Part 10

He had been forced to give her up, however, and gradually to acquiesce in the common sense of her decision. The offer of himself to Miss Winstanley, made without knowledge of Posey's altered circumstances, had been joyously approved in a letter posted at Liverpool by Mr. Winstanley, who had bidden John remember that he was now his son, and, as such, entitled to a full share of the good luck that he proceeded to unfold. When Glynn had assumed charge of Mr. Winstanley's interests and business, he had for the first time learned the full meaning and extent of that good luck! Mr. Winstanley also told him that under the circumstances of Posey's call to a much higher position in life and society than had even been expected, he desired her to spend some time longer in pursuance of education and wider experience before returning home to be married.

A little dazed by the turn of events, Glynn had acquiesced in this latter decree, almost too easily, he feared. He told himself that he needed time to adjust his ideas to the prospect of riches. As a matter of fact, he was relieved not to become Posey's husband until he knew her better. The pretty, half-baked, freakish creature, who offended his sense of conventionality, who dealt with him so unemotionally, seemed about as practical a bride as Undine must have been to her long-suffering knight! Between Posey's image and himself, that of high-bred Helen Carstairs, stepping down from her proud pedestal to give him the first passion of her woman's love, had, in the beginning, perpetually come. Latterly, this had been wearing off, and stern habit had asserted itself, as it fortunately does.

Posey's letters, surely the strangest ever penned by a betrothed maiden to her lover, came to Glynn regularly. She had told him, with appalling frankness, that after engaging herself to him (by telephone!) she had suffered many pangs of fear that the whole thing was a mistake; also, she must confess, she had met another man with whom, had there been no obstructions in the way, she might have been happier. During her father's illness, seeing the enormous stress he laid upon her promise to marry John, she had come to see things more clearly, had recognized in herself a vain, silly child, and was now resolved to devote her whole future life to being more worthy of her good fortune as Glynn's wife.

To read these artless effusions had been like looking into a crystal globe. Whatever came, Glynn could not complain that she had deceived him. During his benefactor's dangerous illness, when it was essential for Glynn to remain where he was, and he could only cable his anxiety and sympathy, his heart had become more awakened to Posey's claim upon him, and he had felt for her loyal tenderness. When the summons from Mr. Winstanley arrived that was to bring him once more in actual touch with her, he had set out to obey it, believing that he was at last effectually cured of old weakness, and panoplied to begin the new life.

And he had hardly set foot in France before he found himself seated side by side with Helen Carstairs in a railway train, flying southward, with nothing to disturb their intercourse during a long day and evening, and actually bound for the same goal!

Simultaneously, Glynn and Helen rose to the occasion, put behind them the temptation to revert to the fond chapter lived in their young lives, and took up again the sort of intercourse that had so pleased and refreshed her at the beginning of their acquaintance. It was like one of their old talks at the house of Helen's friend who had introduced them to each other, and fostered their intimacy; a woman who had the cleverness to find interesting people in the whirlpool of business and pleasure and money-spending that calls itself New York society, and the courage to draw them out of it to herself.

Glynn felt that he would long have cause to remember that February day. The new fast train justified all that had been claimed for it in speed and comfort. It tore down the Rhone valley as the mistral tears, it left behind Avignon, city of Popes, and other spots of classic interest, as if it had been a "Flyer" between Chicago and New York. The light carriages rocked and swayed, stones from the road-bed rose up like a fusillade of small-arms, striking the bottom of the train; one dared not leave one's seat for the dining-car for fear of falling; people who had not exchanged a word previously began, by common consent, to talk all together, and all their talk was of the speed of trains they had known and heard about. Miss Bleecker went yellow in her nervous anxiety, declaring she had no use for a train in which one could not brew a cup of tea for fear of setting things on fire. Mlle. Eulalie wept under her veil, and accepted brandy offered her from Miss Bleecker's flask. The two solemn travellers who filled the other seats, and now joined in general animated talk, turned out to be one a French railway engineer, to whose utterances all listened humbly, the other an Italian musical genius, _en route_ for Monte Carlo. In the confusion of tongues and exclamations, the little string of toy carriages bounced and flew onward, until suddenly the air brakes were put on, and with a long protracted jolting, they came to a full stop!

Something had happened, but what? Glynn and the engineer, going outside to investigate matters, in the falling dusk, returned to report that their carriage was to go no farther, and its passengers were to be transferred to the one ahead.

"As well as I can make out, it is the complaint not unknown to our railways of a 'hot box,'" said Glynn. "The bother is, that you ladies must take what seats you can get till our journey's end."

Officials, coming to hurry them, showed but scant sympathy with Miss Bleecker's indignant protests, with Eulalie's fresh burst of tears. Helen, following her chaperon quietly, had an odd sensation that nothing mattered much so long as Glynn was at her elbow speaking cheery, merry words!

They threaded their way into the carriage ahead, to be received with what enthusiasm by the tired, nervous, over-strained passengers already filling its full space, may be imagined. Miss Bleecker was accommodated with the odd seat of a compartment reserved by a French couple of her acquaintance, who, feeling rather bored by so much of each other's society, made a virtue of necessity in welcoming the stranded American lady. Eulalie was tucked somewhere happily out of sight. For Helen and Glynn there remained but two camp-stools, produced by a guard, and placed in the corridor at the rear!

"I have heard of blessings in disguise," he said significantly, when they were speeding forward again toward Marseilles.

"This is really better than that stuffy place we had," she answered, made happy, despite herself, by the meaning in his tones.

"If any one had told me that I should be to-day sitting beside you, rushing through the darkness headlong to the unknown, I would have counted it a fable."

"You are not rushing to the unknown. I cannot think of any one whose life and work are more clearly cut out for him or more sure of a happy ending."

"I--I suppose so," he said, with a sigh.

"You know it, Mr. Glynn."

"Has it come to Mr. Glynn?"

"Don't make things worse for me than they are," she exclaimed confusedly. She felt frightened that one moment of isolation with him had brought back into his voice the lover's cadence, after their months of blank separation, and their day just passed in renunciation and good behavior. The admission in her speech, the forlorn droop of her mouth, were too much for his strained resolution.

"Tell me one thing only, Helen--as if we two were standing on the verge of everlasting parting--have you cared?"

"When have I not cared?" she said impetuously.

"_Had_ it to be?"

"I thought so, then. I haven't always thought so since. Latterly----"

"Go on. Latterly--?" he said, in a dreary tone.

"I have made a compromise with my father about something in dispute between us. He has made me more than independent of him. Isn't it always so in life, that relief comes too late?"

"What did that ever matter, anyway? Wasn't I ready, willing, eager, mad, to take you as you were? Would it have been the first time an American man married an American woman without a penny between them, except what he could earn? The trouble was that you couldn't trust me."

"That I couldn't trust myself," she said bitterly. "I knew my world better than you did, John."

"But you say you haven't always thought the same since," he exclaimed, searching her eyes with a desperately anxious gaze.

"It is not fair to wring from me such admissions. It isn't like you to persist in talk like this. After all, you were the first to console yourself."

His face fell into gloom. He drew away from her and, for a while, sat in silence. Helen turned to look out of the window to hide her gathering tears.

It was a miserable time for both, yet neither would have yielded up an inch of it in exchange for any imaginable pleasure. Helen was thinking, "Oh, that the train would only go on forever, and let me sit by him on this horrid little stool without a back!" and Glynn would have fought any guard or conductor who came to offer them the usual seats among other people. They said very little, but felt the more. At Marseilles, where they went outside for a whiff of soft, delicious air, fancying they smelt orange blossoms, and saw stars looking into the sea, and during the rest of the zigzag run along the lovely coast to Cannes, each knew that the other was dreading the finale of their strange experience.

