CHAPTER XXI.

PHILIP WENTWORTH PUT ON PROBATION.

Philip Wentworth had never felt meaner in all his life than at that moment, when he realized that his duplicity was exposed, and that the girl whose esteem, of all others, he cared most to preserve had found him out, if not exactly as a liar, as having been wilfully and contemptibly deceptive. He flushed crimson, and then grew as pale as Mollie herself, but he was dumb before her for the moment, and could find no voice to answer her imperative demand.

“Why did you keep it from me?” she questioned again. “What object could you have had in wishing to keep me in ignorance of that which you knew would give me great pleasure to learn? Why could you not be generous to your classmate, and give a hard-working, worthy young man the honor which belongs to him?

“So,” she continued, as he still sat mute before her, and dropping her eyes again upon the program, “Clifford Faxon has completed his college course and distinguished himself, as I knew he would. I was sure that there was power, determination, and perseverance above the average in his character. Oh, I wish I could have come to Boston a day earlier, attended commencement, and heard his oration.”

She sat lost in thought for a moment or two, a look of keen disappointment on her beautiful face. Then turning suddenly to her companion again, she briefly inquired:

“Where is Mr. Faxon now?”

“I don’t know; he left town the day after commencement,” Philip returned in a tone of constraint.

“Is his picture among these?” eagerly questioned Mollie, and touching the pile of photographs between them.

Philip started as if he had been stung, and his lips curled like an angry dog’s.

“Assuredly not,” he loftily responded.

“I am sorry; I should like to see him as he looks to-day, though I am sure he cannot have changed enough to prevent me from recognizing him if I should meet him anywhere,” Mollie observed, and her every word cut her listener like a lash. “But you have not told me, Phil, why you kept from me the fact that he was at Harvard with you. Have you a grudge against him? I wondered why you appeared so strangely the other day when I was telling you about him; wondered how you could listen so indifferently to the story of his wonderful heroism and speak so sneeringly of him; and then, when you knew all the time of whom I was talking, and how glad I would have been to learn more about him, to pretend ignorance and deceive me! I am inclined to be very angry with you.”

Her words, her tone, her looks, were simply maddening to him, and he turned to her with a gesture of passionate appeal.

“Mollie! Mollie! Don’t speak to me in that tone; don’t condemn me utterly; don’t annihilate me quite with your scornful eyes,” he pleaded in a voice that was almost shrill from mingled rage and wounded feeling. “I did not tell you that I knew Clifford Faxon—I withheld all information regarding him because I—I was jealous of him.”

“Jealous! Why, Phil!” exclaimed the startled girl, her look of scorn and indignation merged into one of undisguised amazement.

“Yes; furiously, madly jealous of him,” Philip hotly returned, every pulse in his body beating like trip-hammers, while he recklessly threw all discretion to the winds, “for, Mollie, I love you, and it drove me wild to have to listen to your enthusiastic praises of that low-born fellow; to be told that you had given him the ring which I had coveted—which I had begged of you, and you had refused to bestow upon me.

“Darling, have you not suspected this,” he went on, forgetting for the moment everything save the fact that he loved her with all the passion of his nature, and must win some response from her or go mad, “have you not seen that you are more to me than all the world? Do you not know that I have always loved you? Have you forgotten how, when we were children playing together under the elms on the banks of the Hudson, I vowed that I should always love you, and that when we grew up I should claim you?

“Forgive me for deceiving you about Faxon,” he went on, with assumed humility, for he realized that he must eat humble pie before she would pardon his duplicity; “of course I knew, when you were telling me about that railway accident, of whom you were speaking; but some perverse little devil held me silent, and now I am found out and punished for it. Dearest, tell me that you forgive me, and that you return my love; for, Mollie, from the moment we met, after your return, all the old-time affection revived with a hundredfold intensity, and—and I just cannot live without you.”

He had gradually drawn nearer her while speaking, and now, seizing her hands, drew them to his breast and held them there, while he searched the sweet, down-cast, but very grave, face before him.

