The Actress' Daughter: A Novel

by May Agnes Fleming

Miss Arlingford laughed, and bowed her thanks for the compliment.

"And may I beg to stay too?" said Captain Arlingford; "I am really getting quite played out with so much exertion, and mean to take life easy for a day or two. Come now, Mrs. Wildair, be merciful to Harry and me?"

"I think you had better try to join us, Georgia," said Richmond, with no very pleased look; "the air will do you good."

"Indeed I cannot," said Georgia, who was half blinded with a throbbing headache; "my head aches, and I beg you will excuse me. But I cannot think of depriving any of you of the pleasure of going, though I thank you for your kind consideration."

"Now, Mrs. Wildair, I positively shall not take a refusal," said Miss Arlingford, who saw that it would do better not to leave Georgia alone with her morbid fancies. "I shall take it quite unkindly if you send me away. I shall try if I cannot exorcise your headache by some music, and I really must intercede, too, for my young friend, Master Harry here, who was delightful enough to compliment me a little while ago."

"And will no one intercede for me?" said the captain.

"I will," said Harry. "We three will have a real nice good time all to ourselves—— hanged if we don't! Oh, Miss Arlingford, you're a—a brick! you are so!" he exclaimed enthusiastically; "and Mrs. Georgia, I guess you'd better let Arlingford stay too. Three ain't company, and four is."

And "Do, Mrs. Wildair!" "Do, Mrs. Georgia," chimed in Captain and Miss Arlingford laughingly. And Georgia, unable to refuse without positive rudeness, smiled a faint assent.

For one instant a scowl of midnight blackness lingered on the face of Richmond, the next it was gone, and Georgia saw him, smiling and gay, set off with the rest on their skating excursion.

The dinner hour was past before they arrived. Georgia had spent a pleasanter morning than she had for many a day, and there was something almost like cheerfulness in her tone as she addressed some questions to her husband after his return. He did not reply, but turned on her a terrible look, that sent her sick and faint back in her seat, and then, without a word, he passed on and was gone.