“So the family history assures us.”
“Then they waxed self-indulgent. Your great-grandfather began a merry dance that is culminating with your father and Valentine, and you—poor, dull, and misanthropic clod—would dry up and sterilize but for that lovely little simpleton upstairs, who is probably dreaming that you are a Prince Charming.”
An indescribable air of animation took possession of Armour’s heavy, handsome features. “She probably is,” he said with a smile.
“If you‘ve any sense at all,” continued Camperdown with assumed disdain, “if you‘ve any idea of perpetuating a decent family line, agree to anything she says. In her fine-spun, aristocratic, philanthropic notions, which are strictly opposed to all that is earthly, sensual, and devilish, is your only salvation.” And with a volley of menacing glances he vanished, and shortly afterward crunched under foot the gravel below as he walked toward the cottage muttering: “Blind, blind! Poor fools, how will they stand it? Better Puritans than Sybarites!”
CHAPTER XXXIII
A WAYWORN TRAVELER
For eight weary weeks Stargarde had, in the opinion of her friends, been afflicted by the terrible being who undoubtedly was her mother. But to Stargarde it was no affliction. From the night that she had taken the miserable creature in her arms, washed and fed her and laid her on her own bed, it had seemed rather a joy and privilege than a duty, to wait upon her. Cheerfully and uncomplainingly she placed herself at the disposal of her unworthy parent, guarding and restraining her as far as she possibly could, and making no ado when she was missing, but patiently seeking her in the lowest haunts of the town as a shepherd would seek a lost sheep and return it to the sheepfold.
After Mrs. Frispi had been with Stargarde for four weeks her wanderings suddenly ceased. Her evil genius might prompt her to roam, but it was no longer in her power to do so. Her frame, strong as it had been, suddenly yielded to the effects of disease brought on by her irregular life. She lay on her back in Stargarde’s bed with no thought in her guilty soul of preparing for that longer, more mysterious flight than any she had yet taken, but raving day by day in obscene and abominable language that made Camperdown look in despair and admiration at Stargarde, who in an agony of compassion hung over the unhappy woman and urged her to repent.
Day by day he entered the sick-room, sometimes greeted sullenly by the sufferer, at others hailed by a torrent of abuse that made him turn from her with a shudder of disgust; but gradually there came a change. During the past ten days his patient had lain in a sullen, stoical silence, apparently indifferent alike to her sufferings and to Stargarde’s tender ministrations. That she used no more reckless language was something to be thankful for, and with a sense of relief to think that he was no longer in the den of a wild beast, Camperdown stepped into the room one Sunday morning.
He held his fiancée’s> hand one instant in his own, then went to the bed and glanced sharply over Mrs. Frispi’s attenuated features. She did not look at him, even when he laid his fingers on her bony wrist, for her big blue eyes, slowly revolving in their sunken sockets, were following Stargarde as she moved about the room.
“Let me take your temperature,” he said.