CHAPTER XVI.

PERNICIOUS WORDS IMPREGNED WITH REASON.

Who that has visited has not suffered from the overattentiveness of too kind hosts?

The Forrests were so exceedingly good, so exceedingly devoted, so exceedingly painstaking, that Nina sometimes fled to the shelter of her own room and longed for anything--even some startling occurrence--to deliver her out of their hands. But she would not sound the note of her own deliverance: so for a few days longer she rambled about the proper, stiff garden that, however, had not had all beauty expressed out of it; helped Lady Forrest entertain her callers; went for drives with her or for long aimless walks with a servant always at her heels.

This latter proceeding she protested warmly against, but found herself running her head into a ukase of her husband. He had specially requested that she should never be permitted to go out unaccompanied, and perforce she must endure the society of Lady Forrest’s abigail, although she was longing for solitude, and the companionship only of her own new and exacting thoughts.

This evening, however, she was alone. Sir Hervey and Lady Forrest, after earnest protestations on her part that she should not suffer from loneliness during their absence, had been persuaded to go to the theatre; and, deeply thankful for the uninterrupted enjoyment of her own society, Nina sat drinking her after-dinner coffee in the drawing-room.

It was a sultry evening. The scent of the flowers coming in through the open window was almost putting her to sleep. Under drowsy eyelids she watched the curtain swaying gently in the breeze when a sudden step outside made her straighten herself.

“The postman!” she ejaculated, “bless him--he has saved me from going to sleep.”

But it was not the postman. There was a pause, then the footsteps came nearer the window, and she saw standing between the curtains an uninteresting-looking man whom she barely noticed until compelled to do so by his fixed scrutiny of her.

Then she examined him. He was neither tall nor short. He had a quiet, tired face, a slight sneer and sloping shoulders,--becoming in a woman, but an evidence of weak-mindedness in a man. He was evidently interested in her in spite of his bored manner. She was not flattered, however, and said, coolly: “You will find a footman at the hall door.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said, in a full, smooth tone and removing his hat, “but it is you I wish to see.”

“Oh, indeed!” she said, in surprise; then she asked, hesitatingly, “Will you come in?”

He murmured, “I thank you,” entered the room, grasped a chair, and in an absent-minded way drew it nearer her, and sat down, without having once interrupted his scrutiny of her face.

Finally he muttered to himself in quiet satisfaction: “She will do--might even create a sensation.”

The beginning of his scrutiny found Nina a happy, contented, though slightly embarrassed young person; the end of it left her a creature panic-stricken and consumed with apprehensive fear.

The man before her was mad. Only that morning Lady Forrest had been telling her that in the very next house lived a rich, middle-aged merchant whose reason was affected, but so slightly that it was not considered necessary to put him under restraint. Now he had escaped from the surveillance of his relatives, and had come to torment her, and in all the wide earth he could not have found a person with a more strongly rooted, morbid aversion to mad people than she had.

Her head seemed bursting with her intensity of thought. What should she do to rid herself of him? She dared not ring the bell and ask a servant to show him out. It was dangerous to cross the whims of a madman; and, with a shudder, she pictured a sudden lapse into anger on his part, and the breaking of Lady Forrest’s gilt furniture.

Well, some unexpected way of deliverance might open. In the meantime, she must force herself into composure, and try to keep him in good humour.

Fortunate for her was it that he appeared a cheerful madman. One of the gloomy, raving kind would send her into hysterics.

“You seem frightened,” he said, in dulcet tones; “but you will be quite free from fear when I tell you who I am.”

His manner was inviting. He wanted her to urge him on in proclaiming his identity, and, although she had no burning curiosity on the subject, she thought it politic to murmur, faintly, “And who are you?”

“Don’t scream nor cry out,” he said, putting up one hand by way of caution; then leaning forward, and in an assumed and melodramatic voice, he uttered the words, “I am your father.”

Oh! her father only. She was prepared to hear the Shah of Persia or the Emperor of Japan. So his warning was unnecessary. All that she could do now in the way of making a noise would be to emit a faint, a very faint, squeak; but she was forgetting his peculiar affliction, and, summoning all her forces, she tried to bring a look of astonishment to her blank face.

