Thelma
will!" Lord Algy was quite frightened--his poor brain grew more and more
bewildered.
"Why--Miss Marcia! I say! Look here!" he mumbled in his extremity,
squeezing her little hand tighter and tighter. "What--what _have_ I
done! Good gracious! You--you really mustn't cry, you know--I say--look
here! Marcia! I wouldn't vex you for the world!"
"Yew bet yew wouldn't!" said Marcia, with slow and nasal plaintiveness.
"I like that! That's the way yew English talk. But yew kin hang round a
girl a whole season and make all her folks think badly of
her--and--and--break her heart--yes--that's so!" Here she dried her eyes
with a filmy lace handkerchief. "But don't _yew_ mind me! I kin bear it.
I kin worry through!" And she drew herself up with dignified
resignation--while Lord Algy stared wildly at her, his feeble mind in a
whirl. Presently she smiled most seductively, and looked up with her
dark, tear-wet eyes to the moon.
"I guess it's a good night for lovers!" she said, sinking her ordinary
tone to an almost sweet cadence. "But we're not of that sort, are we?"
The die was cast! She looked so charming--so irresistible, that
Masherville lost all hold over his wits. Scarcely knowing what he did,
he put his arm round her waist. Oh, what a warm, yielding waist! He drew
her close to his breast, at the risk of breaking his most valuable
eyeglass,--and felt his poor weak soul in a quiver of excitement at this
novel and delicious sensation.
"We are--we are of that sort!" he declared courageously. "Why should you
doubt it, Marcia?"
"I believe _yew_ if _yew_ say so," responded Marcia. "But I guess yew're
only fooling me!"
"Fooling you!" Lord Algy was so surprised that he released her quite
suddenly from his embrace--so suddenly that she was a little frightened.
Was she to lose him, after all?
"Marcia," he continued mildly, yet with a certain manliness that did not
ill become him. "I--I hope I am too much of--of a gentleman to--to
'_fool_' any woman, least of all you, after I have, as you say,
compromised you in society by my--my attentions. I--I have very little
to offer you--but such as it is, is yours. In--in short, Marcia, I--I
will try to make you happy if you can--can care for me enough
to--to--marry me!"
Eureka! The game was won! A vision of Masherville Park, Yorkshire, that
"well-timbered and highly desirable residence," as the auctioneers would
describe it, flitted before Marcia's eyes,--and, filled with triumph,
she went straight into her lordly wooer's arms, and kissed him with
thorough transatlantic frankness. She was really grateful to him. Ever
since she had come to England, she had plotted and schemed to become "my
lady" with all the vigor of a purely republican soul,--and now at last,
after hard fighting, she had won the prize for which her soul had
yearned. She would in future belong to the English aristocracy--that
aristocracy which her relatives in New York pretended to despise, yet
openly flattered,--and with her arms round the trapped Masherville's
neck, she foresaw the delight she would have in being toadied by them as
far as toadyism could be made to go.
She is by no means presented to the reader as a favorable type of her
nation--for, of course, every one knows there are plenty of sweet,
unselfish, guileless American girls, who are absolutely incapable of
such unblushing marriage-scheming as hers,--but what else could be
expected from Marcia? Her grandfather, the navvy, had but recently
become endowed with Pilgrim-Father Ancestry,--and her maternal uncle was
a boastful pork-dealer in Cincinnati. It was her bounden duty to ennoble
the family somehow,--surely, if any one had a right to be ambitious, she
was that one! And wild proud dreams of her future passed through her
brain, little Lord Algy quivered meekly under her kiss, and returned it
with all the enthusiasm of which he was capable. One or two faint
misgivings troubled him as to whether he had not been just a little too
hasty in making a serious _bona fide_ offer of marriage to the young
lady by whose Pilgrim progenitors he was not deceived. He knew well
enough what her antecedents were, and a faint shudder crossed him as he
thought of the pork-dealing uncle, who would, by marriage, become _his_
uncle also. He had long been proud of the fact that the house of
Masherville had never, through the course of centuries, been associated,
even in the remotest manner with trade--and now!--
"Yet, after all," he mused, "the Marquis of Londonderry openly
advertises himself as a coal-merchant, and the brothers-in-law of the
Princess Louise are in the wine trade and stock-broking business,--and
all the old knightly blood of England is mingling itself by choice with
that of the lowest commoners--what's the use of my remaining aloof, and
refusing to go with the spirit of the age? Besides, Marcia loves me, and
it's pleasant to be loved!"
Poor Lord Algy. He certainly thought there could be no question about
Marcia's affection for him. He little dreamed that it was to his title
and position she had become so deeply attached,--he could not guess that
after he had married her there would be no more Lord Masherville worth
mentioning--that that individual, once independent, would be entirely
swallowed up and lost in the dashing personality of Lady Masherville,
who would rule her husband as with a rod of iron.
He was happily ignorant of his future, and he walked in the gardens for
some time with his arm round Marcia's waist, in a very placid and
romantic frame of mind. By-and-by he escorted her into the house, where
the dancing was in full swing--and she, with a sweet smile, bidding him
wait for her in the refreshment-room, sought for and found her mother,
who as usual, was seated in a quiet corner with Mrs. Rush-Marvelle,
talking scandal.
"Well?" exclaimed these two ladies, simultaneously and breathlessly.
Marcia's eyes twinkled. "Guess he came in as gently as a lamb!" she
said.
