To be sure, he had said that he could never marry a poor girl; but there was a bare possibility that Mr. Heatherford might retrieve his fallen fortunes, and, in such an event, he would be only too eager to make Mollie his wife. He was beginning to feel that life would be very blank to him without her. Her beauty, her brilliant accomplishments, her amiable, yet spirited disposition, her high standard of life and its pursuits all made him realize that she was a woman to be worshiped, and that she had won a place in his heart which could never be given to another.
These feelings were intensified and his fiercest jealousy aroused by her openly acknowledged admiration for Clifford Faxon. He had been stung by Gertrude Athol’s praise of and friendliness for him; but that had been as nothing when compared with his present feelings upon hearing his name so reverently spoken by Mollie, and with that indescribable look on her fair face. He was, however, obliged to conceal his ire from her, and presently turning his canoe and changing the topic at the same time, they drifted slowly down the stream with the current toward the landing, and ere long were on the train back to town.
Another week slipped swiftly by, and as Miss Athol had returned to Buffalo, Phil had more time to devote to Mollie, of whom he became more and more enamored with every passing day; and as she always drew out all that was best in him, she little dreamed what grave defects there were in his character, and appeared to enjoy his society and gratefully appreciated his efforts to make her visit pleasant.
Mrs. Temple watched the couple with ever-increasing anxiety, and wished from her heart that something would occur to cut the Heatherfords’ visit short before irreparable mischief resulted. One morning she sought her son, and gravely cautioned him.
“Phil, you really must not do anything rash,” she said. “Mollie is the nicest girl in the world, I am willing to admit, but you can’t be saddled with a poor wife. Your income, though fair, will not admit of it, with your tastes, and Mollie’s are expensive, too. If this last venture of Mr. Heatherford’s should fall through, he will be utterly ruined and the girl a beggar; so take care!”
“I suppose that is good advice from a worldly point of view,” the young man responded, “but she is, as you have said, the very nicest girl in the world, and it is a deuced shame that the old man has lost his money; confound it!”
Mrs. Temple looked startled at this outburst, and well she might, for she could plainly read in Phil’s pale, pain-drawn face the story of his life, and knew that he had given his whole heart into Mollie Heatherford’s keeping.
“Phil!” she cried regretfully. “I am sorry I ever asked them here. I never would have had them come if I had known, and I shall be glad when they go. But you must not make a fatal mistake. Suppose you make some excuses to go away; take a trip to the Adirondacks, or go West for a while?”
Phil gave vent to a hollow laugh.
“Suppose, on the other hand, that, mothlike, I prefer to flutter around the candle and get singed?” he recklessly returned, as he saw that his mother had read his secret. “Or suppose that I should be inclined to turn over a new leaf, settle down to some business, and be willing to work for the girl I love?”