Gertrude Warden

“ But the oddest little prick of vexation came to her as she spoke. In spite of her dread of her husband, and her terror lest he should recognise in her the lost Laline, she had been strangely interested in him that afternoon. His gentleness and geniality she knew to be a sham, his agreeable manners merely things he assumed and dropped at will. None knew better than she that Wallace Armstrong was a man without honour, principle, or remorse—one who would lie and cheat and drink and swear, who would strike an old man and deceive a friendless girl—a creature in whom no truth was to be found. ”

“ In reality Laline was neither foolish nor specially weak-minded, only abnormally sensitive to influences to which a coarser nature would have been impervious. Looking into Wallace Armstrong's bold bright eyes, in the depths of which a scornful smile was lurking, the young girl seemed to read there, better than any fortune-teller could inform her, a will, selfish, resolute, and cruel, a nature attracted by and yet strongly antagonistic to her own, a personality she might grow to fear and even, it might be, to hate, but which she would never be able to regard with indifference. ”

“ Do you know what that wonderful little old lady of yours told me when she first saw me? She said—I remember her actual words—'You are capable of going to the greatest lengths of what people would call folly for the sake of one you love. You like many people, you love very few. But where you love it is a passion, a religion!'"
"Did she tell you anything else?" asked Laline, deeply interested.
"Yes. She predicted that I was on the eve of a new experience which would alter the whole course of my life. Why, Lina, that was loving you!" ”

“ But you shall go with me to-morrow, if you like. I knew that Wallace Armstrong's spirit was too fine to assimilate with that of Clare. Her destiny will lead her, late in life, to the arms of some stout and bald-headed stock-broker. When he is asleep, after dinner, she will flirt with his clerks or his partner, and be very happy; but you—life holds something very different in store for you. I suppose you must dree your weird. But remember, once you let love come into your life, trouble—terrible trouble—will come too!"
Secretly, Mrs. Vandeleur was very curious to see Laline and Wallace together. ”

“ I can't pretend to interest myself in tomes and ledgers and bills-of-exchange any more than I can talk twaddle in a drawing-room over sloppy tea, or play lawn-tennis with a lot of prim bread-and-butter misses without a word to say for themselves. If I think a woman pretty, I tell her so; if I feel inclined to make love, I do so. I am made to lead my own life, to eat and drink and walk and sleep and fight and make love, and perhaps get drunk and get sober again, but it must be in my own way. No one can drive me, and no one presumes to pity me. ”

“ It is always easier to learn evil than good. But, Laline, [Pg 291] with all my heart, bad as I may have been, I pitied you for the hardness of your life at Boulogne, and I meant to make you happy. In your pure eyes I read my last hope of salvation; and, though I won you by a trick, I never meant you to regret your bargain. I meant to reform—I should have reformed, but your desertion maddened me; and, since you left me, I have gone from bad to worse. Listen, Laline—I am your husband, but I renounce a husband's right to your obedience! ”

“ That she would do this sooner or later he took as a foregone conclusion, sharing, as he did with most men, the idea that any woman married to him was bound in time to love him. But meanwhile he did not care to meet the long trustful gaze of her soft dark eyes; and it was almost with a feeling of vexation that this afternoon, as he strolled down the pier, smoking a cigar, with his hands in his pockets and his straw hat tilted over his eyes to protect them from the sun, he found himself face to face with Laline, and saw the look of pleasure on her face as she recognised him. ”

“ Do you dream much and vividly?"
"Constantly. And by day as well as by night, I am ashamed to say!" Laline answered, laughing. "I am a born dreamer."
"You are just the person I want!" exclaimed Mrs. Vandeleur, a touch of restless excitement showing itself in her voice and manner. "My niece Clare cannot dream. A dreamer—a day-dreamer—must have a pure white soul, must be untouched by the world, and far above all monetary considerations. What is your age? ”

“ Your good men who go to church on Sunday and stick to their desks so many hours on weekdays don't know the meaning of the word passion. Lorin has everything in life—why should he want you too? Good women like you are sent into the world to redeem bad men like me, not to carve beef and mutton for such estimable citizens as my cousin Lorin. A good woman whom I loved and who loved me might do what she liked with me; and, Lina, from the moment when yesterday you ran into my arms, I have loved you and longed to hold you there again! ”

