Part 14

Yet what a strange, disreputable proceeding it seemed! She was haunted with a vague sense of losing caste, as she took her trinkets to one of the smaller jewelry-shops, and faltered out her improbable tale of their being unbecoming and of no use to her. The jeweler, well used to the straits of fashionable young women, listened without a smile, and offered her on the whole a fair price, though it was much less than she expected. There was nothing that she was not obliged to part with--from the jeweled watch which Mrs. Bobby had given her at Christmas, to the pearls, which proved to be the most valuable of all. When she left the shop she had deprived herself of all her ornaments, but she held the necessary bribe in her hand, and as the simplest way of conveying it to Halleck, she got on a cable car and went up at once to his studio at Carnegie. There was nothing startling in the proceeding, for he had now a number of pupils, who came to him at his studio; and though the girls whom Elizabeth knew always brought their maids, or a chaperone of some sort, she was not in the mood to waste much thought on conventionalities. Her one idea was to fulfil her share of the bargain before he should, perchance, have repented of his, and she did not think of the chance of meeting any one. Her own affairs had reached a crisis which blinded her to the fact that to other people, the world was progressing peacefully, in the usual order of events.

This dream-like state of indifference to all but the one anxiety continued till she reached Carnegie and was borne up in the elevator to Paul's studio, which was directly opposite to Mr. D'Hauteville's. And here, for the first time, she paused, seized by a sudden panic. From behind the closed curtain at the end of the small vestibule, there came the sound of a woman's voice, strained, nasal, raised high in what seemed a tirade of denunciation. To Elizabeth's mind, as she heard it, there arose an involuntary recollection of Bassett Mills, and of the gaudy little parlor behind her aunt's shop, and some bitter words directed against herself, in what seemed a past period of her history. She stood hesitating, terrified; then the curtain was pushed aside, and a woman came out. It was her cousin Amanda. Her face was white and set, her eyes blazing. She stared at Elizabeth for a moment as if dazed, then brushed past her without a word.

Paul stood on the threshold, a picturesque object in his velveteen coat and turned-down collar, against the artistic background of the luxuriously-furnished studio. He looked flushed, annoyed; the scene which had just taken place had evidently been a trying one. But when he saw Elizabeth standing doubtful in the hall, his face cleared and he came forward to greet her with effusion.

"Darling, how good of you to come here!" He evidently hailed the visit as an overture towards reconciliation. She hastened to disabuse him.

"It was the easiest way to bring this," she said, handing him the package which she had clasped nervously all the way up. "Will you be kind enough, please, to count it and see if it is all right?" It was impossible to speak with more icy brevity, or to impart to any proceeding a more severely business-like air.

He flushed uncomfortably, but did not allow his vexation to interfere with the evident necessity of counting the money. "It is all right," he said, biting his lips, as he put down the last roll of bills. "Do you wish me to give you a receipt?" he asked, with fine sarcasm.

"No," said Elizabeth, gravely. "I rely on your word."

Paul bowed. "Thank you," he said. "And now--is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Nothing," said Elizabeth, briefly, "except what you know already. And now, I must go." She moved towards the door, but he placed himself in her way.

"Come, come, Elizabeth," he said. "I'm not going to let you go like that--the first time you make me a visit. Give me a kiss now, just to show that you don't bear malice."

Elizabeth's only reply was a look of ineffable haughtiness. "Will you let me pass, please?" she said, in a low tone of concentrated wrath, and with an uneasy laugh, he obeyed her.

"What a virago you are!" he said, "almost as bad as your cousin Amanda. It must be the hair," he added, with a sneer, but Elizabeth did not pause to reply. Anxious only to escape, she closed the studio door hastily behind her, and a moment later the elevator bore her swiftly down, and she regained the street, with the feeling of having staved off misfortune, for the moment at least.

She found, when she got home, a note from Gerard, informing her that he had been unexpectedly called out of town for a few days on business, but hoped to see her on his return. There were the flowers, too, which he sent her daily. He had no intention, evidently, of taking her answer of the day before as final. She realized this, with a thrill that held in it more of pleasure than alarm. Still, she was glad that he was out of town. His absence was a reprieve, giving her more of the time she wanted, though it is hard to say what she expected to gain by it. But very little often sufficed to restore Elizabeth's spirits. She was going out to dinner that evening, and she dressed for it with a mind that was comparatively at ease.

