We are credibly informed that Time travels in divers paces with divers persons—the statement being made by a lady who may be considered to speak with some authority, having triumphantly withstood the ravages of Chronos for a matter of three centuries. But I doubt if even the insolent sweet wit of Rosalind could have devised a fitting simile for Time's gait at Selwoode those five days that Billy lay abed. Margaret could not but marvel at the flourishing proportion attained by the hours in those sunlit spring days; and at dinner, say, her thoughts harking back to luncheon, recalled it by a vigorous effort as an affair of the dim yester-years—a mere blurred memory, faint and vague as a Druidical tenet or a Merovingian squabble.
But the time passed for all that; and eventually—it was just before dusk—she came, with Martin Jeal's permission, into the room where Billy was. And beside the big open fireplace, where a wood fire chattered companionably, sat a very pallid Billy, a rather thin Billy, with a great many bandages about his head.
You may depend upon it, Margaret was not looking her worst that afternoon. By actual count, Célestine had done her hair six times before reaching an acceptable result.
And, "Yes, Célestine, you may get out that pale yellow dress. No, beautiful, the one with the black satin stripes on the bodice—because I don't want my hair cast completely in the shade, do I? Now, let me see—black feather, gloves, large pompadour, and a sweet smile. No, I don't want a fan—that's a Lydia Languish trade-mark. And two silk skirts rustling like the deadest leaves imaginable. Yes, I think that will do. And if you can't hook up my dress without pecking and pecking at me like that, I'll probably go stark, staring crazy, Célestine, and then you'll be sorry. No, it isn't a bit tight—are you perfectly certain there's no powder behind my ears, Célestine? Now, please try to fasten the collar without pulling all my hair down. Ye-es, I think that will do, Célestine. Well, it's very nice of you to say so, but I don't believe I much fancy myself in yellow, after all."
Equipped and armed for conquest, then, she came into the room with a very tolerable affectation of unconcern. Altogether, it was a quite effective entrance.
"I've been for a little drive, Billy," she mendaciously informed him. "That's how you happen to have the opportunity of seeing me in all my nice new store-clothes. Aren't you pleased, Billy? No, don't you dare get up!" Margaret stood across the room, peeling off her gloves and regarding him on the whole with disapproval. "They've been starving you," she pensively reflected. "As soon as that Jeal person goes away, I shall have six little beefsteaks cooked and see to it personally that you eat every one of them. And I'll cook a cherry pie—quick as a cat can wink her eye—won't I, Billy? That Jeal person is a decided nuisance," said Miss Hugonin, as she stabbed her hat rather viciously with two hat-pins and then laid it aside on a table.
Billy Woods was looking up at her forlornly. It hurt her to see the love and sorrow in his face. But oh, how avidly his soul drank in the modulations of that longed-for voice—a voice that was honey and gold and velvet and all that is most sweet and rich and soft in the world.
"Peggy," said he, plunging at the heart of things, "where's that will?"
Miss Hugonin kicked forward a little foot-stool to the other side of the fire, and sat down and complacently smoothed out her skirts.
"I knew it!" said she. "I never saw such a one-idea'd person in my life. I knew that would be the very first thing you would ask for, Billy Woods, because you're such an obstinate, stiffnecked donkey. Very well!"—and Margaret tossed her head—"here's Uncle Fred's will, then, and you can do exactly as you like with it, and now I hope you're satisfied!" And Margaret handed him the long envelope which lay in her lap.
Mr. Woods promptly opened it.
"That," Miss Hugonin commented, "is what I term very unladylike behaviour on your part."
"You evidently don't trust me, Billy Woods. Very well! I don't care! Read it carefully—very carefully, and make quite sure I haven't been dabbling in forgery of late—besides, it's so good for your eyes, you know, after being hit over the head," Margaret suggested, cheerfully.
Billy chuckled. "That's true," said he, "but I know Uncle Fred's fist well enough without having to read it all. Candidly, Peggy, I had to look at it, because I—well, I didn't quite trust you, Peggy. And now we're going to burn this interesting paper, you and I."
"Wait!" Margaret cried. "Ah, wait, just a moment, Billy!"
He glanced up at her in surprise, the paper still poised in his hand.
