In the living-hall Margaret came upon Hugh Van Orden, who was searching in one of the alcoves for a piece of music that Adèle Haggage wanted and had misplaced.
The boy greeted her miserably.
"Miss Hugonin," he lamented, "you're awfully hard on me."
"I am sorry," said Margaret, "that you consider me discourteous to a guest in my own house." Oh, I grant you Margaret was in a temper now.
"It isn't that," he protested; "but I never see you alone. And I've had something to tell you."
"Yes?" said she, coldly.
He drew near to her. "Surely," he breathed, "you must know what I have long wanted to tell you—"
"Yes, I should think I did!" said Margaret, "and if you dare tell me a word of it I'll never speak to you again. It's getting a little monotonous. Good-night, Mr. Van Orden."
Half way up the stairs she paused and ran lightly back.
"Oh, Hugh, Hugh!" she said, contritely, "I was unpardonably rude. I'm sorry, dear, but it's quite impossible. You are a dear, cute little boy, and I love you—but not that way. So let's shake hands, Hugh, and be friends! And then you can go and play with Adèle." He raised her hand to his lips. He really was a nice boy.
"But, oh, dear!" said Margaret, when he had gone; "what horrid creatures men are, and what a temper I'm in, and what a vexatious place the world is! I wish I were a pauper! I wish I had never been born! And I wish—and I wish I had those League papers fixed! I'll do it to-night! I'm sure I need something tranquillising, like assessments and decimal places and unpaid dues, to keep me from screaming. I hate them all—all three of them—as badly as I do him!"
Thereupon she blushed, for no apparent reason, and went to her own rooms in a frame of mind that was inexcusable, but very becoming. Her cheeks burned, her eyes flashed with a brighter glow that was gem-like and a little cruel, and her chin tilted up defiantly. Margaret had a resolute chin, a masculine chin. I fancy that it was only at the last moment that Nature found it a thought too boyish and modified it with a dimple—a very creditable dimple, by the way, that she must have been really proud of. That ridiculous little dint saved it, feminised it.
Altogether, then, she swept down upon the papers of the Ladies' League for the Edification of the Impecunious with very much the look of a diminutive Valkyrie—a Valkyrie of unusual personal attractions, you understand—en route for the battle-field and a little, a very little eager and expectant of the strife.
Subsequently, "Oh, dear, dear!" said she, amid a feverish rustling of papers; "the whole world is out of sorts to-night! I never did know how much seven times eight is, and I hate everybody, and I've left that list of unpaid dues in Uncle Fred's room, and I've got to go after it, and I don't want to! Bother those little suitors of mine!"
Miss Hugonin rose, and went out from her own rooms, carrying a bunch of keys, across the hallway to the room in which Frederick R. Woods had died. It was his study, you may remember. It had been little used since his death, but Margaret kept her less important papers there—the overflow, the flotsam of her vast philanthropic and educational correspondence.
And there she found Billy Woods.
XII
His back was turned to the door as she entered. He was staring at a picture beside the mantel—a portrait of Frederick R. Woods—and his eyes when he wheeled about were wistful.
Then, on a sudden, they lighted up as if they had caught fire from hers, and his adoration flaunted crimson banners in his cheeks, and his heart, I dare say, was a great blaze of happiness. He loved her, you see; when she entered a room it really made a difference to this absurd young man. He saw a great many lights, for instance, and heard music. And accordingly, he laughed now in a very contented fashion.
"I wasn't burglarising," said he—"that is, not exactly. I ought to have asked your permission, I suppose, before coming here, but I couldn't find you, and—and it was rather important. You see," Mr. Woods continued, pointing to the great carved desk. "I happened to speak of this desk to the Colonel to-night. We—we were talking of Uncle Fred's death, and I found out, quite by accident, that it hadn't been searched since then—that is, not thoroughly. There are secret drawers, you see; one here," and he touched the spring that threw it open, "and the other on this side. There is—there is nothing of importance in them; only receipted bills and such. The other drawer is inside that centre compartment, which is locked. The Colonel wouldn't come. He said it was all foolishness, and that he had a book he wanted to read. So he sent me after what he called my mare's nest. It isn't, you see—no, not quite, not quite," Mr. Woods murmured, with an odd smile, and then laughed and added, lamely: "I—I suppose I'm the only person who knew about it."
Mr. Woods's manner was a thought strange. He stammered a little in speaking; he laughed unnecessarily; and Margaret could see that his hands trembled. Taking him all in all, you would have sworn he was repressing some vital emotion. But he did not seem unhappy—no, not exactly unhappy. He was with Margaret, you see.
"Oh, you beauty!" his meditations ran.
