In his earnest way he fathomed Madame Ray’s feelings closely enough to feel her vague suspicions, and he was sorely tempted to confide his trouble to her sympathetic keeping, and beg her to assist him in getting Cinthia happily married. That fact accomplished, nothing else mattered. The whole world was welcome to his sad story.
It was pitiful, his eagerness over Cinthia’s happiness. Madame Ray observed it and marveled, saying to herself:
“He put upon her the greatest insult almost that man can offer woman, deserting her at the very altar; but he is as eager for her happiness as if she belonged to him by the dearest ties. I believe he would give his life freely to save her one pang. What is the mystery? Is there insanity in one family or the other? Or were some of her relations hung or in prison, thus making her ineligible for alliance with the noble Varians? I would give the world to know the truth, for Cinthia’s sake.”
She and Arthur became almost unconsciously great friends, for when the cousins came to call together at Lodge Delight, Fred Foster always tacitly appropriated Cinthia, while the hostess was left to Arthur, who never failed to make himself entertaining.
He, too, had his little curiosity over certain things—namely, the connection between the actress and Cinthia.
“Are you related, you two, who are so fond of each other?” he asked her, frankly, one day, when they had been acquainted going on three weeks.
“No, we are not related at all. I suppose it looks like it to you because we are so exceedingly fond of each other,” she replied, with a gentle sigh.
“You surprise me,” he replied, in wonder. “There is so marked a resemblance between you that I do not see how you escaped relationship.”
“It must be your fancy, that is all. My eyes are blue and Cinthia’s dark, my hair is light-brown and hers pure gold. Still, I might have had a dark-eyed daughter, but I lost her in her infancy, and that is one reason why I love Cinthia so—first, because she is so near the age of my lost daughter, and again, because she is so sweet and good—and unhappy,” she replied, pointedly.
Arthur Varian winced, and replied: