Slighted love or, At her heart's expense
With a cold excuse, she left the triumphant woman and retired to her
own room, to sit alone by the window and watch the sea and muse upon
her own loneliness.
The weather was very warm for the raw climate of Massachusetts. The
last days of summer were most balmy and beautiful. It was an ideal
night for the moonlight party. The night was calm and clear, and the
stars were already sparkling through the purple twilight haze, and
beginning to mirror themselves in the heavy sea, but it lacked two
hours yet to moonrise.
A sob rose in Italy’s throat as she pictured the gay party on the beach
just two miles away, enjoying themselves, while she was so sad and
lonely here in the window.
She wondered if Mr. Murray was there yet, and what he would say to her
absence. Would he approve of his mother’s arbitrary decision?
As she pictured him by the side of Alys Audenreid, laughing and
talking, a strange sense of loss and desolation swelled her heart. She
bent her head on her hand and wept wildly.
A quick step came along the hall to her door, paused, and then there
was a rap twice repeated, for Italy’s bursting sobs drowned it.
A voice spoke clearly outside:
“Italy, will you please come to the door? I wish to speak to you.”
She caught the voice, the words, and with a joyful heart-throb sprang
to open the door.
When Francis Murray spoke, Italy forgot her tears and her
sorrow--forgot that she was sitting in the dark, forlorn and wretched.
The light from the hall streamed in upon her pale, tear-wet cheeks and
quivering red mouth, and touched him with keenest pain, for before
he opened the door he had caught the sound of her bursting sobs.
Involuntarily he caught her hand and drew her up close to him, looking
at her in deep distress.
“In tears, my--child!” he exclaimed huskily. “Are you ill, or--only
sad?”
She drew back quickly from him, ashamed of the tears she had forgotten
in the joy of his coming.
“It’s nothing, nothing!” she answered. “You--you--think me a great
baby, sitting up here in the dark crying over a little disappointment,”
and she brushed away the tears with a furtive hand.
But something in his deep glance made her feel that he had a silent
sympathy for her grief.
“Poor little one! Yes, I know how you feel,” he said warmly. “But I
have come to take you to the party. As soon as I joined them and found
you were not there, I came away to bring you.”
“Oh, how good you are!” she cried gratefully, then thrilled with a
guilty pang. _She_ to call Francis Murray good! Was she turning traitor
to that dear, loved mother who had sobbed beneath the blossoming
lime-trees:
“Oh, my love, my love, how cruel Fate has been to us!”
He could not tell what she was thinking; he only heard her gracious
words, and thrilled with a painful delight.
“I am fully repaid for coming now; so get ready, and I will be waiting
for you down-stairs,” he said kindly, moving a little away and fighting
down an impulse almost stronger than his will to catch the slender form
in his arms and press the lovely, grieved face against his heart.
“Oh, I must not go. Your mother----” she began falteringly.
“Yes, I know; Alexie told me that my mother had taken a notion it was
not prudent for you to go out. But take some wraps with you, and you’ll
be all right. I will be fixing it up with my mother while you are
dressing.”
He smiled at her--a smile so deep, so kind, it seemed to draw the
heart from her breast. Then he turned away, and Italy closed the door
and turned up the light--her brain whirling.
“What is this? What has come to me?” she whispered to herself, in a
sort of rapturous terror. She sank on her knees and hid her burning
face against the bed, whispering painfully:
“I--I--am getting to like him very much. I was so glad when he came,
so glad that he thought of me, wished for me! And how strange that he
should be kind to me, knowing what he does, suspecting what he does. He
has a noble nature, to be so kind to me when he must despise me in his
heart! But no, it was not hatred that looked out of his beautiful eyes.
Does he ever look at Alys like that, I wonder? Ah, Heaven, what am I
dreaming? I must not, must not go mad! For this is _madness_! Heaven
help me, help me!”
She rose up and began to make her toilet for the moonlight party. Some
reckless mood overcame her, a longing to look fair in the eyes of
this man she ought to hate--to eclipse blue-eyed Alys, who had wished
her not to come. She chose an exquisite dress--warm, yet elegant--a
light-blue broadcloth embroidered in silver, and clasped at the throat
by the pure fire of a twinkling diamond star. She pinned back her dark
curls with a silver butterfly, with diamond eyes, and placed on her
head a bewitching cap, all blue and silver. Then she smiled at herself
in the mirror.
“This dress will be very pretty in the moonlight,” she said, and ran
down to Mr. Murray.
He was waiting for her in the drawing-room--alone.
“Mother felt indisposed--so she has retired,” he said, not choosing to
mention that there had been a scene, Mrs. Murray fighting bitterly for
her own way, and--getting vanquished by her son’s calm determination.
He loved his mother, he yielded to her in many things, but while she
argued there was one thing that haunted him--the grieving face of
Italy, with its tearful eyes and quivering red lips, as it had appeared
on the threshold of the dark room where she had been weeping alone.
“Poor little one, breaking her heart all alone without a friend,” he
thought indignantly, and stood firm to his determination.
Nay, more, when she had retired in bitter anger he went out and
gathered some flowers for Italy--fragrant white carnations--and gave
them to her when she appeared, radiant in her beauty, but with her
brilliant eyes a little misty still with the tears that she had shed.
