The Daughter Pays

by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds

They motored into Buxton that afternoon, and spent some time viewing the plants in a celebrated nursery garden. Gaunt had learned to drive the car during her absence, and was himself at the wheel, which fact lessened for him the hardship of the situation. He was occupied with his driving, and not drawn irresistibly by the magnet of her charm. That evening, however, after dinner, when they were together in her beautiful warm white room, the tug of war began. He had to smother down the impulse to fight for his life, to make some kind of blundering bid for the love which he knew in his heart had been given to Rosenberg before he ever saw her.

Virginia could not but suppose that his coldness, his complete aloofness, his apparent declining of all beginnings of intimacy, arose from sheer shyness. She believed that some things are better and more easily expressed without words. Thus, that evening, when he was at the piano, playing out his heartache in soft, sad chords in passionate, rapid movements, she came and stood behind him—close behind him.

This was hard, but he bore it. Manfully he went on playing for a while; but the influence of her presence standing there, the emanation of her personality, checked his fingers. He stumbled, missed a note, dropped his hands, sat silent.

"It is cold, so far from the fire," said her coaxing voice. "I've been making you play till your fingers are frozen;" with which she took them in her velvet, soft clasp.

This was too much. He drew his hand from her clinging touch with a sensation as though he tore it from a trap, lacerating it in the attempt. He sprang from his seat. "Jove! I have just thought of something I must tell Hemming," he muttered hurriedly; and, pushing past her, left the room by way of the door into his own den.

Virginia stood amazed, confused, and somewhat uncomfortable.

This, her first advance, must certainly be her only one. She went and sat on the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire, and puzzling. Suddenly a clear light shone upon the darkness of her musing. But, of course!...

Gaunt had not married her for love, but in pursuance of some half-crazed scheme of vengeance. He had thought it his duty to reform a heartless, selfish coquette. Now that he had found her to be very unlike his preconceived idea of her, what did he, what could he, want with her?...

Why had she not sooner perceived this obvious truth? Colour flooded her, she blushed hotly in the solitude. His plans had proved abortive, and he found himself saddled with a young woman with whose company he would, no doubt, gladly dispense. He was apparently ready to continue their present semi-detached existence, so long as she made no attempt to force the barriers of his confidence or intimacy. She remembered, on reflection, that he had made no appeal to her, that he had confessed nothing. He had not even begged for forgiveness. He had merely owned himself mistaken in his estimate of her. Since the outburst which had, as it seemed, been shaken out of him at the unexpected sight of her, he had stood on guard all the time. She had really been very slow and stupid, or she would have seen, long ago, how embarrassing her presence must be, unless she grasped the terms of their mutual relation.

Her lips curved into an involuntary smile as she recalled her well-meant attempt at a kindness he did not want. She bit her lip as she gazed into the fire. "We-e-ell!" she said aloud, with a little grimace, "I've been slow at picking up my cue, but I think I've got it now."