He had some excuse. In the soft, rosy twilight of the room—the study at Selwoode is panelled in very dark oak, and the doors and windows are screened with crimson hangings—her parti-coloured red-and-yellow gown might have been a scrap of afterglow left over from an unusually fine sunset. In a word, Miss Hugonin was a very quaint and colourful and delectable figure as she came a little further into the room. Her eyes shone like blue stars, and her hair shone—there must be pounds of it, Billy thought—and her very shoulders, plump, flawless, ineffable, shone with the glow of an errant cloud-tatter that is just past the track of dawn, and is therefore neither pink nor white, but manages somehow to combine the best points of both colours.
"Ah, indeed?" said Miss Hugonin. Her tone imparted a surprising degree of chilliness to this simple remark.
"No," she went on, very formally, "this is not a private room; you owe me no apology for being here. Indeed, I am rather obliged to you, Mr. Woods, for none of us knew of these secret drawers. Here is the key to the central compartment, if you will be kind enough to point out the other one. Dear, dear!" Margaret concluded, languidly, "all this is quite like a third-rate melodrama. I haven't the least doubt you will discover a will in there in your favour, and be reinstated as the long-lost heir and all that sort of thing. How tiresome that will be for me, though."
She was in a mood to be cruel to-night. She held out the keys to him, in a disinterested fashion, and dropped them daintily into his outstretched palm, just as she might have given a coin to an unusually grimy mendicant. But the tips of her fingers grazed his hand.
That did the mischief. Her least touch was enough to set every nerve in his body a-tingle. "Peggy!" he said hoarsely, as the keys jangled to the floor. Then Mr. Woods drew a little nearer to her and said "Peggy, Peggy!" in a voice that trembled curiously, and appeared to have no intention of saying anything further.
Indeed, words would have seemed mere tautology to any one who could have seen his eyes. Margaret looked into them for a minute, and her own eyes fell before their blaze, and her heart—very foolishly—stood still for a breathing-space. Subsequently she recalled the fact that he was a fortune-hunter, and that she despised him, and also observed—to her surprise and indignation—that he was holding her hand and had apparently been doing so for some time. You may believe it, that she withdrew that pink-and-white trifle angrily enough.
"Pray don't be absurd, Mr. Woods," said she.
Billy caught up the word. "Absurd!" he echoed—"yes, that describes what I've been pretty well, doesn't it, Peggy? I was absurd when I let you send me to the right-about four years ago. I realised that to-day the moment I saw you. I should have held on like the very grimmest death; I should have bullied you into marrying me, if necessary, and in spite of fifty Anstruthers. Oh, yes, I know that now. But I was only a boy then, Peggy, and so I let a boy's pride come between us. I know now there isn't any question of pride where you are concerned—not any question of pride nor of any silly misunderstandings, nor of any uncle's wishes, nor of anything but just you, Peggy. It's just you that I care for now—just you."
"Ah!" Margaret cried, with a swift intake of the breath that was almost a sob. He had dared, after all; oh, it was shameless, sordid! And yet (she thought dimly), how dear that little quiver in his voice had been were it unplanned!—and how she could have loved this big, eager boy were he not the hypocrite she knew him! She'd show him! But somehow—though it was manifestly what he deserved—she found she couldn't look him in the face while she did it. So she dropped her eyes to the floor and waited for a moment of tense silence. Then, "Am I to consider this a proposal, Mr. Woods?" she asked, in muffled tones.
Billy stared. "Yes," said he, very gravely, after an interval.
"You see," she explained, still in the same dull voice, "you phrased it so vaguely I couldn't well be certain. You don't propose very well, Mr. Woods. I—I've had opportunities to become an authority on such matters, you see, since I've been rich. That makes a difference, doesn't it? A great many men are willing to marry me now who wouldn't have thought of such a thing, say—say, four years ago. So I've had some experience. Oh, yes, three—three persons have offered to marry me for my money earlier in this very evening—before you did, Mr. Woods. And, really, I can't compliment you on your methods, Mr. Woods; they are a little vague, a little abrupt, a little transparent, don't you think?"
"Peggy!" he cried, in a frightened whisper. He could not believe, you see, that it was the woman he loved who was speaking.
And for my part, I admit frankly that at this very point, if ever in her life, Margaret deserved a thorough shaking.
"Dear me," she airily observed, "I'm sure I've said nothing out of the way. I think it speaks very well for you that you're so fond of your old home—so anxious to regain it at any cost. It's quite touching, Mr. Woods."
She raised her eyes toward his. I dare say she was suffering as much as he. But women consider it a point of honour to smile when they stab; Margaret smiled with an innocence that would have seemed overdone in an angel.