But poor Elizabeth's moments of tranquillity just then were short. She was nearly dressed when Celeste entered with the information that a young person had called to see Mademoiselle, who insisted upon seeing her at once. "I told her that Mademoiselle is dressing," said the maid, with expressive gestures; "that she has an engagement, it is most important, but--but she is a most determined young person, she insists that I bring up a message at once."

"It is Amanda, of course," thought Elizabeth, with a terrible sinking of the heart. She had forgotten, until that moment, the meeting in the studio. She glanced at the clock. "I have fifteen minutes, Celeste," she said. "Show her up. She may want to see me about something important." The maid departed, and Elizabeth bent down nervously to sort out gloves and handkerchief, wondering as she did now at each unexpected incident, what danger it might portend.

"I thought," said Amanda, "I might come up--seeing we're first cousins." She stood in the door-way, her eyes roaming about the room, taking in every detail--the soft prevailing harmonies of pale blue and rose, the firelight flickering on the tiled hearth, the shining silver ornaments on the dressing-table, the profusion of bric-à-brac, of cotillion favors, the roses in the china bowl, the general air of luxury--all a fit setting to the proud young beauty, standing before the mirror in her shimmering white satin and laces.

"My, but you look fine!" said Amanda, under her breath. A slightly awed expression crossed her face, modifying the assurance of her entrance. "You're going out?" she asked, looking almost ready to retreat.

"To dinner--yes; but not just yet. Won't you sit down, Amanda?" Elizabeth said, trying to speak easily. "I--I'm glad to see you. How is Aunt Rebecca, and--every one at Bassett Mills?"

Amanda sat down, her eyes still wandering eagerly around the room. Elizabeth, looking at her, saw the unfavorable change that a few months had made. True, she was smartly dressed, with the cheap, tawdry smartness that can be bought ready-made at the shops, and her hat was tilted carefully at the fashionable angle; her hair, growing low about her forehead, had still the pretty, natural wave to it, which was a legacy from the fever, and the general effect at a first glance was striking. But the face, under the jaunty, be-feathered hat, was white and haggard, the eyes had a wild restless look, there were hard, vindictive lines about the mouth. Her hands moved incessantly, plucking at the fringe on her gown.

"Glad? Well, I guess you're not very glad to see me," she said, with a strange, mocking smile, ignoring the latter part of Elizabeth's speech. "There never was much love lost between us, and now--but still I thought I'd pay you a visit. I'm staying with Uncle Ben's folks, and they told me I ought to look up my swell cousin--since you were so sure to want to see me"--she gave a short, jarring laugh. "That stuck-up maid wouldn't believe me--thought I was crazy, when I said we were first cousins. I don't see why--I'm sure I don't look so--so different as all that." Her voice sank into rather a wistful key, and she stole a glance at the long pier-glass that stood opposite her. "I got my suit at a bargain sale," she said. "The girls said it was--real stylish."

"It's very pretty," said Elizabeth, gently. She glanced at Amanda with a sudden pity that overpowered her first annoyance and alarm at the inopportune visit. What had brought her to town? Some vague, irrational hope of winning back Paul's admiration, perhaps, with this gown that was "real stylish," and the new hat, and the general, tawdry attempt at smartness. It was that, probably, which had taken her to the studio, and no doubt Paul had been disgusted with this attempt to revive an old flirtation, and in his irritation, had convinced her somewhat rudely of his indifference. Poor Amanda! Really she had not seemed quite right in the head since the fever.

"Were you surprised to see me this morning?" said Amanda, watching her and seeming to read her thoughts. "I went to call on another old friend, and--I wasn't welcome"--she gave another jarring laugh, which ended this time in a sob. "He--he didn't seem glad to see me, considering how well he used to know me--once." Her voice broke piteously, she paused for a moment, and then: "I hate him, I hate him!" she broke out, fiercely. "I'd give anything in this world if I'd never known him."