She had flushed crimson when he began to pour forth his torrent of love; then the color had gradually receded, leaving her pale and with an expression of mingled pain and perplexity on her face.

For a moment they sat thus, and not a word was spoken. Then Mollie lifted her head and looked her lover full in the eye, her own seeming to search his very soul.

“Sweetheart, tell me you forgive me,” Phil whispered passionately, and unable to endure that penetrating look; “remember my love for you made me sin.”

Mollie smiled slightly, and the color began to creep toward her temples again, for what woman can listen unmoved to such a confession of love for her?—but she still studied his face, and appeared to be thinking deeply.

“You do forgive—you do love me, Mollie!” Phil burst forth eagerly, as he noted the smile and blush.

He stretched forth his arms, and would have gathered her into them, but she gently repulsed him and moved a little away from him.

“Yes, Phil, I forgive you as far as any wrong against me is concerned; at the same time, I must say that I think you have been very unfair to Mr. Faxon.”

Phil ground his heels into the carpet at this reference to Clifford, while he secretly wished that they had been planted upon his enemy’s handsome face.

“As for the other matter,” Mollie continued reflectively, “I—I cannot say just now whether I love you or not.”

“Mollie!”

“Nay, do not be so impatient, Phil,” she interposed with smiling reproof, her color deepening again; “but wait and let me be perfectly frank with you. When I returned I confess I looked forward very eagerly to meeting you; our earthly friendship and our correspondence have, of course, governed my thought of you during my absence, and I have often found myself wondering just how we would resume our—acquaintance. You have been very nice to me, Phil, during my visit. I find you”—flashing him an arch look—“very attractive personally, delightfully entertaining, and well versed in all those little attentions and observances of etiquette that usually make men attractive to women; but—I wish you had not spoken just yet, for I am not prepared to define my own feelings toward you. I want to know you—the real you, your inner self, a little better before I can be sure where I stand, or make you any promises. And, Phil, you must never attempt to deceive me again,” she interposed, a shadow falling over her face; “I—I cannot bear anything of the kind, and nothing would sooner establish an impassable barrier between us.”

“I will not, dear—I promise I will not,” Philip murmured, with well-assumed humility. “But, oh, Mollie! this uncertainty seems cruel and unendurable. How long must I wait before you will tell me what I want to know?”

“I cannot say, Phil,” Mollie kindly but thoughtfully replied. “I like you right well in many ways, though what has just occurred has been like a dash of cold water over me; but liking is not love, you know, and you will have to be patient until I know my own heart.”

He snatched one of her hands again and kissed it passionately. Her reticence and the uncertainty of his suit only served to make him so much the more determined to win a confession of love from her, even though he knew that he was liable to change his mind later and break her heart; though, to his credit be it said, there were times when better impulses moved him, and he vowed that he would marry her in spite of his mother—in spite of his own pride and love of worldly wealth, prestige, and ease.

“I will try to be patient,” he said, “but do not make the test too hard.”

He devoted himself to her more assiduously than ever after that, and was so guarded in his behavior and so congenial in every way during the few remaining days of Mollie’s visit that she began to tell herself that she did love him, and was sometimes tempted to speak a word of encouragement to him.

But something held her back—she never went beyond a certain limit, although she was as kind and sweet and charming as ever.

Mr. and Mrs. Temple also showed their guests all due courtesy and attention while they remained with them; but they experienced a feeling of intense relief when they announced the day of their departure, for both realized the danger of Phil’s infatuation. They were somewhat chagrined, however, when Mr. Heatherford informed them that they would remain in Boston for the present—until some matters of business were settled, he said, with a quick, anxious glance at Mr. Temple which caused that gentleman to change color a trifle—and would make their home at the Adams House.

As soon as they were gone, Mrs. Temple persuaded Phil, though evidently against his will, to accompany her and her husband to Newport for the month of August. She then tried to entice him to the Adirondacks for another four weeks, but this he refused to do, and returned immediately to Boston, where he at once began to dance attendance upon Mollie again, though he constantly fretted and fumed within himself because he appeared to make no progress in his suit.