Then, in an instant, she had the grace to be abjectly ashamed of herself. Billy's face had gone white. His mouth was set, mask-like, and his breathing was a little perfunctory. It stung her, though, that he was not angry. He was sorry.
"I—I see," he said, very carefully. "You think I—want the money. Yes—I see."
"And why not?" she queried, pleasantly. "Dear me, money's a very sensible thing to want, I'm sure. It makes a great difference, you know."
He looked down into her face for a moment. One might have sworn this detected fortune-hunter pitied her.
"Yes," he assented, slowly, "it makes a difference—not a difference for the better, I'm afraid, Peggy."
Ensued a silence.
Then Margaret tossed her head. She was fast losing her composure.
She would have given the world to retract what she had said, and accordingly she resolved to brazen it out.
"You needn't look at me as if I were a convicted criminal," she said, sharply. "I won't marry you, and there's an end of it."
"It isn't that I'm thinking of," said Mr. Woods, with a grave smile.
"You see, it takes me a little time to realise your honest opinion of me. I believe I understand now. You think me a very hopeless cad—that's about your real opinion, isn't it, Peggy? I didn't know that, you see. I thought you knew me better than that. You did once, Peggy—once, a long time ago, and—and I hoped you hadn't quite forgotten that time."
The allusion was ill chosen.
"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried, gasping. "You to remind me of that time!—you of all men. Haven't you a vestige of shame? Haven't you a rag of honour left? Oh, I didn't know there were such men in the world! And to think—to think—" Margaret's glorious voice broke, and she wrung her hands helplessly.
Then, after a little, she raised her eyes to his, and spoke without a trace of emotion. "To think," she said, and her voice was toneless now, "to think that I loved you! It's that that hurts, you know. For I loved you very dearly, Billy Woods—yes, I think I loved you quite as much as any woman can ever love a man. You were the first, you see, and girls—girls are very foolish about such things. I thought you were brave, and strong, and clean, and honest, and beautiful, and dear—oh, quite the best and dearest man in the world, I thought you, Billy Woods! That—that was queer, wasn't it?" she asked, with a listless little shiver. "Yes, it was very queer. You didn't think of me in quite that way, did you? No, you—you thought I was well enough to amuse you for a while. I was well enough for a summer flirtation, wasn't I, Billy? But marriage—ah, no, you never thought of marriage then. You ran away when Uncle Fred suggested that. You refused point-blank—refused in this very room—didn't you, Billy? Ah, that—that hurt," Margaret ended, with a faint smile. "Yes, it—hurt."
Billy Woods raised a protesting hand, as though to speak, but afterward he drew a deep, tremulous breath and bit his lip and was silent.
She had spoken very quietly, very simply, very like a tired child; now her voice lifted. "But you've hurt me more to-night," she said, equably—"to-night, when you've come cringing back to me—to me, whom you'd have none of when I was poor. I'm rich now, though. That makes a difference, doesn't it, Billy? You're willing to whistle back the girl's love you flung away once—yes, quite willing. But can't you understand how much it must hurt me to think I ever loved you?"
Margaret asked, very gently.
She wanted him to understand. She wanted him to be ashamed. She prayed God that he might be just a little, little bit ashamed, so that she might be able to forgive him.
But he stood silent, bending puzzled brows toward her.
"Can't you understand, Billy?" she pleaded, softly. "I can't help seeing what a cur you are. I must hate you, Billy—of course, I must," she insisted, very gently, as though arguing the matter with herself; then suddenly she sobbed and wrung her hands in anguish. "Oh, I can't, I can't!" she wailed. "God help me, I can't hate you, even though I know you for what you are!"
His arms lifted a little; and in a flash Margaret knew that what she most wanted in all the world was to have them close about her, and then to lay her head upon his shoulder and cry contentedly.
Oh, she did want to forgive him! If he had lost all sense of shame, why could he not lie to her? Surely, he could at least lie? And, oh, how gladly she would believe!—only the tiniest, the flimsiest fiction, her eyes craved of him.
But he merely said "I see—I see," very slowly, and then smiled. "We'll put the money aside just now," he said. "Perhaps, after a little, we—we'll came back to that. I think you've forgotten, though, that when—when Uncle Fred and I had our difference you had just thrown me over—had just ordered me never to speak to you again? I couldn't very well ask you to marry me, could I, under those circumstances?"
"I spoke in a moment of irritation," a very dignified Margaret pointed out; "you would have paid no attention whatever to it if you had really—cared."
Billy laughed, rather sadly. "Oh, I cared right enough," he said. "I still care. The question is—do you?"