"So would I," said Elizabeth, low and bitterly, and then stopped, frightened at what she had said. But Amanda showed no surprise.

"Ah, you think that now," she said, slowly, "but you didn't use to. You've got so many rich beaux now that you don't care about him any longer. But I wonder what they'd think--these rich beaux of yours--if they knew how wild you used to be about him, how you went wandering about the country with him, if they knew"--Amanda leaned forward and spoke in an impressive whisper--"if they knew that you have to do what he wants now, that you're afraid of him."

There was a silence. Elizabeth, faint and giddy, sank into the nearest chair, and put up involuntarily her hand to her heart. So here was another danger threatening, another person who knew something--everything, perhaps? Her brain reeled. Amanda leaned back in her chair, watching her triumphantly, a hard, bright glitter in her eyes.

"Amanda!" Elizabeth's white lips tried in vain to frame a coherent question. "Amanda,"--she made another attempt--"what do you mean?"

Amanda smiled contemptuously. "Oh, you know well enough what I mean," she said. "Why did you go there this morning when you don't care for him any more, and are sorry you ever knew him, unless you're afraid of him, and have to do what he wants?"

"Oh, is that all?" Elizabeth drew a long sigh of relief. "I went there this morning because--because I wanted to meet a friend"--she broke off in confusion before the look on Amanda's face. Then, with a sudden reaction of feeling, she raised her head haughtily. "It doesn't matter," she said, "_what_ I went there for. It's a--a studio; all his pupils go there. I might have wanted to see him about singing-lessons, about anything.--If that is all you base your suspicions on, Amanda"----She stopped.

"Ah, but if it isn't?" said Amanda, in her impressive whisper, which seemed fraught with a mysterious consciousness of power.

Another silence. The defiant look on Elizabeth's face faded; she leaned back in her chair and half closed her eyes. Ah, she was weary, deathly weary, of these constant nervous shocks. How much did Amanda know--how much? If she could only be sure!

"I think they'd be rather surprised," Amanda went on, in unnaturally quiet tones, "these swell friends of yours, if they knew all about you. They think you very sweet, they give you lots of things"--Amanda's hard, restless eyes roamed again about the room and rested on Elizabeth's beautiful gown. "It don't seem fair," she broke out, suddenly, with a fierce little sob; "it don't seem fair, that you should have so much--and then to be so pretty too, as well as all the rest!"

She was silent for a moment, struggling with the tears that threatened to break forth, and Elizabeth began to breathe more freely. All this bluster, after all, these vague threats, seemed to resolve themselves into the old, unreasoning, powerless jealousy--nothing more. And with the relief came again the sense of pity, of a certain justice in Amanda's point of view.

"It isn't fair," she said, softly. "I don't deserve it, but"----

"Well, fair or not, I guess it don't make much difference," Amanda interrupted her, drearily, rising to her feet. "You've always had the best of me, and probably, you always will. But, if ever you don't"----She broke off suddenly and moved towards the door. "I guess I'd better be going," she said. "You'll be late for your dinner. Only, before you go"--she paused with her hand on the knob of the door, that hard, mocking glitter in her eyes--"before you go, just put on some of your jewelry, won't you? Seems to me you look sort of bare without it."

"My--my jewelry?" Elizabeth's heart, which had been beating more quietly, suddenly stood still. "I--I don't wear jewelry, Amanda," she said, in a dull, toneless voice.

"What, not your pearls?" Amanda's hard, mocking eyes seemed to read her through and through. "Your pearls you were so proud of in the country, that you said you'd always wear. Seems to me you need them--with that fine dress!"

She stood hovering by the door, a weird figure in the exaggerated smartness of her attire, with her white face framed in the deep red hair, and that strange, uncanny smile gleaming across it, lighting it up into an elf-like suggestion of mysterious power. Elizabeth stared at her helplessly, fascinated; then, with a great effort, she roused herself and hurried towards her.

"Amanda!" she cried, desperately. "Amanda, for Heaven's sake, stop these insinuations! Tell me plainly what you mean?" She gripped her fiercely by the arm, her face was white and set. For a moment Amanda's eyes met hers. Then, as if in spite of herself, they fell, she freed herself sullenly from Elizabeth's grasp.

