Alice listened while Imelda took her into her confidence and told her the story of her love. She knew of Imelda’s aversion to marriage. She had come to understand some of her views and though she did not indorse them yet she could not but recognize much in them that would prove an everlasting blessing to humanity could they be put into practice. She felt if it were opportune she would not hesitate to hold out her longing hands for the tempting boon of freedom. Had she not told Imelda of moments when she felt like cursing the fetters that bound her even though they were golden? But Lawrence Westcot was known as an honorable man; one who heaped upon his wife golden favors; who daily sought to strew her pathway with flowers. All of this was true, yet time and again the blue eyes would fill with tears. The merry sprite was not always such when within her own chamber, and Imelda’s confidence called forth no answering smile, and yet Imelda knew she always wore her brightest smile when the handsome young man was a visitor at their home. With an effort Alice banished the gloomy look and wished her friend happiness when she would become the wife of Norman Carlton.
“But,” said Imelda, “have I not told you? I will never be his wife.”
CHAPTER XXI.
“You will never—be—his wife? And yet you are happy—in his love? Imelda, what do you mean?”
“I mean,” Imelda replied, “to be wiser than you were, little one. I mean to always keep my lover.”
This was too much, and Alice burst into tears. That Imelda was surprised was a mild way of expressing her emotion. A dim suspicion was born in her mind, which, however, she tried to repress. No, no; she did not believe it,—and yet it might be. She would watch, she would see. Taking the excited little woman in her arms, Imelda kissed and tried to soothe her, and after a time was apparently successful. Then she went to look after her little charges. No sooner had the door closed upon her retreating figure than Alice with trembling fingers locked it and casting herself upon the bed burst into a storm of sobs, for which there was no apparent cause, and which were so passionate that the merry mistress of the beautiful home could scarcely be recognized.
Surely a strange creature is woman. Of unfathomable depths her caprices; whose moods are so various that it would prove an almost impossible task to solve the pretty riddle. In some such way as this the conventional novelist would doubtless comment upon the action of Alice, but we know better than to judge her thus. It was neither a caprice nor mood that caused the bitter sobs to shake her to her inmost being. She was no riddle. It was all plain enough to those who would see. Nature’s voice was clamoring for nature’s own. But man-made laws, with iron hand, stood between.
Alice had not known why,—why, spite of the disgust she sometimes felt at the life surrounding her, she yet was light and happy. She had not yet understood what it was that brought the sunshine to banish the clouds of her life. But what had she to complain of? If you had asked her I doubt if she would have been able to clearly answer the question, yet it was all so clear, so apparent.
Her husband was all that has been stated, but no special credit could attach to him for that. Wealth was his to command. He never thought of refusing any wish of hers that money could satisfy. If any one had accused Lawrence Westcot of unkindness to his wife he would have opened wide his eyes in surprise. Did she not have everything that heart could desire? That she would turn from him when he approached her; that little ripples of disgust shook her frame as he bent to kiss her; that her eyes would flash in angry scorn when he attempted to secure to himself the rights the law gave him—certainly was not his fault. That he was not fine-grained enough to desist on such occasions could be no reason for laying blame on his shoulders. Was she not his?—his by the wholly rites of matrimony? And why should she not comply with his desires and demands?
And yet, handsome Lawrence Westcot was a favorite wherever he went, especially with the fair sex. Strong, healthy, full of spirits, there were few who stopped to look for traces of greater refinement, but rather enjoyed the fiery look that would sometimes cause a rush of blood to the fair face that came under its power.