CHAPTER XX.
GREEK MEETS GREEK.
Richard Raleigh left the library at sound of his father’s voice calling his name, and hastened to an adjacent room where that gentleman awaited him. Grafton Raleigh’s face was pale and troubled.
“Get rid of that woman, Rick,” he said in a low, cautious tone; “her eyes are everywhere at once. She suspects something, and I believe she never took her eyes off the--the document--after she had first observed it.” Richard started nervously. His father went on: “If she once gets her curiosity aroused, you might as well attempt to stay a tornado in its course as to check or restrain her. Get her out of the library, if you can; go into the conservatory and talk nonsense--Heaven knows she is always ready enough to listen! and I will go back to the library and remove the--the paper. You know Rosamond well enough to compute the length of time that she will probably keep Mrs. Vernon waiting--long enough to ruin us, Rick, if she sees anything more to arouse her curiosity. And that paper is so extremely conspicuous; and she and Rosamond burst in upon me so unexpectedly that I had no time to conceal it. I shall be more careful to lock the door another time.”
Pale and looking very uncomfortable, Richard retraced his steps to the library. As he entered the room Bessie had just arisen to her feet, about to return to her investigations in the escritoire. At sound of the opening door she started guiltily.
“Ah!” she cried, as her eyes fell upon Richard, “you are back again, and I am glad! I am tired waiting for Rosamond. She is an unconscionably long time getting ready!” pouting bewitchingly as she stood with her long black eyelashes drooping over her great, velvety eyes--downcast, as though unable to bear the look of plainly expressed admiration from Richard Raleigh’s dusky orbs riveted upon her.
“Come into the conservatory, Bessie,” he pleaded. “I want to talk to you.”
She followed him as obediently as a child, and they entered the conservatory together. Moving down the long aisle between rows of bloom and verdure, she lifted her eyes to his face, with a question in their innocent depths. No one knew better than Bessie Vernon how to enact the rôle of innocence and childishness.
“How long has this little affair been going on, Richard,” she asked, with assumed timidity, “this--this love affair with Miss Leigh? By the way, have I ever met her? The name sounds strangely familiar. Wasn’t there a man by the name of Leigh killed a short time ago?”
He fell backward with a suppressed cry, which ended in an impatient exclamation as his foot came in contact with a rustic jardinière which fell to the floor with a crash, depositing a great glazed jar filled with lovely blue Mexican torrinias upon the floor at his feet.
Half angrily he stooped to rescue the plants. Then, summoning the gardener, he left him to repair the damage, and moved calmly away at Mrs. Vernon’s side, with as much nonchalance as though a fifty-dollar jardinière and a ruined collection of rare plants worth their weight in gold to the connoisseur were matters of the greatest indifference to him.
“Now, Bessie,” in a low tone, as he led her away to a retired nook amid great trailing rose-vines, “don’t annoy me with your chaff about marrying a poor girl. If I could have had my own way, I would have met another, a sweeter fate. If I could have won the beautiful woman whom I have admired above all others,” with a tender gaze into her downcast, blushing face, a look which spoke volumes, “then I would have had a chance at happiness. But as it is,” with a deep sigh, “I must--I have--resigned all hope; for she, alas! is the wife of another man!”
“Rick!” in a tone of remonstrance, but at the same time one little hand stole into his with a faint, wavering touch, “you must not speak in that way. It is wrong, awfully wrong; and what would Vernon say?”
Richard smiled sadly.
“He would say that he has had the best of it in the race for the prize. Bessie, why did you not give me a chance--half a chance--to win you?”
She turned shyly away.
“Don’t ask such foolish questions,” she returned. “Run away now like a good boy, and see if Rosamond is ever coming.”
“I will not.”
He glanced furtively about. Barnes, the gardener, had removed the _débris_, and quietly retired. They were alone in that retired nook in the conservatory. Richard lifted Mrs. Vernon’s hand to his lips.
“No, I will not go and leave you!” he cried, eagerly. “I have sought an interview with you for a long time, Bessie, and sought in vain. This is my chance now, and I am going to avail myself of it. Bessie! Bessie! don’t turn away from me so coldly, sweetheart--”
He sunk into a seat at her side, for she had seated herself upon a carved divan amid the fragrant Maréchal Niel roses, whose perfume loaded the air. He took her hand in his and drew the dusky head down upon his shoulder. She started up with a little cry.
“Don’t! Oh, Rick, it is shameful in you! I--I have always cared, of course. I might indeed have more than liked you in time if--if--well, fate hadn’t decreed that I should marry Arnold Vernon! It is too late now to talk about it--too late!”
The little sinner had never thought of such a thing as marrying Richard Raleigh, or caring for him either, for that matter, though she had known him all her life. But the situation was strong, and the effect too much of a temptation to be resisted. But Bessie Vernon was destined to pay dearly for that moment of sentimental folly.
