“Belva Platt, behave yourself! You are acting like a crazy woman. Have you no decency?”
But Belva shook off the remonstrating hand, and, laughing more wildly than before, looked at Mrs. Fielding. She saw that the pale bride had glided to her mother’s side, and was clinging to her with trembling hands.
“Mother,” she faltered, “you will make them explain, won’t you, dear? This is horrible! She frightens me with her laughter; it has such a dreadful sound.”
“Yes—what does it all mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Jones curiously. “Why, I heard that Mr. Lorraine was rich, and that we were invited to his wedding reception at a Fifth Avenue mansion,” and she glanced contemptuously around the mean apartment, and then looked, with a little feminine triumph, at Mrs. Fielding, the woman whom she cordially despised for her aristocratic airs.
Sadie Allen came forward to the silent, half-dazed bridegroom, and said curtly:
“Come, Mr. Lorraine, we want you to explain the meaning of this. You have pretended to be rich all this time, and if you have fooled Fair Fielding, why, I say you are no gentleman—that’s all.”
He looked up at her helplessly, and, with an appealing glance in his dark eyes, muttered incoherently:
“I couldn’t help it! She made me do it. I was in her power. She threatened——”
“She? Who is she? Not Fair? Not Mrs. Fielding?” exclaimed Sadie, and before he could answer Belva Platt come up to them, and, dropping a mocking curtsy, interposed defiantly:
“I am she! I planned it all. I made him marry Fairfax Fielding!”