As they ran into the Cannes station toward eleven o'clock, and it became necessary to rouse up nodding Miss Bleecker, and collect woful Eulalie, with her bags and bundles, Helen and he rose simultaneously, with a shiver of apprehension.

"This is the last time, John?"

"The last time, Helen--_darling_," he said, in a hoarse undertone of yearning tenderness.

Their hands met and strained together. Her eyes answered his, and he did not again doubt.

"It has been all one great, terrible mistake," she went on, more steadily. "We have got to meet, if you stay here, and after this there's to be no more weakness, remember! We'll be pretty poor stuff if we can't conquer ourselves, don't you think so?"

Hers was the last word, for Miss Bleecker, tottering like a somnambulist, issued forth to interrupt them. Helen and she were assisted out of the train by Glynn, and placed in custody of their hotel's station-porter. A moment more, the ladies were in the 'bus alone, threading the back streets of the sleepy little town, to ascend the hill to a stately hostelry, where their arrival was the signal for a theatrical effect of house-porters in scarlet jackets issuing from a brilliantly lighted entrance around which roses and bougainvillea twined.

"Really, Helen," observed Miss Bleecker, whose good-humor returned as she looked complacently around their pretty suite of rooms, where lights and flowers and a small fire of olive-wood combined to make the travellers forget their woes. "I must say they have done very well for us. I believe we shall be comfortable here until the yacht arrives. And how delightful it is to think you sent that cable, yesterday, consenting to join your dear father and his wife. When you lay your head on your pillow, every night after this, you will sleep more sweetly with the thought of having--why, child, you're white as a ghost! I suppose you're a little train-sick, after the shaking-up we got. It was too bad your having to sit out on that wretched little camp-stool, but you seemed to get along well enough with Mr. Glynn, and there wasn't an inch left in Countess de Saint Eustache's compartment. Do you know, she told me the whole story, from beginning to end, of Kate Ravenel's unfortunate marriage with the Marquis de Contour. My dear, he is an absolute decadent! And to think how the Ravenels bought and paid for him in hard cash, and how wretchedly they were sold in the transaction! By the way, the Countess knows our friend, M. de Mariol, intimately, and says that for people to get him to their dinners or country houses is the greatest feather in their caps! He is _de tout_, she assures me, which, of course, makes one enjoy his writings so much more. I hope we shall certainly meet him again. Helen, speaking of young Glynn, if ever a man was born with a gold spoon in his mouth, it's he. To be marrying Mr. Winstanley's only child, and they having gone up like a house afire! The Countess says the Winstanleys have been floated here by Lady Campstown, and already know everybody, and are much liked. It seems they have one of the most desirable villas, own a smart motor, the girl has no end of stunning gowns--you remember they showed us at Worth's the evening frocks they were sending down to her--and will soon be entertaining lavishly. The question is, where did Lady Campstown pick her up? We must call on both of them to-morrow. I am all anxiety to meet dear Lady Campstown again, and I confess I am anxious to get a peep inside Villa Reine des Fees."

"I fancy you will find Miss Winstanley changed in many respects, Miss Bleecker," said Helen, wearily. "But it seems to me hardly probable she has lost her high spirit in this little time. And she _may_ remember your conduct to her on shipboard."