Richard sighed deeply.
“You are Arnold Vernon’s wedded wife, and I--I am going to marry Lillian Leigh!” he said, slowly.
“Why should you?” she asked, softly; “you need not marry any one, Richard, if you--do--not love her! And I do not see what you gain by this marriage. She is a poor girl!” with a swift, keen glance into his startled face, “and I see no object in marrying her at all if you do not--if--you care a little for some one--else!”
He smiled caressingly.
“You are a dear little woman, Bessie,” he said, softly, his dark eyes upon her face with bold admiration; “but you do not understand a man’s heart. We are often compelled to submit to much that is unpalatable, and forego many joys that would make us happy if attainable.
“‘Much must be borne which is hard to bear; Much given away which it were sweet to keep,’
Owen Meredith tells us; and Owen speaks from extended experience. We have, all of us, to bear our burdens and keep silent, and try to make as much out of this life as we can. And you would not doom me to lasting loneliness, Bessie?”
“To be sure not. Hush! Is not that Rosamond coming at last?”
“Yes, confound her! So my blissful moment is over! Bessie, I have something to say to you, and I must communicate with you in some way. May I write to you? Will you answer the letter? It will make me very happy to confide my griefs to you, if you will permit me to write.”
Silence! Light footsteps drawing nearer and nearer, and then a shrill voice, calling loudly:
“Bessie! Bessie! where are you? I am ready and waiting.”
“Answer me, Bessie. Will you reply to my letter? Don’t refuse me. I swear you will never regret it. I want your advice; and I must speak my mind for once, for, oh! I have suffered! May I write? Will you reply?”
The door of the conservatory opened, and Rosamond’s eyes roved through the flower-scented place.
“Bessie! Ah, yes, there you are! Well, come, dear; I am all ready.”
“Answer me!” reiterated Richard, in a low tone. “Yes or no? Rosie’s coming in--be quick! Which is it to be?”
“Yes.”
A gleam of devilish triumph flashed into his dusky eyes and lighted up his face. He caught her hand in his and pressed his lips upon it, and then Bessie Vernon arose.
She was quite pale, and looked uneasy. Already conscience was pricking her with its sharp sting, and reminding her that she had done wrong. Yet it was only a brief reminder, for Bessie Vernon was not troubled with an undue amount of conscience.
And then they joined Rosamond at the door of the conservatory, and a little later the two ladies drove away to the elegant home of the Vernons. And then Richard went back to his father.
Grafton Raleigh was waiting for his son in the library, upon his pale face a look of perturbation.
“Our fears are well founded,” he began, as soon as his son had entered the room; “that meddling woman has certainly been looking at that document! Why? Because this is not the way in which I placed it in the drawer. I remember perfectly, and indeed I was cautious enough to place it in a certain position, that I might know if it should be displaced. If only that fellow Buckley had not called just then! I knew that his business with me was urgent, or I would have declined seeing him. But he saved me a hundred dollars by the call, for he gave me a pointer which will prevent the loss of at least that much. Yet it would have been better to have lost fifty times one hundred than to let Bessie Vernon get hold of our secret. The sly little cat! She is always where she isn’t wanted, and it seems as if she were destined to find out all our family affairs. Rick, I’m afraid of that woman.”
“I am not.”
Richard spoke quietly, but there was a meaning tone in the low, soft, sneering voice.
“Just leave all that to me, father, and I agree to close Bessie Vernon’s lips effectually--so effectually that no matter what happens she will not dare to speak. Don’t ask me how or why. I have not wasted a moment of time this morning. I know her nature; her insatiable love of conquest, and her vanity which is never satisfied. I have made hay while the sun shines; I have won her sympathy through her overweening vanity, and I am not afraid of Bessie Vernon or all that she may know. I am no more afraid of any developments which she may make than I am afraid of the wind. What troubles me in regard to this deuced unpleasant business is, whether or no Lillian has begun to suspect.”
“The deuce! We had better be dead if that be true.”
Richard nodded.
“And so I say, father, that the sooner the marriage is over, and she becomes my property, the better for our cause. Shall I endeavor to bring about the marriage in a few days?”
“Days?” Grafton Raleigh started. “If you can--all right, of course,” he returned, thoughtfully; “the sooner the better. Can not you touch Lillian’s pride and arouse her jealousy, so that she will be goaded into consent to an immediate marriage?”
Richard’s face grew grave.
“I will send for her to come down to the drawing-room,” he said. “She shall appoint our wedding-day at once, and the sooner the better. I know how to manage her; never fear, father! And--ahem!--I fancy I can manage Bessie Vernon also.”
He rang the bell, and when a servant appeared he sent him to request Miss Leigh to come down to the drawing-room.