V
Geraldine was in her room, dressing for dinner, when they returned. The house was suddenly in confusion. Electric bells rang, and she heard their voices in an excited babel. They came in like a party of raiders taking possession of an abandoned stronghold.
“I can’t stand it much longer,” thought Geraldine. “I’m getting nervous and irritable. I ought to go, only—”
Only she had nowhere to go—nowhere in all the world. Strangers were living in her old house. She wondered how it looked now. There used to be an air of peace about it at this hour of a summer day, when the tangled garden had grown dim, and the old house full of shadows. She and her mother used to sit by the open window, in the dusk, not talking very much, but so happy! Even old Norah in the kitchen was blessed by that peace, and would croon contentedly as she moved about. All gone now!
Geraldine had been a young girl then, like a child in the safe shelter of her[Pg 302] mother’s love—only a little while ago; but she would not think of that. She would not shed a single tear. Her mother had been so brave, even when her father was ruined and heartbroken by his failure in business—for that was the “something dreadful” that had happened to him. Even when he died, her mother had been so brave, and always so quiet. That was the right way, and the way that Geraldine would follow. If her forlorn young heart grew faint in her exile, she would look back, just for a glance, would remember, just for an instant, and would be comforted and strengthened.
She put on her black dress, gave an indifferent glance in the mirror, and opened the door; and there in the hall was Sambo, waiting for her.
“Look here!” he said. “I want to know—I’ve simply got to know—what’s the matter!”
“Nothing,” she replied.
She tried to pass, but he barred the way.
“No!” he said. “I’m going away to-morrow morning, and I’ve got to know. Have I offended you, or done anything you don’t like? The first time I saw you, yesterday afternoon—what has made you change?”
She did not answer, but her averted face was eloquent enough.
“Look here!” he said. “If I thought it was simply that you disliked me—” He paused for a moment. “But I don’t think that,” he went on. “You did like me, at first. I’ve been thinking—Is it on account of Ser—of Mrs. Page?”
“What?” she cried, appalled.
“Because, you know”—she noticed that he glanced up and down the softly lit hall before he continued—“if it’s that, I give you my word there’s nothing in it—absolutely nothing! I’ve never even pretended to her—”
“Do you think I’m going to discuss that with you?” she said, looking at him with a sort of horror.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” he answered. “I wanted you to know that; but then—”
“Please let me pass!” she said. “I don’t want to—talk to you!”
He did not move. He stood squarely before her, with a queer, dogged, miserable look on his face.
“Not until you tell me why you—hate me,” he said.
She was silent for a moment, her heart filled with almost intolerable bitterness. Then suddenly she laughed.
“Oh, but you’d really better go!” she said. “You wouldn’t like it if some one should come and find you speaking to me!”
She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. A singular change came over him.
“You mean—” he began, and paused. “You think I’m ashamed to be seen talking to you?”
“Let me go!” she said vehemently. “I won’t listen!”
But her defiance was little more than bravado. Her knees felt weak. She was frightened by the inexplicable thing she had done.
“That was a beastly, unjust thing to think,” he went on. “It was only on your account. I thought you wouldn’t want any one to know—”
“Know? Know what?” she interrupted, with an attempt at her former scornfulness; but in her heart she was dismayed and terribly uneasy.
“All right!” he said. “You think I’m ashamed. By Heaven, you’ll see! I’m proud of it! It’s the finest thing I ever did in my life—to love you!”
“Oh, stop!” she whispered.
“No! I’d like every one in the world to know it. I’m proud of it! I told you I was at your feet, and I meant it. I’ll—”
“Oh, please!” she said.
He stopped, looking at her as if stricken dumb by some unbearable revelation. All that was hard and proud had vanished from her face, leaving a tragic and exquisite loveliness. She stood there, in her distress, like a lost princess, bewildered and solitary, but unassailable in her mystic innocence.
“Look here!” he said. “I—” His voice was so unsteady that he could not go on for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize how—how young you are. If you’ll forgive me—”
She shook her head mutely. He waited in vain for a word, but none came. Then he turned and walked away, and she went back into her own room and locked the door.
She, too, had not realized how young she was, how untried her strength. This overwhelmed her; she was so miserable, so shaken, that now at last the tears came in a wild storm. Her pride was mortally wounded. It was a disgrace to her that[Pg 303] Sam Randall should think of her like that. It was cruel, horrible, unforgetable, that the first words of love she had ever heard from a man should be his words. His talk of love was a mockery, an insult.
Yet the memory of his set face and his unsteady voice caused her a strange pain that was not anger.
“I can’t understand!” she cried to herself. “I can’t understand!”
And it was the first time in her life that Geraldine, with her rigid code, her intolerant and sharply defined opinions, had ever thought that.