TWO BAD BLUE EYES
CHAPTER I
It is Lauraine Douglas' wedding-day.
A delicious gleam of sunshine streams through the curtained windows—flickers over the dainty arrangements of the toilet-table, loses itself in the white wonders of lace, linen, and embroidery strewed about in different directions, and finally wanders to a dusky head on the pillows, and plays at hide and seek over the closed eyelids of a very lovely face.
The eyelids open—quite suddenly, quite wakefully—not with any half-and-half preparation—any symptom of sleepiness.
The inquisitive sunbeam has done its work, and retreats bashfully now as two white arms are thrown suddenly up and placed beneath the girl's head, and resting thus she takes a survey of the mysterious garments, the pretty room, the aspect of the weather, as promised by the wealth of prodigal sunlight, and, finally, the clock on the opposite chimney-piece.
"My wedding-day!"—so ran her thoughts.
"Only a few hours more and I am Lauraine Douglas no longer! Only a few hours and the old life and the things of it are done and past for ever—for ever. How strange it seems to think of that now! ... My wedding-day! ... How different I thought it would be once. How different I thought I should feel. Oh, Keith! Keith! what an old, far-away dream that looks. I suppose you have long ago forgotten it. And yet how we loved each other ... you and I! A boy-and-girl fancy, my mother calls it. Well, perhaps, it was; it is long enough since I heard from him, and I suppose he has long forgotten me. I wonder if he has made the fortune he spoke of yet? But what on earth makes me think of these things to-day, of all days? ... And so it really is my wedding-day at last! I wonder how most girls feel on their wedding-day! I can't say I feel in any way different—no stir, or flutter, or anticipation of any description. I am glad it is going to be fine, and how nice to be able to wear real orange blossoms! Sir Francis was very good to send them. I wonder if I shall ever think of him and call him anything but Sir Francis. Somehow I never can. I wish he was not so old—old, at least, for me, and I wish he did not love me in quite such a fierce, wild fashion. I seem to have been quite swept off my feet by the current of his passion and my mother's persuasions.... After all, I suppose one must be married some time or other ... only—only——"
She breaks off with a sudden sigh, and sits up in the bed, pushing off the thick, dusky hair from her brows with an impatient gesture.
"It is no use deceiving myself. I am going to be married and I hate the thought, and how I have been dragged into it I scarcely know. Sometimes I think I should never have yielded.... How oddly one drifts into things! ... And Sir Francis is so infatuated, and it seemed no use saying 'No.' I wish he were not so jealous. I can't understand the feeling myself. I wonder what it's like? Not pleasant by any means, if I am to judge by my future lord and master. Will he be my master, I wonder? How I should hate to be ordered about, and kept in check, and ruled! Mamma is bad enough, in all conscience; but, still, I have managed to get my own way with her, pretty often. How she has badgered me about this marriage, and what a desperate hurry they have been in to get it off! Heigho! only a month since I bartered my liberty for—for—ahem!—shall I go over all 'the good gifts that crown me queen' of this much-sought-after baronet? Unencumbered estates, magnificent income, ancient family—pooh! how sickening it is! After all, what do I care for these things? One comfort is, I go to him heart-whole. No sentiments in the background, no lovers to moan and fret over. I wonder if I am really cold-hearted, or if I never shall fall in love? Gracious! what am I saying? That folly must be over after 11.30 to-day. I suppose the nearest approach to it was that boy-and-girl romance with Keith. Poor old Keith! What a nice boy he was, and what a dare-devil, impetuous, headstrong sort of fellow! No milk-and-water lover he—a regular torrent of impetuosity, bearing one along, whether one would or no. I suppose he has forgotten me though, and no wonder. How rude mamma was to him, and how delighted when he turned his back on the Old World and went off to the New! I suppose if I ever see him again he will be a regular Yankee, and talk like that dreadful woman, Mrs. Bradshaw B. Woollffe, as she calls herself. And she will be at the breakfast, after all! Mamma would ask her. Heavens! how she does worship money! But I suppose that comes of having had so little all her life."