"Well, I guess I didn't mean much," she said, awkwardly, "or if I did, it don't matter. I wouldn't tell tales against--my first cousin"--She turned the knob of the door, but again she paused, that weird smile still flickering in her eyes. "Good-night," she said, "I hope you'll enjoy your dinner. Too bad you haven't got your pearls." She gave one last jarring laugh, opened the door and went out.

Elizabeth, white and trembling, sank into the nearest chair.

"How she frightened me!" she gasped out. "These constant shocks will kill me. Does she know anything definite? Probably not. But what can I do, how can I find out?--Ah, Celeste!"--as the maid appeared with an anxious expression in the door-way. "The carriage is waiting? Very well." She hurried to the dressing-table, caught up her gloves and gave one hasty glance at her white face. "How ugly I am growing," she thought, turning away with a shudder; "quite like Amanda! I see the resemblance. It is this awful life. I wish--oh, how I wish I were home!" The thought swept over her, thrilling her with an intense, passionate longing for her aunts' presence, for the country quiet, for rest and peace.

"Yes, I will go home," she thought, as Celeste adjusted the cloak about her shoulders and she hastened down to the carriage. "I will go home," she repeated to herself at intervals during the evening, while she talked and laughed with a restless light in her eyes and a feverish flush on her cheeks. "The country will be so peaceful. I shall be quite safe there, away from all this agitation, this trying to keep up appearances. It is the best way out. How fortunate that he is away! I won't see him again before I go."

It was, she felt, an heroic resolution. Yes, she would go at once. And she resolutely crushed back the thought: "He will follow."

_Chapter XXV_

"The Van Antwerps have come up for the summer," said Miss Joanna, who had made the same announcement, if you remember, not quite a year before. "The butcher says they came last night. They never got here so early before."

Elizabeth, who was arranging flowers, looked up suddenly. "Yes, I know," she said, quietly, "Eleanor wrote me." She left her roses half arranged, and wandered restlessly over to the long French window. Before her stretched the well-kept lawn, with its flower-beds and rose-bushes and beyond, field and wooded upland, all clothed in their newest, most vivid dress of green; further still the river, with the white sails on its surface--that river from which, more than half a century before, another Elizabeth Van Vorst had resolutely turned away her eyes, refusing to be reminded of the life that she had given up. But that woman of an older generation was made of sterner stuff, perhaps, than her grand-daughter. And then there was not much travel in those days, no daily mails, no guests coming up to neighboring house-parties over Sunday.... "It will be nice for you, Elizabeth, to have Mrs. Bobby," said Aunt Joanna, in her comfortable monotone, her knitting-needles clicking peacefully. "You have found it a little dull, you know, dear, since you came back."

A little dull! Elizabeth could have laughed out loud at the words. A little dull--with such exciting subjects to discuss as the new Easter anthem, and the latest illness of the Rectory children; with such diversions as a drive to Bassett Mills, a tea-party at the Courtenays! ...

"If I am dull," she said, turning round presently with the ghost of a smile "It certainly isn't the fault of the Neighborhood. I didn't tell you that Mrs. Courtenay has asked me to tea--a third time. She says 'Frank will see me home--no need to send the carriage.'" She laughed a little, not without a shade of bitterness. "Fancy Mrs. Courtenay suggesting that--last summer!"

"Well, dear, she means well, I suppose," said Miss Joanna, puzzled but kindly. Miss Cornelia raised her head with a little, involuntary touch of pride.

"The Courtenays are--are really quite pushing, I think," she said, a most unwonted tone of asperity in her voice. "I told Mrs. Courtenay, Elizabeth, that you had been so _very gay_"--with emphasis--"you really needed a complete rest."

Elizabeth laughed. "And of course," she said "that only made her--dear good woman!--all the more anxious to provide me with a little more amusement. I never realized before how fond the girls have always been of me. But then that's the case, apparently with the whole Neighborhood. They always concealed their affection for me very successfully--until this spring!"

She paused, her aunts made no reply. She went over to the piano and began absently turning over sheets of music.

