“He is certainly a gentleman,” she repeated. “Not as handsome as Tom, of course; few men are; but still good-looking. Naturally he would be nervous under the circumstances. He will appear better by and by, and I really do not dislike him as I thought I should, but I wish that horrid will had never been made, or being made that I had been left out of it or you put in my place.”
“I!” and Irene spoke scornfully. “Haven’t I told you that I made no more impression upon him than if he had been a stone? He was all the time wanting to get up and run away when we were sitting under the pines. He did show some concern when I stood by the well. I wish I had thrown myself in. I would if I had been sure of not being drowned. I am not quite ready yet to go after Nannie.”
Why Irene should be in such a temper Rena could not understand. For herself it did not matter what Mr. Travers was, or how he appeared. He could never be anything to her. She had settled that before she saw him, and the conviction had been strengthened when she walked and sat with Tom in the moonlight. There was but one man in the world for her and that was Tom, she thought, as she bade Irene good-night, and left the young lady stalking about her room like a restless spirit. She did not think as badly of Reginald as she had pretended, and had ridiculed him to Rena with a view to disenchant her should she by any chance fancy him. He was bashful and awkward in many respects, and seemingly wholly impervious to her charms, and that irritated her. “But I’ll conquer yet, I am resolved,” she said to herself as she sat down in her dressing-gown by the open window and looked across the fields to the hill or plateau on which the McPherson house stood. She could see its tower and chimneys and roof and felt sure it was a palace compared with the house in Claremont, with its ceilings so low that she could almost touch them as she walked. How she hated it, with all its dull routine of duties, its sweeping and dusting and dish-washing three times every day, and its terrible Monday’s wash, and Tuesday’s ironing, and Wednesday’s baking.
“Ugh!” she said, going over with the list which her hard-worked mother was left so often to struggle with alone, while she was enjoying herself in Europe and elsewhere. “I’ll get out of it, and through Mr. Travers, if possible, no matter how cold and stiff he is, and proud. I wonder what he would say if he knew I had once been a factory bug! It was horrid—the time I worked there—up in the cold wintry mornings before light—and hurrying for fear I should be late and docked—I am worthy of a better position and I will have it, too—and this proud Reginald Travers shall yet make love to me or my name is not Irene.”
Just what the probability was of Reginald’s ever owning the McPherson place she was not quite sure. That part of the will was a little hazy in her mind, except the fact that in any event Mr. Travers was to have ten thousand dollars of old Sandy’s money. “That is something with what he already has,” she said, “and he is worth trying for. He was not pleased with me and would a great deal rather have talked with Rena. I saw it and felt it, but I’ll make him care for me, or at least go so far in his attentions that when he learns his mistake and how much I am interested, he will have too much honor to give me up, especially as there is no hope of Rena. I was rather too forward, perhaps, to-night, to suit his prudish views. Hereafter Barkis will not be quite as willin’. I’ll try Rena’s kittenish ways, though it will be something like a cat aping the pranks of its offspring.”
She laughed as she thought this, and then, conscious that she was growing cold, she cast a last look at the tower and roof of the McPherson place, and kissing her hand to it said softly:
“Good-night, my dear. Sleep well. You will find an Irene à la Rena next time we meet.”
“Did you speak?” Rena asked, rousing up, and Irene replied:
“I said ‘good-night, my dear,’ that’s all.”
“Good-night,” Rena answered, drowsily, while Irene crept to bed and fell asleep with the thought in her mind: “This is the chance of my life and I shall improve it.”