"I suppose not. I am at a loss to know where you will find him."

"I shan't find him; he must find me."

"He will be an idiot if he doesn't. Pardon me if I don't dance any more to-night. I have had a long tramp over mountain paths, followed by a long, rough ride in a farmer's wagon, and now have a very important act to perform before I sleep. As a proof of my fraternal--I mean friendly--confidence, I will tell you what it is, if you wish."

"I don't propose to fail in any friendly obligations, Graydon,"

she replied, laughing, as they strolled out into the summer night, followed by Miss Wildmere's half-desperate eyes.

As they walked down a path, Graydon said, "Take my arm; the pavement is a little rough. Dear Madge, you look divine to night. Every time I see you my wonder increases at what you accomplished out on the Pacific coast. That great, boundless, sparkling ocean has given you something of its own nature."

"Graydon, you must be more sensible. When a fellow takes your arm you don't squeeze it against your side and say, 'Dear Tom,' 'Sweet d.i.c.k,'

or 'Divine Harry,' no matter how good friends they may be. Friends don't indulge in sentimental, far-fetched compliments."

"I certainly never did with any friends of mine. On this very walk you told me that you were not my sister, and added, 'There is no use in trying to ignore nature.' See how true this last a.s.sertion is proving, now that I am again under your influence, and so enjoy your society that I cannot ignore nature. During all those years when you were growing from childhood to womanhood I treated you as a sister, thought of you as such. It was nature, or rather the accord of two natures, that formed and cemented the tie, and not an accident of birth.

Even when you were an invalid, and I was stupid enough to call you 'lackadaisical,' your presence always gave me pleasure. Often when I had been out all the evening I would say, with vexation, 'I wish I had stayed at home with the little ghost.' How you used to order me about and tyrannize over me from your sofa when you were half child and half woman! I can say honestly, Madge, it was never a bore to me, for you had an odd, piquant way of saying and doing things that always amused me; your very weakness was an appeal to my strength, and a claim upon it. You always appeared to have a sister's affection for me, and your words and manner proved that I brought some degree of brightness into your shadowed life. In learning to love you as a sister in all those years, wherein did I ignore nature? During my absence my feelings did not change in the least, as I proved by my attempts at correspondence, by my greeting when we met. Then you perplexed and worried me more than you would believe, and I imagined all sorts of ridiculous things about you; but on that drive, after your vigil with that poor, dying girl, I felt that I understood you fully at last. Indeed, ever since your rescue of the little Wilder child from drowning my old feelings have been coming back with tenfold force. I can't help thinking of you, of being proud of you. I give you my confidence to-night just as naturally and unhesitatingly as if we had been rocked in the same cradle. I am not wearying you with this long explanation and preamble?"

"No, Graydon," she replied, in a low tone.

"I am very glad. I don't think well of myself to-night at all, and I have a very humiliating confession to make--one that I could make only to such a sister as you are, or rather would have been, were there a natural tie between us. I would not tell any Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry friends in the world what I shall now make known to you. If I didn't trust you so, I wouldn't speak of it, for what I shall say involves Henry as well as myself. Madge, I've been duped, I've been made both a fool and a tool, and the consequences might have been grave indeed.

Henry, who has so much quiet sagacity, has in some way obtained information that proved of immense importance to him, and absolutely vital to me. I shudder when I think of what might have happened, and I am overwhelmed with grat.i.tude when I think of my escape. I told you that Miss Wildmere was humoring that fellow Arnault to save her father, and consequently her mother and the child. This impression, which was given me so skilfully, and at last confirmed by plain words, was utterly false. Henry has been in financial danger; Wildmere knew it, and he also knew that Arnault had lent Henry money, which to-day was called in with the hope of breaking him down. They would have succeeded, too, had he not had resources of which they knew nothing.

