruthers. Oh, yes, I know that
now. But I was only a boy then, Peggy, and so I let a boy's pride come
between us. I know now there isn't any question of pride where you
are concerned--not any question of pride nor of any silly
misunderstandings, nor of any uncle's wishes, nor of anything but just
you, Peggy. It's just you that I care for now--just you."
"Ah!" Margaret cried, with a swift intake of the breath that was
almost a sob. He had dared, after all; oh, it was shameless, sordid!
And yet (she thought dimly), how dear that little quiver in his voice
had been were it unplanned!--and how she could have loved this big,
eager boy were he not the hypocrite she knew him!
She'd
show him! But somehow--though it was manifestly what he
deserved--she found she couldn't look him in the face while she did
it.
So she dropped her eyes to the floor and waited for a moment of tense
silence. Then, "Am I to consider this a proposal, Mr. Woods?" she
asked, in muffled tones.
Billy stared. "Yes," said he, very gravely, after an interval.
"You see," she explained, still in the same dull voice, "you phrased
it so vaguely I couldn't well be certain. You don't propose very well,
Mr. Woods. I--I've had opportunities to become an authority on such
matters, you see, since I've been rich. That makes a difference,
doesn't it? A great many men are willing to marry me now who wouldn't
have thought of such a thing, say--say, four years ago. So I've had
some experience. Oh, yes, three--three
persons
have offered to marry
me for my money earlier in this very evening--before you did, Mr.
Woods. And, really, I can't compliment you on your methods, Mr. Woods;
they are a little vague, a little abrupt, a little transparent, don't
you think?"
"Peggy!" he cried, in a frightened whisper. He could not believe, you
see, that it was the woman he loved who was speaking.
And for my part, I admit frankly that at this very point, if ever in
her life, Margaret deserved a thorough shaking.
"Dear me," she airily observed, "I'm sure I've said nothing out of the
way. I think it speaks very well for you that you're so fond of your
old home--so anxious to regain it at
any
cost. It's quite touching,
Mr. Woods."
She raised her eyes toward his. I dare say she was suffering as much
as he. But women consider it a point of honour to smile when they