"Nonsense, my dear!" answered the chaperon, complacently. "As we live now, it is always easy and generally convenient to forget. The girl, for all her barbarisms, seemed to have a level head. She will be charmed to see us, and so will Lady Campstown, who had set her heart upon marrying you to that nephew of hers, Clandonald. If it were not for young Glynn, I should imagine that the Lady Campstown had gone off on another tack in her heiress cruise. Looks like it, don't you think? If Miss Winstanley hasn't told her of her engagement to Glynn, there'll be a pretty row on presently. We'll call, at any rate. I am glad to hear Mr. Winstanley is no worse, and may be counted upon to recover permanently from this attack. I wonder if he likes being read aloud to, Helen? To show that I bear no ill-will to the girl for her pertness to me, I'd just as soon offer to sit with him, sometimes. I was always said to have great success with invalids. And we'd better be prompt in looking them up, for who knows whether this is really a business trip of Glynn's? I should be much inclined to think he has run over to look after his heiress, and see that she does not slip through his fingers, with all these fine people with titles hanging around her. Glynn looks like a positive, if not self-willed, fellow, Helen. Indeed, I shouldn't in the least wonder if the business pretext is a blind, and _M. le fiance_ won't go back to America without his bride. In that case, we shall have a smart wedding at Cannes, and poor Mr. Winstanley will be left all to himself at Villa Reine des Fees. They say there is nothing like that entrance hall and staircase in the town, all marbles of the rarest and most beautiful colors; and the dining-room, with its wall tapestries and screens, is fit for a palace. Poor Mr. Winstanley! There is nothing so sad in life as a person of--well, middle age--left alone by young people for whom he has done everything. There should be some congenial and sympathetic soul to--poor Mr. Winstanley!"

*CHAPTER VIII*

"Come a little way down this walk, John," Posey said, the morning after her lover's arrival, while engaged in showing him the place, "and you will see exactly where the woman was sitting yesterday, when she got up and spoke to me in that dreadful way. I never dare tell my father, and it would worry dear Lady Campstown out of her wits to think any suspicious outsider had been seen lurking about the grounds. I rather fancied this person was out of her head, and so, when she vanished abruptly, I just told the gardener that a doubtful-looking stranger had been in the garden, and his men must be on the watch to see that it doesn't occur again."

"Quite right," said Glynn. "I dare say you won't hear of her any more. What sort of a lunatic was she? Young or old, smart or shabby, English-speaking or foreign?"

"Oh! English decidedly, with one of their lovely low voices, from the throat. A lady, I suppose, one would call her, but shabby and deadly pale with glittering brown eyes, and lips with no color. I should think she took morphine, or some of those horrid things. Her clothes had been handsome once, but were put on in a slovenly way."

"Probably some poor soul here for her health, who had escaped from her caretakers. Certainly, you can have no enemies, my dear girl?"

"I didn't think so," answered Posey, flushing, "until I received a number of anonymous letters on shipboard, and several afterward. Then they stopped suddenly."

"Do you mind telling me their drift?"

Posey's cheeks became crimson, but she looked him bravely in the face.

"They were all full of lying things against me and the man I told you I met at sea--and have never seen or heard from since."

"Thank you, dear," said Glynn, simply. "We have both need of consideration for each other, and I trust you thoroughly. But this gives me an idea. You say the morphine lady told you she had a favor to ask of you----"

"Yes, but before she could get further, the gardener's man came in sight, and she took flight. She said that I was luckier than she, since I could buy my peace, and she'd advise me not to hold back now when I'd a chance to do so."

"That's blackmail, not insanity. The woman has probably spent her last sou at Monte Carlo, and reading about you in the papers, thinks you're a good object to attack for funds."

"It's no use, John. I can't tell half a thing, to save my life," exclaimed the girl, desperately. "At the moment she ran down that alley of laurustinus, she called back, 'You can't expect your friend, Lord Clandonald to pay all, and you nothing, to shut mouths.'"

Glynn walked beside her in moody silence. The matter was worse than he had feared. To find Posey in the toils of an obnoxious scheme for torment and money-getting, was more than annoying. He justly considered that it was paying too high for her successes, her magnificent establishment in life. For the moment it blotted out the blue of sky and blurred the exquisite beauty of their surroundings.

He had, like everybody else, heard of Clandonald and his matrimonial infelicities, his divorce, and his visit to the States. A strong resentment took possession of the young American at the idea that this Briton, battered by foul tongues and associations, should be the one who, even for a--moment, had won Posey's allegiance away from himself.

"You are angry. I knew you would be," she burst out finally. "I at first thought of telling Lady Campstown, and asking her advice. But Lord Clandonald is her nephew, almost her son, and I was ashamed. She has not the faintest idea there was ever anything between us."