You, of course, can't realize how essential a little ready money sometimes is in a period of financial depression; but Henry left a note which gave me an awful shock, while, at the same time, it made clear Miss Wildmere's scheme. She had simply put me off, that she might hear from Wall Street. If Henry had failed she would have decided for Arnault, and I believe my attentions led to his tricky transaction--that he loaned the money and called it in when he believed that Henry could not meet his demand. I must be put out of his way, for he reasoned justly that the girl would drop me if impoverished. Thus indirectly I might have caused Henry's failure--a blow from which I should never have recovered. Henry is safe now, he a.s.sures me; and, oh, Madge, thank G.o.d, I have found her out before it was too late! I had fully resolved while oft trouting that I would break with her finally if I found Arnault at her side again. Now he may marry her, for all I care, and I wish him no worse punishment.

I shall go to my room now and write to her that everything is over between us. The fact is, Madge, you spoiled Miss Wildmere for me on that morning drive the other day. After leaving your society and going into hers I felt the difference keenly, and while I should then have fulfilled the obligations which I had so stupidly incurred, I had little heart in the affair. Her acting was consummate, but a true woman's nature had been revealed to me, and the glamour was gone from the false one. Now you see what absolute confidence I repose in you, and how heavily this strange story bears against myself. Could I have given it to any one for whom I had not a brother's love, and in whom I did not hope to find a sister's gentle charity? I show you how unspent is the force of all those years when we had scarcely a thought which we could not tell each other. I have little claim, though, to be a protecting brother, when I have been making such an egregious fool of myself. You have grown wiser and stronger than I. You won't think very harshly of me, will you, Madge?"

"No, Graydon."

"And you won't condemn my fraternal affection as contrary to nature?"

She was sorely at a loss. She had listened with quickened breath, a fluttering pulse, and in a growing tumult of hope and fear, to this undisguised revelation of his att.i.tude toward her. She almost thought that she detected between the lines, as it were, the beginning of a different regard. He believed that he had been frankness itself, and his words proved that he looked upon his fraternal affection and confidence as the natural, the almost inevitable, sequence of the past. She could not meet him on the fraternal ground that he was taking again, nor did she wish him to occupy it in his own mind. To maintain the att.i.tude which she had adopted would require as much delicacy as firmness of action, or he would begin to query why she could not go back to their old relations as readily as he could. She had listened to the twice-told tale of the events of the past few days with almost breathless interest, because his words revealed the workings of his own mind, and she had not the least intention of permitting him to settle down into the tranquil affection of a brother.

While she hesitated, he asked, gently, "Don't you feel a little of your old sisterly love for me?"

"No, Graydon, I do not," she replied, boldly. "I suppose you will think me awfully matter-of-fact. I love Mary as my sister, I have the strongest esteem and affection for Henry as my brother-in-law, and I like you for just what you are to me, neither more nor less. The truth is, Graydon, when I woke up from my old limp, shadowy life I had to look at everything just as it was, and I have formed the habit of so doing. I think it is the best way. You did not see Miss Wildmere as she was, but as you imagined her to be, and you blame yourself too severely because you acted as you naturally would toward a girl for whom you had so high a regard. When we stick to the actual, we escape mistakes and embarra.s.sment. Every one knows that we are not brother and sister; every one would admit our right to be very good friends.

I have listened to you with the deep and honest sympathy that is perfectly natural to our relations. I think the better of you for what you have told me, but I'm too dreadfully matter-of-fact," she concluded beginning to laugh, "to do anything more."

He sighed deeply.

"Now, there is no occasion for that sigh, Graydon. Recall that morning drive to which you have alluded. What franker, truer friendship could you ask than I gave evidence of then? Come now, be sensible. You live too much in the present moment, and yield to your impulses. Miss Wildmere was a delusion and a snare, but there are plenty of true women in the world. Some day you will meet the right one. She won't object to your friends, but she probably would to sisters who are not sisters."

Graydon laughed a little bitterly as he said, "So you imagine that after my recent experience I shall soon be making love to another girl?"

"Why not? Because Miss Wildmere is a fraud do you intend to spite yourself by letting some fair, true girl pa.s.s by unheeded? That might be to permit the fraud to injure you almost as much as if she had married you."

He burst out laughing, as he exclaimed, "Well, your head is level."

"Certainly it is. My head is all right, even though I have not much heart, as you believe. I told you I could be a good fellow, and I don't propose to indulge you in sentiment about what is past and gone--natural and true as it was at the time--or in cynicism for the future. I shall dance at your wedding, and you won't be gray, either.