"Do you remember, auntie," she said, abruptly--Miss Joanna had left the room in response to a summons from the maid, and Elizabeth and Miss Cornelia were alone--"do you remember that I told you once that I felt myself a sort of nondescript--neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring? But now I seem to be considered a very fine fowl indeed--the ugly duckling, probably, that turned into a swan."

"You never were an _ugly_ duckling, my dear," Miss Cornelia could not help protesting, in spite of her principles. "It certainly wasn't that."

"Perhaps not," said Elizabeth, "at all events, I'm no better-looking than I was--let us say, last year. I heard a woman at The Mills say the other day that I had "gone off terrible," in my looks. But that doesn't prevent Frank Courtenay from coming here day after day, boring me to death, since he has discovered as his mother tells me, that I am "just the style that he admires"--it doesn't prevent the Johnston girls from going into raptures over my beautiful hair, and asking if I mind their copying my lovely gowns. They _have_ copied my new spring hat, if you notice. Oh, it would be amusing, if it wasn't--so very petty!" She put out her hand with a weary, contemptuous gesture. "And then the funny part of it all is that I am not really so nice, if they only knew it, as I was last year, when they all treated me as if I had committed some sort of crime, merely in existing."

"My dear," remonstrated Miss Cornelia, "how can you talk like that? I'm sure you're not a bit spoiled--every one says so."

"Ah, they think so," said Elizabeth, quickly, "they think me nice, because I've acquired a society manner, and say the correct thing, but if they knew--everything"--she stopped suddenly and stood for a moment staring steadily before her, with knit brows. "Do you know, Aunt Cornelia," she said abruptly "what I think I am?--a sort of moral nondescript, neither good nor bad. I see the right way--oh, I see it so very plainly, and I want to take it; and then I choose the wrong--always and inevitably I choose the wrong, and shall all my life, until the end. It's not my fault, really--I can't do right, no matter how hard I try."

"My dear!" Miss Cornelia looked at her, puzzled and shocked. "There's no one," she said, putting into trite words her own simple conviction "there's no one, Elizabeth, who can't do right, if they try hard enough."

"Do you think so, auntie?" said Elizabeth, very gently. "Then probably I don't try--hard enough." She went over to Miss Cornelia and kissed her on the cheek. "If I were like you," she said, "I should." Then without further words, she sat down at the piano and began to play, as she did every day for hours at a time. Such restless, passionate, brilliant playing! A vague uneasiness mingled in Miss Cornelia's mind with her pride in the girl's talent, as she listened to it. Something was troubling Elizabeth, evidently; something which had brought her home so unexpectedly, which had changed her in looks and manner beyond what could be accounted for by excitement and late hours. Yet innate delicacy and timidity prevented Miss Cornelia from forcing in any way the confidence which seemed to tremble, now and again, upon the girl's lips. She had a vague idea that the difficulty, whatever it was, would soon be decided one way or another, that the Van Antwerps' arrival, which Elizabeth seemed at once to dread and look forward to, would bring matters to a crisis, and the whole thing would be explained.

Elizabeth was still playing when Mrs. Bobby interrupted her. That she had not allowed a day to elapse before hastening to the Homestead was a fact noted with jealous care by the Misses Courtenay, who met her at the gate.

"He is desperate." Mrs. Bobby's visit had not lasted many minutes before she murmured this, holding Elizabeth's hand, and scanning eagerly her averted face. At Mrs. Bobby's words it quivered, the color flushed into her cheek; but otherwise she made no sign.

"When you first went away," Mrs. Bobby continued, as no answer came, "he was all for coming up here at once. He thought it a caprice, a morbid, unaccountable whim; he was sure that if he could see you, remonstrate with you--And then there was your letter, forbidding him to come. He was beside himself! It was all I could do to keep him from taking the first train up here. I said--Wait--it doesn't do, always, to force a woman's will; give her a little time. At least she has paid you the compliment, which she has paid to no one else of--running away from your attentions."

She paused, her eyes still eagerly fixed upon Elizabeth's face. The color in the girl's cheek was now brilliant, her lips were parted; but still she did not speak.