Her effort was evidently crowned with success, for with a flattered air he went on: “Yes, you were stolen from me when you were a baby. Where has Fordyce been hiding you all these years?”

The mention of her husband’s name threw Nina into a state of mingled resentment, terror, and anger. Could it be that she had made a mistake,--that this man was not mad? Could it be that the man in America was a usurper,--the lonely man reading his paper and thinking of her? No, there was her real father, she could never love another; and mad or not mad, she would not encourage this man. She hated his quiet, weary manner, his cynical tones. He was no relative of hers. She would not have him. She loved the man in America.

“Where has he been hiding you?” he repeated, patiently.

“He has been hiding me in New York,” she replied, firmly, and with flashing eyes.

“In New York?” he said, politely; “you have not the air of a city girl.”

“I have been in New York,” she replied, stubbornly.

“What part of it?”

She had never been in the metropolis of the Empire State in her life, but she possessed a song celebrating the charms of a certain portion of it, and she answered, unhesitatingly, “The Bowery.”

Her would-be relative was no better informed than herself. He was a genuine cockney; so he asked another question, this one accompanied by his stealthy and habitual sneer: “I suppose you have been told nothing about me?”

“Yes, ever so many things,” she answered, unblushingly.

He looked doubtful, and asked, slowly: “Who has brought you up?”

“Some people called Jones,” said Nina, glibly.

“What station in life did they occupy?”

“Mr. Jones ran milk wagons.”

“Milk wagons?”

“Perhaps you would call them carts. Things with cans and bottles of milk in them, you know. We were not right in the city. The Bowery is a lovely green place with plenty of trees and a meadow. Our home was on it.”

“Oh, a place in the suburbs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did Captain Fordyce tell you about me?”

“He didn’t tell me anything. The Joneses said your business kept you in England, but I should see you some day.”

“Did any report of my death reach you?”

“No, sir.”

“And yet I sent one,” he said. “It was a father’s stratagem to bring his child within reach.”

His dreamy, affectionate tone did not impose on the sharp-eyed young lady opposite. This man was playing a lazy, sentimental part, and, father or no father, she would not encourage him. She did not like those down-drooping eyes. That was the way she looked herself when she wished to deceive some one.

“You seem to have plenty of spirit,” he said, admiringly.

“You must have spirit in New York,” she said, emphatically; “otherwise you get imposed on.”

The man’s admiration increased. She was fooling him--this saucy young daughter of his; but he liked to be fooled by her, and with an ingratiating air he drew a handful of official-looking documents from his pocket.

“I would like to have you look over these. Then you will be convinced of your relationship to me.”

To hide her angry tears, Nina mechanically stretched out her hand, and without understanding a line ran them over. Just a few words from a certificate of birth shone through the glancing mirrors in her eyes, “Bertha Anne Stenner.”

“That is not my name,” she uttered, in a choked voice.

“What name did Fordyce give you?” asked the man, curiously.

She threw up her head. “Jane Mary Jenkins.”

“It was Jones just now,” he remarked, with quiet amusement.

“Jones first, the Jenkins afterward,” she stammered. “I didn’t live with the same people all the time.”

“I have been interested in hearing of you from a friend who made the trip with you,” he said, mildly.

“Mr. Delessert!” she exclaimed.

“No, not Mr. Delessert.”

It _was_ Mr. Delessert, and she grew pale and sick and faint, and the words, “A companion to gamblers,” ran stupidly through her mind. She did not like this man with his stealthy air of measuring her and summing up her airs and graces. She felt humiliated and ashamed. Mr. Danvers never treated her in that way. She had never seen him look as this man looked, except upon the occasions when he had a fine pink and white young pig to sell, and was running his eye over it in anticipation of the market; and she flushed and quivered all over, as if she, too, were an unfortunate animal with a butcher’s knife suspended over her. But she must drive away these shocking thoughts and listen, for her companion was again addressing her.

“I suppose it would be asking too much of you to accompany me to London to-night?”

“I should rather think so,” she said, indignantly, “and how do I know that you are not a fraud?”

His indulgent air, and the manner in which he waved his hand toward the papers on her lap, might have convinced her that he was her parent; but she would not be convinced.

“Then I shall wait and see Lady Forrest,” he said, calmly. “She will comprehend the justice of my claim.”