She sat with head drooped forward, her masculine little chin thrust out eagerly, her candid eyes transparently appraising him.
"Why are you going to burn it, Billy?"
"Why?" Mr. Woods, repeated, thoughtfully. "Well, for a variety of reasons. First is, that Uncle Fred really did leave his money to you, and burning this is the only way of making sure you get it. Why, I thought you wanted me to burn it! Last time I saw you—"
"I was in a temper," said Margaret, haughtily. "You ought to have seen that."
"Yes, I—er—noticed it," Mr. Woods admitted, with some dryness; "but it wasn't only temper. You've grown accustomed to the money. You'd miss it now—miss the pleasure it gives you, miss the power it gives you. You'd never be content to go back to the old life now. Why, Peggy, you yourself told me you thought money the greatest thing in the world! It has changed you, Peggy, this—ah, well!" said Billy, "we won't talk about that. I'm going to burn it because that's the only honourable thing to do. Ready, Peggy?"
"It may be honourable, but it's extremely silly," Margaret temporised, "and for my part, I'm very, very glad God had run out of a sense of honour when He created the woman."
"Phrases don't alter matters. Ready, Peggy?"
"Ah, no, phrases don't alter matters!" she assented, with a quick lift of speech. "You're going to destroy that will, Billy Woods, simply because you think I'm a horrid, mercenary, selfish pig. You think I couldn't give up the money—you think I couldn't be happy without it. Well, you have every right to think so, after the way I've behaved. But why not tell me that is the real reason?"
Billy raised his hand in protest. "I—I think you might miss it," he conceded. "Yes, I think you would miss it."
"Listen!" said Margaret, quickly. "The money is yours now—by my act. You say you—care for me. If I am the sort of woman you think me—I don't say I am, and I don't say I'm not—but thinking me that sort of woman, don't you think I'd—I'd marry you for the asking if you kept the money? Don't you think you're losing every chance of me by burning that will? Oh, I'm not standing on conventionalities now! Don't you think that, Billy?"
She was tempting him to the uttermost; and her heart was sick with fear lest he might yield. This was the Eagle's last battle; and recreant Love fought with the Eagle against poor Billy, who had only his honour to help him.
Margaret's face was pale as she bent toward him, her lips parted a little, her eyes glinting eerily in the firelight. The room was dark now save in the small radius of its amber glow; beyond that was darkness where panels and brasses blinked.
"Yes," said Billy, gravely—"forgive me if I'm wrong, dear, but—I do think that. But you see you don't care for me, Peggy. In the summer-house I thought for a moment—ah, well, you've shown in a hundred ways that you don't care—and I wouldn't have you come to me, not caring. So I'm going to burn the paper, dear."
Margaret bowed her head. Had she ever known happiness before?
"It is not very flattering to me," she said, "but it shows that you—care—a great deal. You care enough to—let me go. Ah—yes. You may burn it now, Billy."
And promptly he tossed it into the flames. For a moment it lay unharmed; then the edges caught and crackled and blazed, and their heads drew near together as they watched it burn.
There (thought Billy) is the end! Ah, ropes, daggers, and poisons! there is the end! Oh, Peggy. Peggy, if you could only have loved me! if only this accursed money hadn't spoiled you so utterly! Billy was quite properly miserable over it.
But he raised his head with a smile. "And now," said he—and not without a little, little bitterness; "if I have any right to advise you, Peggy, I—I think I'd be more careful in the future as to how I used the money. You've tried to do good with it, I know. But every good cause has its parasites. Don't trust entirely to the Haggages and Jukesburys, Peggy, and—and don't desert the good ship Philanthropy because there are a few barnacles on it, dear."
"You make me awfully tired," Miss Hugonin observed, as she rose to her feet. "How do you suppose I'm going to do anything for Philanthropy or any other cause when I haven't a penny in the world? You see, you've just burned the last will Uncle Fred ever made—the one that left everything to me. The one in your favour was probated or proved or whatever they call it a week ago." I think Billy was surprised.
