Floy, sitting over at the window in dreary silence, thought, exultantly:
“Wait till my lover comes back from Europe, Miss Maybelle, and see! Oh, it will break your proud heart when St. George Beresford marries me! And how he will laugh when I tell him of her grand airs now!”
She longed to startle Maybelle now by telling her that she would have no need to work for her living, that she was soon to marry a millionaire’s son, and could take care of Mrs. Banks in luxury; but she remembered that Beresford had told her not to betray their secret till he gave her leave, because he must first propitiate his own little world. So she kept back the words, and at last said, with a careless little air that angered Maybelle deeply:
“We may as well accept these positions now, dearest auntie, and try to bear the separation as best we can for awhile, but after I am married, and that may be before long, you shall come and live in my new home, and we shall be as happy as possible without our dear lost one!”
She could not forbear this little boast in her resentment against proud Maybelle, and the beauty looked at her angrily while Mrs. Banks exclaimed in smiling astonishment:
“Married—married! Why, who ever put such a notion in that little giddy head? Who would marry a child like you?”
“A child, auntie? Why, I was seventeen the day before the picnic, so I’ll be eighteen my very next birthday, and many a girl is married before eighteen. Why, I may be engaged already for all you know to the contrary—although I don’t swear that I am!” concluded Floy, fearing she had said too much, and not intending to arouse their suspicions.
But Maybelle, who knew from Otho all that had happened at Suicide Place the night when his dastardly plans had been foiled by Beresford’s timely appearance, trembled with inward rage and fear, suspecting Floy’s thinly-veiled meaning.
Otho had left no stone unturned to find out all that had happened to Floy after Beresford took her away that night.
The carriage-driver had been ferreted out and interviewed, although he had nothing to tell except that he had driven the pair to Bird’s Nest Cottage as fast as he could, and that they had lingered and parted at the door like lovers, with a kiss.