"A change will do you good, Frances," she purred. "By either the _Orinoco_ or the _Trinidad_ you'll have only a two days' voyage.

Helen will be in her element among the coral, and Milly must come home with a coat of tan."

Milly bent lower over her magazine; in an hour she hadn't turned a page.

Her thin hands, like claws, that held the book, disgusted me, fascinated me! They were the hands that Ned had kissed, as he had mine; clasped and pressed, as he had--how could he!

I called Aunt to me at bedtime, and told her I'd trespa.s.sed upon her kindness too long, and that Mrs. Van Dam was pressing.

"But we can't let you go," she said, even while the wonder whether she might not shone through her face. "You and Meg have become friends, I know, but Bake and I feel responsible to your mother."

Of course we understood each other, but neither cared to speak the truth.

She had no pity, in her feeling for her own child, for the hurt I might conceal. And I don't want her pity!

At least I shall no longer have to tear my heart out, meeting Ned in her house.

The parting was easier than might have been expected, for we all rose to the occasion. Uncle had been drilled over night, and his perplexity and Aunt's preparations for leaving home amused me. The trip to Bermuda had been proposed for my sake, Aunt had only half desired it; but now she forgot her fears of winter storms, seasickness and shipwreck, and clutched at the excuse to whisk Milly out of reach of Ned Hynes and out of sight of me.

Her tone was dulcet sweet.

"We can't blame you for preferring New York, when the Van Dams are so lovely to you," she said complacently. "But Ethel is delicate. Bermuda'll do her a world of good; though of course it's not fashionable.'"

"I'm sure you'll have a lovely trip," I said. "You must let me help you pack."

She was turning the house topsy-turvy in her zeal to sail by the next boat, the very next day. She succeeded; and when she left the house I left it, too; to come here; to the General; to a house that would two months ago have seemed a palace such as I could never dream of living in.

It would suit me better to be independent, to be sometimes alone, to feel that I shouldn't have a shrewd woman's eyes so much upon me. But for the present--it is my refuge!

At Christmas I should have broken down and sobbed when I saw the last of the Bakers, instead of dropping honeyed sentences and undulating out of the room--like--like--. He called me once the G.o.ddess glowing in her walk.

I have changed this winter, mentally as well as physically.

CHAPTER II.

THE IRONY OF LIFE.

I've been feverishly gay since I came to Meg. I have walked between stormwinds--grief behind and grief that I must enter. I've dined and danced, and I've clenched my hands lest I might shriek, and I've longed to hide away and die.

But I won't die. I'm not like other women--a silly, whining pack, their hearts the same fluttering page blotted with the same tears wept in h.e.l.l or Heaven. Love is a draught for two--or one; wretched one!--to drink. My life is for the world.

Oh, I've been a child, caring only for the lights and the pretty things and the music; but I'm not blind now. I understand many things that were hidden from the plain girl from the West. I have lived a year in every day. I see as they are these people I have thought so kind. So rich I call them now; so smug, so socially jealous.

There's Meg Van Dam, now; surely she knows why I have come to her, and she was Milly's friend; yet she fawns upon me. I thought her a great person, but now I know she's eager to rise by hanging at my skirts, and I amuse myself with her joy that I've rejected Ned, as she thinks; with her talk of Strathay, her dismay at John Burke's wooing.

John's so persistent. He called to see me the very day--almost in the hour I came here; the hour I was pacing the dainty little room Meg a.s.signs me, picturing the scene on board the Bermuda boat, wondering if Ned had gone to the dock on the chance of a parting word with Milly, torturing myself with the vision of a lovers' reconciliation.

When John's card was brought, I was tempted to refuse to see him. But at the thought that he would know too well how to interpret reserves, I went down, nerved to meet him with a smile.

"Why, John," I said with my most pleased expression, "back from the West so soon? You've heard the news, I suppose--my cousins sailed this morning."

He had turned from the window at the rustle of my dress, and the grimness of his square-set jaws, warning me of a coming struggle, relaxed into a look of perplexity. Men have so little insight; he could not see that, as I sank, still smiling, into a chair, my breath came in gasps that almost choked me. After a moment's silence he said sharply:--

"Helen, we must be married."

"Married! Didn't you get my letter? John--"

"Listen!" he interrupted. "I must have the right to take care of you. You need me."

"Indeed?"

My tone was purposed insolence; I met his look with bravado. I hated him because he--because I--because he dared to know--because he offered to come to my relief when my aunt--Ned--perhaps he thought me deserted-- lovelorn. His awkward figure woke in me a sudden physical repulsion.

"_I_ need _you_?" I repeated with a cool laugh. "And except the good deed of providing me with a husband, what services do you propose to--"

"Nelly," he said, disregarding my taunts, "I have just come from the _Orinoco_. When I reached the office this morning and heard that the party was starting, I a.s.sumed that you would be with it and hurried to the pier. If I'd missed the boat, I might not have learned the truth until-- when? Why have they gone without you? What does it all mean?"

I pulled a flower nonchalantly from a vase beside me, but I felt my cheeks burn and grow white with deadly cold and fever.

"Didn't Mrs. Baker tell you," I said, "that 'Nelly dear' thought Bermuda unfashionable? You got my letter?"

"No; you did write, then? You so far recognised the claim of your promised husband--"

"Not now; not one minute--"

In a blind frenzy of rage I held out his ring; but he knew the master word to my heart. I stopped short as, ignoring what I said, he hurried on.

"Why wasn't Hynes at the boat?" he demanded. "Did he know what I didn't-- that it was not the place to seek you?"

He grasped my wrists, he looked into my bloodless face--caught the defiant, exultant look that flashed upon it at the news he gave; then he dropped my hands but immediately seized them again.

"If he dares come near you, he shall answer! Speak!" he said. "Is it for his sake that you've stayed here?"

"If you will let me go--"

He loosed his grasp and I ostentatiously chafed my wrists. I was in a fury. I was driven to madness by the thought that John might force a quarrel upon Ned--the man I had rejected and the man that had rejected me!

"I'll never marry you nor any poor man!" I cried out. "What have you to offer me? What can you do? Oh, yes, you can come and insult me, and talk to me of love--Love! The love that would make me a poor man's drudge!"

Again I thrust his ring at him, the opal spitting angry blue and orange fires. I thought he would have struck at it. Heaven knows what mad instinct was at the back of his brain. I believe every man's a brute when the woman he loves defies him. I think his fingers tingled for the Cave man's club. At any rate, I shrank in terror from his eyes.

But quickly the red light sank in them, and a puzzled look grew there instead, turning them very soft and pitiful.

"Nelly, I cannot think you serious," he said. "We have always talked of marriage, and--is it an insult to press you for the day? Heart of me, I've been so much worried about you! Are you very sure that you have chosen the wisest part? If you are, I can only leave you to think it over, perhaps to--"

"Don't preach!"

I flung out at him a torrent of abusive words, resolved that he should think about me what he chose, so long as it was not the truth.

He had no plea for himself; he saw that it would be useless. I stabbed him the more viciously as the anger died out of his face and left it only grave and pained. He looked older than I had ever seen him before; and on his temple, where he turned toward the window, gleamed a little streak of gray.