“He goes to seek his fortune,” said Mrs. Gaston; “therefore I say his return is indefinite.”
“And if he finds it,” said Louis Gaston to himself, “and the girl he loves consents to share it with him, a man might well envy him. And if she consents not, what will the fortune avail him? It may be that she has already consented! Most likely the sweet pledge has been given, and he goes to seek his fortune with the knowledge that her hopes and fears are entwined about him. What mightn’t a man accomplish with such a reward as his in view?”
These reflections passed through his mind, as he sat quietly on one side of the room watching Miss Trevennon as she sat talking to his brother, only her fair, sweet profile turned toward him, and a slightly distressed look on her face, which his searching eyes alone discovered.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A FEW days after Christmas, as Margaret was in her room, writing one of her frequent long letters home, Mr. Decourcy’s card was brought to her. It was with a strong feeling of reluctance that she went down to him, and she stopped at Mrs. Gaston’s door, hoping her cousin would accompany her. Mrs. Gaston, however, was lying on the lounge, reading a novel, and she declared herself to be too tired to stir; so Margaret was obliged to go down alone.
After her first impulse had died away, she had concluded to keep the locket, as she felt she had no reason to take so extreme a step as to return it. Nothing, however, would induce her to wear Alan Decourcy’s picture, and that she meant to let him know.
It was the first time that Margaret had spoken to her cousin since witnessing the scene with Mrs. Vere in the conservatory, and the recollection of that scene necessarily threw a certain amount of constraint into her manner.
Not observing this, however, Mr. Decourcy came toward her, with some words of ardent greeting, and when she extended her hand he made a motion to raise it to his lips. With a movement that was almost rough in its suddenness, Margaret snatched her hand away.