She stood over him, sharply outlined against the darkness, clasping her hands tightly just under her chin, ludicrously suggestive of a pre-Raphaelitish saint. In the firelight her hair was an aureole; and her gown, yellow with multitudinous tiny arabesques of black velvet, echoed the glow of her hair to a shade. The dancing flames made of her a flickering little yellow wraith. And oh, the quaint tenderness of her eyes!—oh, the hint of faint, nameless perfume she diffused! thus ran the meditations of Billy's dizzied brain.
"Listen! I told you I burned the other will. I started to burn it. But I was afraid to, because I didn't know what they could do to me if I did. So I put it away in my little handkerchief-box—and if you'd had a grain of sense you'd have noticed the orris on it. And you made me promise not to take any steps in the matter till you got well. I knew you would. So I had already sent that second will—sent it before I promised you—to Hunston Wyke—he's my lawyer now, you know—and I've heard from him, and he has probated it."
Billy was making various irrelevant sounds.
"And I brought that other will to you, and if you didn't choose to examine it more carefully I'm sure it wasn't my fault. I kept my word like a perfect gentleman and took no step whatever in the matter. I didn't say a word when before my eyes you stripped me of my entire worldly possessions—you know I didn't. You burned it up yourself, Billy Woods—of your own free will and accord—and now Selwoode and all that detestable money belongs to you, and I'm sure I'd like to know what you are going to do about it. So there!"
Margaret faced him defiantly. Billy was in a state of considerable perturbation.
"Why have you done this?" he asked, slowly. But a lucent something—half fear, half gladness—was wakening in Billy's eyes.
And her eyes answered him. But her tongue was far less veracious.
"Because you thought I was a pig! Because you couldn't make allowances for a girl who for four years has seen nothing but money and money-worshippers and the power of money! Because I wanted your—your respect, Billy. And you thought I couldn't give it up! Very well!" Miss Hugonin waved her hand airily toward the hearth. "Now I hope you know better. Don't you dare get up, Billy Woods!"
But I think nothing short of brute force could have kept Mr. Woods from her.
"Peggy," he babbled—"ah, forgive me if I'm a presumptuous ass—but was it because you knew I couldn't ask you to marry me so long as you had the money?"
She dallied with her bliss. Margaret was on the other side of the table.
"Why—why, of course it wasn't!" she panted. "What nonsense!"
"Look at me, Peggy!"
"I don't want to! You look like a fright with your head all tied up."
"Peggy ... this exercise is bad for an invalid."
"I—oh, please sit down! Please, Billy! It is bad for you."
"Not until you tell me——"
"But I don't!... Oh, you make me awfully tired."
"Peggy, don't you dare stamp your foot at me!... Peggy!"
"Please sit down! Now ... well, there's my hand, stupid, if you will be silly. Now sit down here—so, with your head leaned back on this nice little cushion because it's good for your poor head—and I'll sit on this nice little footstool and be quite, quite honest. No, you must lean back—I don't care if you can't see me, I'd much rather you couldn't. Well, the truth is—no, you must lean back—the truth is—I've loved you all my life, Billy Woods, and—no, not yet, Billy—and if you hadn't been the stupidest beautiful in the universe you'd have seen it long ago. You—you needn't—lean back—any longer, Billy ... Oh, Billy, why didn't you shave?"
"She is skinny, isn't she, Billy?"
"Now, Peggy, you mustn't abuse Kathleen. She's a friend of mine."
"Well, I know she's a friend of yours, but that doesn't prevent her being skinny, does it?"
"Now, Peggy—"
"Please, Billy! Please say she's skinny!"
"Er—well, she's a bit thin, perhaps."
"You angel!"
"And you're quite sure you've forgiven me for doubting you?"
"And you've forgiven me?"
"Bless you, Peggy, I never doubted you! I've been too busy loving you."
"It seems to me as if it had been—always."
"Why, didn't we love one another in Carthage, Peggy?"
"I think it was in Babylon, Billy."
"And will love one another——?"
"Forever and ever, dear. You've been to seek a wife, Billy boy."
"And oh, the dimple in her chin..."
Ah, well! There was a deal of foolish prattle there in the firelight—delectable prattle, irresponsible as the chattering of birds after a storm. And I fancy that the Eagle's shadow is lifted from Selwoode, now that Love has taken up his abode there.
THE END