"No," said Margaret, with decision, "I don't—not in the least."
"Peggy," Mr. Woods commanded, "look at me!"
"You have had your answer, I think," Miss Hugonin indifferently observed.
Billy caught her chin in his hand and turned her face to his. "Peggy, do you—care?" he asked, softly.
And Margaret looked into his honest-seeming eyes and, in a panic, knew that her traitor lips were forming "yes."
"That would be rather unfortunate, wouldn't it?" she asked, with a smile. "You see, it was only an hour ago I promised to marry Mr. Kennaston."
"Kennaston!" Billy gasped. "You—you don't mean that you care for him, Peggy?"
"I really can't see why it should concern you," said Margaret, sweetly, "but since you ask—I do. You couldn't expect me to remain inconsolable forever, you know."
Then the room blurred before her eyes. She stood rigid, defiant.
She was dimly aware that Billy was speaking, speaking from a great distance, it seemed, and then after a century or two his face came back to her out of the whirl of things. And, though she did not know it, they were smiling bravely at one another.
"—and so," Mr. Woods was stating, "I've been an even greater ass than usual, and I hope you'll be very, very happy."
"Thank you," she returned, mechanically, "I—I hope so."
After an interval, "Good-night, Peggy," said Mr. Woods.
"Oh—? Good-night," said she, with a start.
He turned to go. Then, "By Jove!" said he, grimly, "I've been so busy making an ass of myself I'd forgotten all about more—more important things."
Mr. Woods picked up the keys and, going to the desk, unlocked the centre compartment with a jerk. Afterward he gave a sharp exclamation.
He had found a paper in the secret drawer at the back which appeared to startle him.
Billy unfolded it slowly, with a puzzled look growing in his countenance. Then for a moment Margaret's golden head drew close to his yellow curls and they read it through together. And in the most melodramatic and improbable fashion in the world they found it to be the last will and testament of Frederick R. Woods.
"But—but I don't understand," was Miss Hugonin's awed comment. "It's exactly like the other will, only—why, it's dated the seventeenth of June, the day before he died! And it's witnessed by Hodges and Burton—the butler and the first footman, you know—and they've never said anything about such a paper. And, then, why should he have made another will just like the first?"
Billy pondered.
By and bye, "I think I can explain that," he said, in a rather peculiar voice. "You see, Hodges and Burton witnessed all his papers, half the time without knowing what they were about. They would hardly have thought of this particular one after his death. And it isn't quite the same will as the other; it leaves you practically everything, but it doesn't appoint any trustees, as the other did, because this will was drawn up after you were of age. Moreover, it contains these four bequests to colleges, to establish a Woods chair of ethnology, which the other will didn't provide for. Of course, it would have been simpler merely to add a codicil to the first will, but Uncle Fred was always very methodical. I—I think he was probably going through the desk the night he died, destroying various papers.
He must have taken the other will out to destroy it just—just before he died. Perhaps—perhaps—" Billy paused for a little and then laughed, unmirthfully. "It scarcely matters," said he. "Here is the will. It is undoubtedly genuine and undoubtedly the last he made. You'll have to have it probated, Peggy, and settle with the colleges. It—it won't make much of a hole in the Woods millions."
There was a half-humorous bitterness in his voice that Margaret noted silently. So (she thought) he had hoped for a moment that at the last Frederick R. Woods had relented toward him. It grieved her, in a dull fashion, to see him so mercenary. It grieved her—though she would have denied it emphatically—to see him so disappointed. Since he wanted the money so much, she would have liked for him to have had it, worthless as he was, for the sake of the boy he had been.
"Thank you," she said, coldly, as she took the paper; "I will give it to my father. He will do what is necessary. Good-night, Mr. Woods."
Then she locked up the desk in a businesslike fashion and turned to him, and held out her hand.
"Good-night, Billy," said this perfectly inconsistent young woman.
"For a moment I thought Uncle Fred had altered his will in your favour. I almost wish he had."
Billy smiled a little.
"That would never have done," he said, gravely, as he shook hands; "you forget what a sordid, and heartless, and generally good-for-nothing chap I am, Peggy. It's much better as it is."
Only the tiniest, the flimsiest fiction, her eyes craved of him. Even now, at the eleventh hour, lie to me, Billy Woods, and, oh, how gladly I will believe!
But he merely said "Good-night, Peggy," and went out of the room. His broad shoulders had a pathetic droop, a listlessness.
Margaret was glad. Of course, she was glad. At last, she had told him exactly what she thought of him. Why shouldn't she be glad? She was delighted.
So, by way of expressing this delight, she sat down at the desk and began to cry very softly.