"Between you? What can you mean?" wrathfully demanded Glynn, whose merit was never that of tolerance.

"I don't know myself. It was all so sudden, and passed so quickly. He used to come and talk and walk with me upon the ship. I began by being sorry for him, because his life had been so spoiled. He never said a word of flattery or silly talk like the others. He seemed to me a man."

"Well, go on, please," said Glynn, curtly.

"One evening when that old wretch Mr. Vereker tried to kiss me out on deck----"

"What!" thundered Glynn, his brows meeting, his eyes darting ire upon her.

"He didn't do it, John; just missed the tip of my ear, and I hit him in the face. I ran away to Miss Carstairs and Lord Clandonald, and told them, or rather didn't tell them--they understood. Clandonald looked just as you do now, and put himself in front of me, and I was so glad to be protected, when all the ship was saying mean, spiteful things of me, that for a little while I thought I must be in love with Lord Clandonald----"

"This alone is worth crossing the ocean to hear," commented Glynn with bitter sarcasm.

"Well, you know I told you of it at the time. It was a perfectly hopeless thing, anyhow. Even if you hadn't been there, I couldn't marry a divorced man whose wife is living. It's just one of those fashionable habits that doesn't happen to appeal to me."

"Posey, you are unconquerable," he said, a gleam of amusement coming into his eyes.

"You might as well hear all the rest. After I had those nasty letters, I kept away from him and got daddy to give up London, because I'd promised we would go down to lunch at Beaumanoir, his home. It was my first and last chance at an English ancestral mansion, I reckon. The last night aboard, when we were at anchor near Liverpool, in a fog, daddy and I met him, by accident, on deck. Dear old dad, who can't be made to suspect anybody, would run off after his letter of credit, that he'd packed in a steamer coat and almost sent ashore. I was left with Lord Clandonald. I tell you, John, you couldn't have treated me better than he did then. There was one little minute when I was scared, though. He was furious when I told him of the anonymous letters. He said there was only one who could have done it, but how, in God's name, did she get upon that ship? And then he asked me to let him stand between me and all such people always----"

"You let him ask you that?"

"John, you know when a man and a girl are together things get said that they never dreamed of saying. I knew like a shot I ought to have told Clandonald about you before. But how could I introduce the subject in cold blood----"

"I am afraid it was cold blood," interpolated John ruefully.

"Well, you couldn't expect me to thrill and tremble, and all those things they do in novels, when I'd said yes in a telephone booth, and never seen you after. I tried to, John. Honestly, I did, but it wasn't the least use."

Glynn would have been more than mortal not to laugh at her look of humble apology.

"Ah! well, Posey dear, I'll not be hard on you. But tell me, please, what further passed between you and Lord Clandonald?"

"Absolutely nothing. All I could do was to turn the conversation away from him and me. I couldn't find the least little way to bring you into it, or to say, 'Unhand me, sir, my heart and faith are another's,' since his hands were in his pockets and mine in my muff, and we were both saturated with Channel fog. I just thanked him for all his kindness to me on the voyage, and told him what's true, that I'd never forget it; though, if he ever met me again I'd probably be a very different sort of Posey Winstanley. And then he calmed down, and it was all over forever, and I ran away to see if daddy had found his letter of credit--and--and--I've never seen or heard from Clandonald since."

"Posey, you are a child still, a charming child, and I love you for it, dear."

"It's awfully good of you, John, and the greatest possible relief. If you knew what a double-faced sort of thing I've felt myself to be all these months, remembering that I'd let another man almost propose to me, when I had given you my word of honor--there's one thing I'd like to ask before we've done with the subject, though. What does it mean when a person is by you and you'd give, oh! _anything_ if they wouldn't go away?"

John started genuinely. A vision flashed to him of those blessed maddening hours in the train the day before, when Helen and he had sat together, and he jealously begrudged every revolution of the iron wheels that, without mercy, carried them toward their parting.

"I don't know, Posey," he murmured guiltily. "Why in the world do you ask me that?"