They understood her. Mrs. Rush-Marvelle rose from her chair in her usual
stately and expensive manner.
"I congratulate you, my dear!" kissing Marcia affectionately on both
cheeks. "Bruce Errington would have been a better match,--but, under the
circumstances, Masherville is really about the best thing you could do.
You'll find him quite easy to manage!" This with an air as though she
were recommending a quiet pony.
"That's so!" said Marcia carelessly, "I guess we'll pull together
somehow. Mar-ma," to her mother--"yew kin turn on the news to all the
folks yew meet--the more talk the better! I'm not partial to secrets!"
And with a laugh, she turned away.
Then Mrs. Van Clupp laid her plump, diamond-ringed hand on that of her
dear friend, Mrs. Marvelle.
"You have managed the whole thing beautifully," she said, with a
grateful heave of her ample bosom. "Such a clever creature as you are!"
She dropped her voice to a mysterious whisper. "You shall have that
cheque to-morrow, my love!"
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle pressed her fingers cordially.
"Don't hurry yourself about it!"--she returned in the same confidential
tone. "I dare say you'll want me to arrange the wedding and the 'crush'
afterwards. I can wait till then."
"No, no! that's a separate affair," declared Mrs. Van Clupp. "I must
insist on your taking the promised two hundred. You've been really so
_very_ energetic!"
"Well, I _have_ worked rather hard," said Mrs. Marvelle, with modest
self-consciousness. "You see nowadays it's so difficult to secure
suitable husbands for the girls who ought to have them. Men _are_ such
slippery creatures!"
She sighed--and Mrs. Van Clupp echoed the sigh,--and then these two
ladies,--the nature of whose intimacy may now be understood by the
discriminating reader,--went together to search out those of their
friends and acquaintances who were among the guests that night, and to
announce to them (in the strictest confidence, of course!) the
delightful news of "dear Marcia's engagement." Thelma heard of it, and
went at once to proffer her congratulations to Marcia in person.
"I hope you will be very, very happy!" she said simply, yet with such
grave earnestness in her look and voice that the "Yankee gel" was
touched to a certain softness and seriousness not at all usual with her,
and became so winning and gentle to Lord Algy that he felt in the
seventh heaven of delight with his new position as affianced lover to so
charming a creature.
Meanwhile George Lorimer and Pierre Duprez were chatting together in the
library. It was very quiet there,--the goodly rows of books, the busts
of poets and philosophers,--the large, placid features of the Pallas
Athene crowning an antique pedestal,--the golden pipes of the organ
gleaming through the shadows,--all these gave a solemn, almost sacred
aspect to the room. The noise of the dancing and festivity in the
distant picture-gallery did not penetrate here, and Lorimer sat at the
organ, drawing out a few plaintive strains from its keys as he talked.
"It's your fancy, Pierre," he said slowly. "Thelma may be a little tired
to-day, perhaps--but I know she's perfectly happy."
"I think not so," returned Duprez. "She has not the brightness--the
angel look--_les yeux d'enfant_,--that we beheld in her at that far
Norwegian Fjord. Britta is anxious for her."
Lorimer looked up, and smiled a little.
"Britta? It's always Britta with you, _mon cher_! One would think--" he
paused and laughed.
"Think what you please!" exclaimed Duprez, with a defiant snap of his
fingers. "I would not give that little person for all the _grandes
dames_ here to-day! She is charming--and she is _true_!--_Ma foi!_ to be
true to any one is a virtue in this age! I tell you, my good boy, there
is something sorrowful--heavy--on _la belle_ Thelma's mind--and Britta,
who sees her always, feels it--but she cannot speak. One thing I will
tell you--it is a pity she is so fond of Miladi Winsleigh."
"Why?" asked Lorimer, with some eagerness.
"Because--" he stopped abruptly as a white figure suddenly appeared at
the doorway, and a musical voice addressed them--
"Why, what are you both doing here, away from everybody?" and Thelma
smiled as she approached. "You are hermits, or you are lazy! People are
going in to supper. Will you not come also?"
"_Ma foi!_" exclaimed Duprez; "I had forgotten! I have promised your
most charming mother, _cher_ Lorimer, to take her in to this same
supper. I must fly upon the wings of chivalry!"
And with a laugh, he hurried off, leaving Thelma and Lorimer alone
together. She sank rather wearily into a chair near the organ, and
looked at him.
"Play me something!" she said softly.
A strange thrill quivered through him as he met her eyes--the sweet,
deep, earnest eyes of the woman he loved. For it was no use attempting
to disguise it from himself--he loved her passionately, wildly,
hopelessly; as he had loved her from the first.
Obedient to her wish, his fingers wandered over the organ-keys in a
strain of solemn, weird, yet tender melancholy--the grand, rich notes
pealed forth sobbingly--and she listened, her hands clasped idly in her
lap. Presently he changed the theme to one of more heart-appealing
passion--and a strange wild minor air, like the rushing of the wind
across the mountains, began to make itself heard through the subdued
rippling murmur of his improvised accompaniment. To his surprise and
fear, she started up, pressing her hands against her ears.
"Not that--not that song, my friend!" she cried, almost imploringly.
"Oh, it will break my heart! Oh, the Altenfjord!" And she gave way to a
passion of weeping.
"Thelma! Thelma!" and poor Lorimer, rising from the organ, stood gazing
at her in piteous dismay,--every nerve in his body wrung to anguish by