“ These thoughts tortured Laline; and through the long hours of the night she lay awake, torn by conflicting sentiments of pity for Lorin, pity for herself, and pity for her husband. Towards morning she had half decided on flight as the sole way out of her difficulties, until the thought of a confession to old Alexander Wallace of all but the name of her husband suggested itself as an alternative course.
Throughout the wakeful hours she strove to fight down the insidious temptation to hold her peace and fulfil her engagement with the man she loved. ”

“ No woman has ever loved me like that. The women I have known have been fools, or worse. But as you nestled in my arms for those few seconds and I smoothed your hair, I understand what a woman like you might make of a man like me."
Instinctively he moved one step towards her, and as instinctively Laline put up her hand, as though to ward him off, and drew a step farther away from him. He saw the action and frowned impatiently.
"Why should you hate me as you do?" he asked, in tones of passionate anger. "Can you not love my cousin without hating me? ”

“ But I was not wholly unprepared to face it, and this dreadful foreboding seems to presage something even worse, some terrible misfortune for which I am wholly unprepared."
She stood before Mrs. Vandeleur in her trailing white draperies, with scarcely more colour in her face than in her gown. Even her lips were pale, as, with low trembling accents, she gave voice to her fears.
"I have told you that love would bring trouble into your life," said Mrs. Vandeleur, "but of course I did not expect you to pay any attention to my words. To a limited extent, you have yourself the gift of second sight. ”

“ Her nature was not meant to tend towards independence and mistrust of others. Love had been a necessity to Laline as a child; she had loved her mother intensely, and had felt her loss as irreparable. Torn from the refined seclusion of her early home, she had tried to adapt herself to the impecunious Bohemianism of her father's house, and had tried also very hard indeed to love her father. Had Wallace Armstrong not shown himself in his true colours on his wedding morning, she would in all probability have grown much attached to him, in spite of his sullen temper and dissipated habits. ”

“ Now be frank with me, Miss Grahame. What could have made you hate me even before we had ever met, unless it was Lorin's account of me?"
"I had heard about you from others," she answered, in a confused tone, averting her face from him. "I—I have a horror of people who drink. I had seen things about you in the papers——"
"Oh, I don't pretend to be a saint!" he broke in. "My life is my own—it's of no value to any one but myself; and what I do with it is no one's concern but my own. My flawless cousin is perpetually playing guardian angel to me. ”

“ One woman would be the same as another to him; he would be incapable of differentiating between them. Moreover, any other thought she might entertain about him was swallowed up in the overpowering sensation of physical dislike with which he inspired her. In this dislike fear had a part, but it was the shrinking horror of a delicate and refined nature when confronted by one essentially coarse and brutal, and not a personal fear lest he should know and claim her as his wife which moved Laline. ”

“ Wallace. I love Lorin so dearly that, if I were to see him or write to him, I don't know what I might say or do. You see it is a great temptation. I am tied to a man I hate, who does not even know that I am alive; yet, because of those words we spoke together years ago when I was too young to understand the meaning of what I did, I must break my own heart and that of the man I love and live lonely and uncared for perhaps all my life. To me it seems bitterly, cruelly hard! Yet I would not for anything let Lorin fall from my ideal of him ”

“ Give them the hope of fortune, of distinction, of a career, a calm and elevated sphere of thought, which would raise them above the little aches and pains and vexations of humanity, and what do they do? At the distant vision of a man, it all goes to the winds! All my secretaries have been like that; and I might have guessed that Lina, who is very much the most beautiful, would not escape this craze for the male sex which is a drag upon the spiritual progress of almost every woman between seventeen and fifty. Why could you not have fallen in love with my niece Clare? ”

“ Much as I love Wallace—and he is like my own son to me—I hope not. A good woman might be the making of Wallace, I do believe, but her heart might be broken in the process. He's a wild harum-scarum fellow, and——"
"Do you think for one moment," cried Laline, indignantly, "that I would break off my engagement with Lorin in order to marry your other nephew? I have seldom met any one I dislike so much as he in all my life!" ”

“ I know every secret of her heart, and there is not one thought hidden there which would not shame you by its purity!"
"I would not disturb your belief in Lina for the world," observed her niece, a little red spot of anger forming itself in the whiteness of her cheeks; "but, on a subject like this, we may each keep our own opinion, may we not? I myself am very fond of Lina."
"That is not true! You hate her, and are bitterly envious of her!"
"I! Envious of her!"
The white eyelids and yellow lashes were scornfully lowered over the angry eyes. ”