He sometimes wondered why he allowed himself to be so absorbed in his pursuit of her, when there were plenty of girls with large expectations—Gertrude among others—who would have said “Yes” without presuming to impose probation upon him.

But Mollie’s rare beauty intoxicated him; her brilliancy and versatility dazzled him, while her persistent reticence, more than all else, made him her slave. She would not allow him to make love to her. Whenever he approached the forbidden topic she would invariably interrupt him with some irrelevant remark, or with a reproving smile and shake of her head.

“For Heaven’s sake, Mollie! how long is this to go on?” he burst forth one day, after a repulse like this, and for the moment losing all self-control.

“I cannot tell, Phil—until I know,” she gently returned. “Or,” she added, with a grave look into his clouded eyes, “if I weary you with this uncertainty, do not hesitate to tell me so, and we will part—friends.”

“Mollie! Mollie! How you torture me!” he cried at this. “Life to me would not be worth the living apart from you.” And he believed that he really meant it.

She sighed regretfully, and a shade of sadness stole over her face. She realized that she was trying him severely, but she was not “sure” even yet, and she would not be untrue to herself or wrong him by professing an affection which she did not feel, although there were times when she was almost on the point of yielding.

“I am very sure I have never met any young man whom I like as well as Phil,” she would sometimes admit, when discussing the subject with herself, “but I do not feel, as he says,’that I cannot live without him.’ In fact, I am sure I could be happier without him than without my father, and I know”—a queer little smile flitting over her lips—“that is not the right attitude for a girl to maintain toward the man she expects to marry. Besides, I cannot get at Phil—he eludes, he evades me, he does not reveal his real self to me.”

Mr. Heatherford and his daughter were most comfortably located in pleasant rooms in the Adams House, and they were very happy together, although there were times when Mollie was conscious that her father was weighted with a load of anxiety that was well-nigh crushing him.

But she did everything in her power to cheer and amuse him when he was with her, coaxing him into the country while the bright October days lasted as often as she could, and playing cribbage and other games when they were alone evenings.

During business hours, when he was absent, she employed the time in earnest and faithful study to perfect herself in certain branches which she surmised might be useful to her in the near future.

After Mr. and Mrs. Temple’s return from the Adirondacks, Mollie became conscious of a decided coolness in their manner toward herself and her father, although they were always courteous whenever they chanced to meet.

Mrs. Temple seldom called—she was “so busy with club engagements, receptions, etc.,” she gave as an excuse, and so, of course, Mollie scarcely ever went out to Brookline.

She thought it strange that Mrs. Temple never asked her to drive, or offered to introduce her to, or chaperon her in, society; but she tried to think that these omissions were caused by thoughtlessness rather than by intentional neglect.

Her father seldom mentioned Mr. Temple’s name during those days, but grew more and more grave and silent, losing both flesh and appetite, while she could hear him tossing restlessly at night, and then he would rise in the morning, pale, haggard, and with heavy eyes.

Of course, these things made Mollie anxious and miserable, and she could not account for them; but she did not like to question her father, knowing well enough that he would confide in her when the right time arrived, and she strove to be patient and cheerful whenever she was in his presence.

But there came a day when she understood it all, and the shock which came with the revelation was a rude and cruel one to the sweet and trusting girl.

She went out one morning to do some shopping—but, oh! how glad she was afterward that she had been unable to find what she wanted, and so had brought back unbroken the crisp bills which her father had given her—and on her return found her father sitting in a rigid attitude by a window and looking dazed and strange.

“Why, papa! it is unusual for you to come home at this hour!” she observed as she went to him and kissed him on the forehead, while she strove to conceal the nervous trembling which had seized her. “Are you ill, dear?” she concluded, and tenderly smoothed his hair, which had whitened rapidly of late.

He turned his white, haggard face to her, and tried to smile reassuringly; but it was an effort that nearly broke her heart.

“No, my darling, I am not ill; but I am—ruined; we are beggars!” he said in a voice that shook and quivered like that of a man ninety years old.