“All ready?”--smiling.
“Oh, yes.”
“Come, then; the carriage is waiting.”
And he drew her hand through his arm and led her out.
The wheels seemed grinding Mrs. Murray’s heart as they crunched on the
gravel, bearing her son away with the beautiful girl who had triumphed
for this time over her foes.
A proud woman seldom forgives a defeat. Mrs. Murray had pitied and
tolerated Italy before, but from this hour she hated her with resentful
rancor.
“She has outwitted me, turned my son’s heart against me, and I will
never forgive her--never!” she muttered. “And what will Mrs. Dunn say
when she sees how the girl sets at naught my authority? She will think
me weak as water. But I will show her, show her yet that though the
girl is related to me, I will cast her off. She shall not disgrace the
name of Murray by bearing it as my son’s wife!”
CHAPTER IX.
ITALY VALE’S SONG.
As the carriage rolled away along the level beach Francis Murray said
amusedly:
“I think you will find the gayest party you ever encountered, Italy.
There are about a dozen of them, and they have taken possession of the
hull of an old wreck washed up last spring upon the beach. The girls
have brought several varieties of musical instruments, and when I came
away they were all singing a glee song with the whole strength of their
lungs. At a little distance away it sounded quite sweet.”
“I should fancy so,” she answered, in that quiet way she always had
with Francis Murray. Sitting there close by his side, she was thrilling
with a strange sense of utter content and peace. She did not feel the
least eagerness to reach the party. She knew too well that no one would
give her a welcome, except Alexie and Ralph.
But the two miles were quickly passed over, and they saw at a little
distance ahead in the starlight the old black hulk of the wrecked ship
and light figures moving about it. Blent with the voice of the sea came
the soft notes of a guitar, and Ralph Allen’s rich tenor voice singing
very sweetly a little song of love and sorrow.
The pathetic last words were dying on the air as Francis Murray gave
Italy his hand to assist her from the carriage. But why did both their
hearts sink so strangely as he released the little fingers? Why did
both sigh in unison? The melody with its sweet refrain had touched them
with audible sadness.
Italy went toward the party a little timidly, as one uncertain of a
welcome, but Alexie had an eager embrace ready.
“You darling, I’m so glad Mr. Murray brought you! Come, I’ve saved
you a seat. Miss Vale, ladies and gentlemen--but I think you’re all
acquainted. The same crowd we had on the yacht, dear. You’re just in
time; the moon will soon be up. You have missed some lovely singing by
not getting here a little sooner. Can’t we have it all over again?”
“No, no!” vociferated all the singers. “It is our turn now. Let Miss
Vale give us a song.”
“Let her rest first,” Francis Murray said, in a voice of quiet
authority. Then he went and stooped over Alys, where she was sulking a
little apart.
“You will give us that pretty little recitation of yours--‘A
Portrait’--will you not?”
He knew that Alys loved him, and he guessed at his mother’s hopes and
plans. He was sorry for the fair, blue-eyed girl who had set her heart
on him only to be disappointed.
Perhaps--if Italy had never come, with her voice like music and her
dusky Oriental eyes--he might in time have grown fond of pretty Alys,
and if he had never discovered what a petty, ignoble soul she had, he
might have married her, but--now all was changed. His heart had proved
traitor to his will. He could never feel for the pretty blonde anything
deeper than pity.
Alys was furious because he had gone back for Italy. She had, indeed,
now given up all hope of winning him, and considered dissimulation no
longer necessary, so she tossed her golden head angrily, and curtly
refused his request.
He turned away from her, and asked her aunt for that sweet little song
she had composed herself, and the lady very willingly complied, though
her voice was too weak and thin to do justice to her little ballad of
love and jealousy.
She had written it at a moment when her fiery heart was consumed with
pain over her lover’s attentions to a beautiful, dark-eyed coquette in
New Orleans, and it was quite meritorious. She did not dream that Percy
Seabright, who listened with such sympathetic eyes, had often given his
convulsed friends a ridiculous parody of her style of rendering the
song.
But Mr. Seabright, although very fond of directing his wit against
other people, was quite vain himself, and responded cordially to the
call upon himself for a recitation, giving one of some length, with
good effect, albeit with rather theatrical style. Then he sat down, and
the girls began to tell ghost-stories and startling dreams.
“Make them stop it--oh, do, they frighten me!” Italy whispered
nervously to Alexie.
“Hush, girls, I don’t like to hear such things!” cried the lovely
blonde, who looked like a piece of Dresden china, so fair, so fragile
was her bright, blonde beauty.
Never were two girls more different at heart than Alys and Alexie, in
spite of their being twins. They looked alike, but there was more soul
in Alexie’s face, and her heart was noble and true, while Alys was
selfish and unprincipled. Neither was there between the two girls the
affection usual between twins. Alexie was always chaffing Alys, and
Alys was always sneering at Alexie. They could not harmonize.
“A song from Miss Vale,” cried several voices, but she drew back
unwillingly.
“Do not refuse them. Every one is expected to contribute to the
amusements of the night,” cried Ralph Allen, putting the guitar-ribbon
over her head. “Please give us that sweet thing you sang for Alexie and
me the other night in the garden among the roses.”
Francis Murray turned quickly. He had never heard Italy sing. He did