“Another man as rich as you are would have taken their daughter to Washington for a season, and in the summer to Long Branch or Newport––somewhere, anywhere, away from 109 the detestable waving cotton-fields. When you die I shall have it all set on fire.”
“Pluma!” he cried, hoarsely, rising to his feet and drawing his stately, commanding figure to its full height, “I will not brook such language from a child who should at least yield me obedience, if not love. You are not the heiress of Whitestone Hall yet, and you never may be. If I thought you really contemplated laying waste these waving fields that have been my pride for long years––and my father’s before me––I would will it to an utter stranger, so help me Heaven!”
Were his words prophetic? How little she knew the echo of these words were doomed to ring for all time down the corridors of her life! How little we know what is in store for us!
“I am your only child,” said Pluma, haughtily; “you would not rob me of my birthright. I shall be forced to submit to your pleasure––while you are here––but, thank Heaven, the time is not far distant when I shall be able to do as I please. ‘The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine,’” she quoted, saucily.
“Thank Heaven the time is not far distant when I shall be able to do as I please.” He repeated the words slowly after her, each one sinking into his heart like a poisoned arrow. “So you would thank Heaven for my death, would you?” he cried, with passion rising to a white heat. “Well, this is no better than I could expect from the daughter––of such a mother.”
He had never intended speaking those words; but she goaded him on to it with her taunting, scornful smile, reminding him so bitterly of the one great error of his past life.
He was little like the kind, courteous master of Whitestone Hall, whom none named but to praise, as he stood there watching the immovable face of his daughter. All the bitterness of his nature was by passion rocked. No look of pain or anguish touched the dark beauty of that southern face at the mention of her mother’s name.
“You have spoken well,” she said. “I am her child. You speak of love,” she cried, contemptuously. “Have you not told me, a thousand times, you never cared for my mother? How, then, could I expect you to care for me? Have you not cried out unceasingly for the golden-haired young wife and the babe you lost, and that you wished Heaven had taken you too? Did I ever hear my mother’s name upon your lips except with a sneer? Do you expect these things made that mother’s child more fond of you, were you twenty times my father?”
She stood up before him, proudly defiant, like a beautiful tragedy queen, the sunlight slanting on the golden vines of her amber satin robe, on the long, dark, silken curls fastened with a ruby star, and on the deep crimson-hearted passion-roses that quivered on her heaving breast. There was not one feature of that gloriously dark face that resembled the proud, cold man sitting opposite her.