Come; the music has ceased, and it must be almost Sunday morning."

"Very well. On the day when you rightly boxed my ears, and I asked you to make your own terms of peace, I resolved to submit to everything and anything."

"You don't 'stay put,' is the trouble. Did I look and act so very cross that morning?"

"You looked magnificent, and you spoke with such just eloquent indignation that you made my blood tingle. No, my brave, true friend--I may say that, mayn't I?--it was not a little thing for you to go away alone to fight so heroic a battle and achieve such a victory; and, Madge, I honor you with the best homage of my heart. You have taught me how to meet trouble when it comes."

As they went up the steps, Arnault, with a pale, stern face, and looking neither to the right nor to the left, pa.s.sed them and strode away.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE END OF DIPLOMACY

Mr. Arnault's manner as he pa.s.sed struck both Graydon and Madge as indicating strong feeling and stern purpose. In order to account for his action, it is necessary to go back in our history for a short period. While Madge was receiving such rich compensation for having become simply what she was, Miss Wildmere had been gathering the rewards of diplomacy. As we have seen, she had reached the final conclusion that if Mr. Muir did not fail that day she would accept Graydon at once; and, during its earlier hours, she had been complacency itself, feeling that everything was now in her own hands.

Mr. Muir's appearance and manner the previous evening had nearly convinced her that he was in no financial difficulties whatever--that her father and Mr. Arnault were either mistaken or else were deceiving her. "If the latter is the case," she had thought, "they have so bungled as to enable me to test the truth of their words within twenty-four hours.

"I am virtually certain," she said, with an exultant smile, "that I shall be engaged to Graydon Muir before I sleep to-night."

In the afternoon it began to trouble her that Graydon had not appeared. As the hours pa.s.sed she grew anxious, and with the shadow of night there fell a chill on her heart and hope. This pa.s.sed into alarm when at last Graydon arrived with his brother and Madge, and greeted her with the cold recognition that has been described. She had met Mr.

Arnault cordially at first, because there were still possibilities in his favor; but when her father promptly disappeared, with the evident purpose to avoid questions, and Mr. Muir and his family at supper gave evidence of superb spirits instead of trouble, she saw that she had been duped, or, in any case, misled. Her anger and worry increased momentarily, especially since Graydon, beyond a little furtive observation, completely ignored her. She naturally ascribed his course to resentment at her first greeting of Arnault, his continued presence at her side, and the almost deferential manner with which he was treated by her father, who had joined his family at supper, when no queries could be made.

"I'll prove to Graydon by my manner that I am for him," was her thought; but he either did not or would not see her increasing coldness toward Arnault.

Her purpose and tactics were all observed and thoroughly understood by the latter, however, but he gave few obvious signs of the fact. In his words, tones, compliments he proved that he was making good all that he had promised; but the changing expression in his eyes grew so ominous that Mr. Wildmere saw his suppressed anger with alarm.

Miss Wildmere felt sure that before the evening was over she could convey to Graydon her decision, and chafed every moment over the leisurely supper that Mr. Arnault persisted in making, especially as she saw that it was not his appet.i.te that detained him. The Muir group had pa.s.sed out, and to leave him and her father would not only be an act of rudeness, but also would appear like open pursuit of Graydon.

When at last she reached the parlor, to decline Arnault's invitation to dance would be scarcely less than an insult; yet, with intensifying anger and fear, she saw that circ.u.mstances were compelling her to appear as if she had disregarded Graydon's warnings and expectations.

So far from being dismissed, Arnault was the one whom she had first greeted and to whom she was now giving the evening.