“ Mary's Crescent—a row of old-fashioned houses, [Pg 65] mellowed by age and smoke to a deep crimson colour. Near them waved the tall trees of Kensington Gardens, and before their narrow green-painted doors two steps led to a walk three feet wide and a stone-paved yard, over which the wheels of Laline's cab clattered noisily, awakening the protests of more than one pet-dog from the quiet houses into which the noise from the busy thoroughfare of the High Street came only as a distant and soothing murmur. ”

“ In colouring, too, the girls offered a marked contrast. Laline's complexion was of a pinky fairness, varying from cream to a rose-flush in her cheeks, which came and went with the least excitement. Her voice was lower in pitch, and of a more contralto quality than that of Clare, who to the silvery sweetness of Mrs. Vandeleur's tones added a touch of caressing "Irish blarney" in her intonation.
"I should so very much like to help Aunt Cissy in her work!" resumed Miss Cavan. "And it seems rather hard that I can't just because I am rather plump, doesn't it? ”

“ Lina, you don't know what it is to live with a wholly uncongenial nature. You and your husband were born under opposing stars; he is wholly animal, you are as wholly spiritual. My poor dear child, my heart bleeds for you, and I feel as though I had brought all this upon you!"
The little lady had indeed bitterly reproached herself for having permitted her treacherous niece to be present on the occasion when Laline, under the influence of hypnotism, had confessed her marriage. ”

“ Listen!
"'Life will just hold out the proving both our powers, alone and blended;
And then, come next life quickly! This world's use will have been ended.'"
A sob rose in Laline's throat as Lorin, holding her hand close within his arm, bent his head to murmur the words in her ear. The picture they presented before her mind's eye was tantalisingly happy, and yet it was just such perfect happiness that she must nerve herself to banish from her life. ”

“ All through his moral turpitude, his treachery, ingratitude, and bitter sneers at his betters he never for one moment deceived himself, as so many better and worse men have done, by believing himself a fine and noble character labouring under undeserved persecution.
Right down in his heart he knew that Laline was infinitely too good for him, and that, if her love was given to Lorin, it was the man and not his money that she prized. ”

“ Armstrong, that you know absolutely nothing about me."
"It seems impossible," he said, thoughtfully, "and yet I suppose it is true, as facts go, and that I must have seen that face so like yours, with floating hair, in my dreams. But facts are the least important things in this world, Miss Grahame. It is only by reading between the lines of the facts of his life that we really know any man. A bare summary of events teaches us nothing. We live outside, or, rather, inside of what happens to us."
"Now you are talking like Mrs. Vandeleur," said Laline, interested in spite of herself. ”

“ I will not release you; and wherever you go, Lina, I will follow you!"
He had sprung after her and caught her in his arms, holding her so closely that his grasp hurt her. Laline trembled and cried; but, with all her heart and soul yearning for his caress, she felt powerless to resist him. So they stood a moment, she with her pale cheek pillowed on his breast, while, bending his head, he spoke rapidly and passionately in her ear.
"Does nature count for nothing?" ”

“ She was as yet too young and too entirely fancy-free to lament with any bitterness the lifelong loneliness which Wallace Armstrong's selfish action had entailed upon her. But something in Clare's joyous description of her new love-affair recalled with painful clearness to Laline the fact that she herself was set apart from all other girls, and that never to her ears would a man's lips murmur words of love. ”

“ Providentially, she recalled the fact that the train from Paris to Calais stopped at Boulogne for a few minutes before proceeding on its journey at a quarter to twelve o'clock. Laline's mind was at once made up; and in less time than it takes to tell it she had seized her cloak and gloves, locked her bedroom-door, slipped the key in her pocket, and astonished Bénoîte by darting into the kitchen and whispering a hurried message in her ear before leaving the house by the way into the Rue St. Denis. ”

“ Vandeleur, holding up a warning forefinger, "don't attempt to run counter to such an instinct as that! When your whole spirit seems to rise in arms against a personality, the feeling of repulsion is given you as a token to beware of them; and, if you feel as you say towards Mr. Armstrong, have nothing whatever to do with him!"
"I will take your advice," said Laline, dutifully. ”