CHAPTER XVIII.

DISTRESS AND SWEET SUBMISSION.

“My father is not a good man, my father is not a good man!”

Captain Fordyce stood biting his lip. He was looking down on the sofa in the darkened room where Nina had been lying for a day and a night. At last he said, roughly, “I gave you credit for more spirit, Nina.”

She stopped talking to herself, and rolled her head over on the cushion in his direction.

“It is silly,” he went on, with assumed sternness. “He has forgotten all about you by this time.”

She set her small mouth obstinately. “I cannot help that. It just drives me wild. Oh, ’Steban, ’Steban, why did you let me see him? Why didn’t I stay in America?” and she again hid her white, distressed face.

Captain Fordyce frowned, appeared puzzled, then, coming to a swift conclusion, began rapidly turning out the contents of a chest of drawers on the floor.

The unusual noise disturbed his nervous and suffering wife, and she once more fixed her attention on him. “’Steban dear, please don’t make such a noise.”

“It won’t last long,” he said, firmly. “I am going to Paris.”

“To Paris!” and she straightened herself on her cushions.

“Yes,--have to run over on business,--sorry to leave you, Nina.”

“To leave me,--but I can’t be left. Why, ’Steban, I feel as if I were going to die,” and her lip trembled. “I can’t eat, and I can’t sleep, and--”

“Telegraph me if anything happens,--if that man should bother you again, or--”

“’Steban!” and she sprang to her feet. “I can’t be left,--I shall go, too!”

He concealed his extravagant joy, and bent low over a box of cuffs and collars.

Nina dragged herself across the room to him. “’Steban,” she said, weakly, “have I been very trying this last day?”

“Very,” he growled.

“I will be good now,” she murmured, “and ’Steban--”

“Yes,” he said, encouragingly.

She was standing over him now, erect, pale, womanly, her fingers just touching his shoulder. “My copy-books used to tell me that adversity is the trial of principle; and for the one thing that remains to me unchanged through this unhappy affair--for you--I am deeply thankful. To know that, though alone, I am not alone; that since childhood you have watched over me with the jealous eye of affection; and that now I belong to you, is the only comfort I have.” And seizing his hand, the strong, brown hand that had toiled so many years for her, she pressed it against her lips.

He was silent for a short time, then he remarked, in a muffled voice, “Will you really go to Paris with me?”

“Yes, ’Steban,” she said, sweetly.

He pushed the clothes aside brusquely, and, stalking across the room, gazed silently out the window. After a long time he looked over his shoulder. “And after we come back--what do you wish to do?”

“That I leave to you,” she responded, with an entirely new and bewitching humility.

A swift beatific smile hovered about his lips; and, looking as if he could scarcely believe his senses, he approached her, but swung on his heel when he saw the shy and startled expression that passed like a shadow over her face.

“’Steban,” she said, nervously, “I can’t get those people out of my head. I mean the Danvers. They are my real parents. I love them more and more. It is not wrong?”

“Wrong, no,--like them as much as you wish.”

“I cannot love that man,” she said, shudderingly. “He is my father,--I ought to, yet I cannot.”

“You need not like him. He is not worthy of it. I have had a longer acquaintance with him than you have. He never was anything much, and he is deteriorating all the time.”

“What does he do for a living?” asked Nina, wistfully. “I thought he looked poor.”

“He deserves to be poor.”

“What is his business?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t want to know. I am afraid he is a friend of Mr. Delessert’s,” she murmured, in a distressed way.

“I dare say.”

“Probably my--my father told him all about me, and, knowing he travelled by sea a good deal, asked him to find out what he could about me when he came in contact with you.”

“Probably.”

“’Steban,” said Nina, with an unexpected transition from mournful curiosity to appealing tenderness, “respect is the first step to love, isn’t it?”

“Yes, birdie.”

“And I respect you.”

“I hope so.”

“But you won’t tell me things, and I am just dying with curiosity,--righteous curiosity. And I am going on a nice, nice journey with you, and I won’t cry any more, and will do everything you want me to, and won’t you tell me everything about myself?”

He smiled amiably and fatuously, and occupied himself by gently caressing his moustache.

“Once I was very obdurate,” she went on. “I said: ‘He is altogether too reserved; I shall never, never like him till he tells me everything he knows.’ Now don’t you think the time has come?”

She stood with her head on one side like a demure and fascinating robin, and her husband helplessly surveyed the door. If he could escape while there was yet time, this coaxing humour would pass away. But she would be too clever for him. He saw himself, simpleton, weak-minded idiot, and various other despised names in his vocabulary, wheedled into a seat, the inquisitive robin perched close beside him, reluctant secrets falling from his lips.

Nina was intently watching him, and her demure smile was turning to a proud one. “Go,” she said, pointing to the door, “I have changed my mind. I do not wish to know your secrets.”

He hesitated, and stared helplessly at her.

“Or,” she said, “I will make my demand for them from a change of basis. I am going to be a good wife to you--just as good as I know how. You have borne a great many burdens alone. I ask for my share of them.”

“Nina!” he said, rapturously.

“I may not come up to your expectations,” she said, wistfully; “but I will try.”

He suppressed his exultation, and sat down soberly beside her. “I beg your pardon, darling; I have the fullest confidence in you. I will tell you anything you choose to ask.”