Nina grew hot all over, and began to measure him from Lady Forrest’s standpoint. He was not quite a gentleman, in spite of his quiet manner. His black suit was also a trifle shabby. He must be poor,--this would-be father of hers; and she writhed in inward mortification. Lady Forrest would probably ask him to stay all night. She would break down and cry if this were done. Oh, if ’Steban were only here!

This man must be got out of the house. This was the result of her hurried meditations. Possibly the Forrests would not countenance him. If they were hateful to him, it would kill her, for--for--just suppose he was her father. In snubbing him they would snub her. Blood was thicker than water. She might shrink from this man herself, yet it would make her angry to have him chagrined, and mortified, and turned away from the house.

What was he saying? She wished he would hold his peace for a little while at least, and she unwillingly bent a listening ear. Had she any accomplishments? Could she play or sing?

She bowed reluctantly, swallowed a lump in her throat, and moved toward the piano that the stranger was politely opening.

He handed her a set of popular waltzes, and without a word she began to play. Her angry fingers flew over the keys. She was not an accomplished musician; but she could rattle off a composition of this order with a dash and brilliance that evoked a hearty “Well done!” from her undemonstrative companion.

“And now will you sing?” and Nina flinched as he handed her--of all songs--the hackneyed but touching “Nancy Lee.”

In a weak, trembling voice, that seemed to come from a far-away corner of the room, she warbled the strains of the familiar song until she came to the words, “The sailor’s wife the sailor’s star shall be!”

There, an association of ideas made her drop her head and have recourse to her handkerchief. Poor ’Steban! What a flighty, unsteady kind of a star she was to him. If she were a proper, steady one, she would at this moment be shedding her rays on him, instead of being involved in these clouds of doubt and despair.

She received but faint sympathy in her distress. “As nervous as a cat, and not half as much voice,” said the man, disappointedly, to himself; then he strolled away to the other end of the room.

Nina had utterly broken down. As she sat dismally weeping, the fresh night air struck her hot face. She raised her head. A wind had sprung up. The window curtains were swelling out now like--like the sails of the _Merrimac_. Oh! if she could with one bound spring to the deck of that dear old ship, the black, safe river flowing between her and her perplexities, a strong arm ready to protect her, a strong brain willing to advise her.

Her thoughts led to practical results. This strange man had evinced a persistent desire that she should not leave the room until the arrival of her host and hostess. And they would not appear for an hour or two. A voice seemed ringing in her ears: “Run away from him. It is the easiest way out of the difficulty both for you and for him.” And he could never overtake her,--this man with the puffy, white face and sloping shoulders. He looked as if the greater part of his life had been spent indoors, and she had been brought up in the meadows, where she had learned to run like the small, wild creatures hidden there.

A fair start was all she asked for, yet it would be as well to have him handicapped, and she glanced over her shoulder. He was in a distant alcove now, examining the contents of a cabinet, and--let her rejoice, therefore--he was sitting down; and a whole drawer full of coins reposed on his knees.

She would make a wild dash for liberty, but first she must deceive him, and, rising languidly, she drawled, “I will walk outside a minute. I am stifled here.”

He looked up, hastily and suspiciously, but her movements were deliberation itself, as she stepped through the open French window and out on the gravel walk.

“I will accompany you,” he ejaculated, but by the time he reached the window she had disappeared.

He would never catch up to her now, not if he ran till doomsday; and she shut her ears to the parental cry to tarry, and tore up the avenue until everything, like herself, seemed to be on the wing, and running for dear life. The trees rushed by her with a velocity as pronounced as if some one had broken them off from their roots and set them spinning gaily through space for all time to come. The flower beds were galloping hotly after the trees. The tall, white lily buds, asleep in the twilight a minute ago, were now wide-awake, and tremulous, nodding tops proclaimed their perturbation of spirit, lest they should come to harm in this distracted race. And two little fat, white bodies of statues gleamed out of the darkness,--Cupids, hugging their bows and quivers. An instant, and they had vanished, followed by Juno, stately Juno, her sceptre tucked under her arm, her long garments floating out behind her as she swept by in a neck and neck race with the short-skirted goddess of hunting.

The gates at last--and Nina thoughtfully flung them open for her pursuer. He would never catch her now, never, never.