While she was dancing with Arnault, Graydon, with Madge, appeared upon the floor. She was almost reckless in her efforts to secure his attention. In this endeavor she did not fail, but she failed signally in winning any recognition, and the ill-concealed importunity of her eyes hastened Graydon's departure with Madge, and gave time for the long interview described in the previous chapter. She grew cold with dread. It was the impulse of her self-pleasing nature to want that most which seemed the most denied, and she reasoned, "He is angry because Arnault is at my side as usual, in spite of all he said. He is determined to bring me to a decision, and won't approach me at Arnault's side. Yet I dare not openly shake Arnault off, and he's so attentive that I must do it openly if at all. Graydon's manner was so very strange and cold that I feel that I should do something to conciliate him at once; and yet how can I when Arnault is bent upon monopolizing the whole evening? He gives me no chance to leave him unless I am guilty of the shameful rudeness of telling him to leave me. Oh, if I could only see Graydon alone, even for a moment!"

Arnault was indeed a curious study, and yet he was acting characteristically. He had virtually given up hope of ever winning Stella Wildmere. He had wooed devotedly, offered wealth, and played his final card, and in each had failed. When he left the city he still had hope that his promise of immediate wealth and Mr. Wildmere's necessity and influence might turn the scale in his favor; and he believed that having secured her decision she, as a woman of the world, would grow content and happy in the future that he could provide for her. But, be his fate what it might, both his pride and his peculiar sense of honor made it imperative that he should be her suitor until the time stipulated for his answer should expire. Up to twelve o'clock that night he would not give her the slightest cause for resentment or even complaint. Then his obligation to her ceased utterly, and she knew that it would.

He had been irritated and despondent ever since Mr. Muir, through Madge's aid, had so signally checkmated him. But Stella's greeting had rea.s.sured him, and Graydon's manner toward her gave the impression that she had not been extending encouragement to him. This promising aspect of affairs speedily began to pa.s.s away, however, when he saw her step to Graydon's side and ask if he was not going to shake hands with her. He knew how proud the girl was, and by this high standard measured the strength of the regard which impelled to this advance.

He had since noted every effort that she had made to secure Graydon's attention, and the truth became perfectly clear. She had utterly lost faith in his and her father's predictions of financial disaster to Henry Muir, and would accept Graydon at the earliest opportunity.

He saw that his defeat in Wall Street insured his defeat in the Catskills, and feared that Graydon had guessed his strategy, and, therefore, would not approach the girl while he was at her side. There was no use in his playing lover any longer--he had no desire to do so--for even he now so clearly recognized the mercenary spirit which might have brought her to his arms, that such manhood as he had revolted at it. If she had given him her hand it would have been secured purely through a financial trick, and even his Wall Street soul experienced a revulsion of disgust at the thought of a wife thus obtained. If he could have detected a little sentiment toward him, some kindly regret that she could not reward his long-continued and unstinted devotion, he would have parted from her more in sorrow than in anger; but now he knew that she was wild to escape from him, that she would instantly break her promise not to accept Muir before the close of the week, and, to his punctilious business mind, the week did not end until twelve o'clock Sat.u.r.day night.

With a sort of grim vindictiveness he had muttered, "She shall keep her promise. Neither she nor Muir shall be happy till my time has expired."

Later in the evening, Graydon not returning, the thought occurred to Arnault, "Perhaps he too has recognized the sharp game she has played--perhaps Henry Muir has said to him, 'She has been putting you off to see the result of the sudden calling in of Arnault's loan,'

and now young Muir proposes to console himself with that handsome Miss Alden;" and a gleam of pleasure at the prospect illumined his face for a moment. Meanwhile he maintained his mask before the world so admirably that even Miss Wildmere little guessed the depth of his revolt. He was the last one to reveal his bitter disappointment and humiliating defeat to the vigilant gossips of the house. Those who saw his smiling face and gallantries, and heard his breezy, half-cynical words, little guessed the storm within. He had been taught in the best school in the world how to say and look one thing and mean another.

At last an acquaintance approached, and said, "Pardon me, Mr. Arnault, but I don't propose to permit you to monopolize Miss Wildmere all the evening;" and then asked for the next dance.

Stella complied instantly, thinking, "Graydon may return now at any moment, and if he sees that I am not with Arnault will come to me, as usual."

Arnault bowed politely, looked at his watch, and invited another lady to dance. Stella had been on the floor but a few moments when not Graydon, but her father came and said to her partner, "Excuse me, sir.

I wish to speak to my daughter."