The Fatal Glove Part 3

"Did you understand me, child? Mr. Linmere has returned."

"Yes sir."

"And is coming here to-night. Remember to take extra pains with yourself, Margie, for he has seen all the European beauties, and I do not want my little American flower to be cast in the shade. Will you remember it?"

"Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Trevlyn."

"Margie!"

"Yes!"

"You are aware that Mr. Linmere is your affianced husband, are you not?"

"I have been told so."

"And yet in the face of that fact--well, of all things, girls do beat me!

Thank heaven, I have none of my own!" he added testily.

"Girls are better let alone, sir. It is very hard to feel one's self bound to fulfil a contract of this kind."

"Hard! Well, now, I should think it easy. Mr. Linmere is all that any reasonable woman could wish. Not too old, nor yet too young; about forty-five, which is just the age for a man to marry; good-looking, intelligent and wealthy--what more could you ask?"

"You forgot that I do not love him--that he does not love me."

"Love! tus.h.!.+ Don't let me hear anything about that. I loath the name.

Margie, love ruined my only son! For love he disobeyed me and I disowned him, I have not spoken his name for years! Your father approved of Mr.

Linmere, and while you were yet a child you were betrothed. And when your father died, what did you promise him on his deathbed?"

Margie grew white as the ribbons at her throat.

"I promised him that I would _try_ and fulfil his requirements."

"That you would _try_! Yes. And that was equal to giving an unqualified a.s.sent. You know the conditions of the will, I believe?"

"I do. If I marry without your consent under the age of twenty-one, I forfeit my patrimony. And I am nineteen now. And I shall not marry without your consent."

"Margie, you must marry Mr. Linmere. Do not hope to do differently. It is your duty. He has lived single all these years waiting for you. He will be kind to you, and you will be happy. Prepare to receive him with becoming respect."

Mr. Trevlyn considered his duty performed, and went out for his customary walk.

At dinner Mr. Linmere arrived. Margie met him with cold composure. He scanned her fair face and almost faultless form, with the eye of a connoisseur, and congratulated himself on the fortune which was to give him, such a bride without the perplexity of a wooing. She was beautiful and attractive, and he had feared she might be ugly, which would have been a dampener on his satisfaction. True, her wealth would have counter-balanced any degree of personal deformity; but Mr. Paul Linmere admired beauty, and liked to have pretty things around him.

To tell the truth, he was sadly in need of money. It was fortunate that his old friend, Mr. Harrison, Margie's dead father, had taken it into his head to plight his daughter's troth to him while she was yet a child. Mr.

Harrison had been an eccentric man; and from the fact that in many points of religious belief he and Mr. Paul Linmere agreed, (for both were miserable skeptics,) he valued him above all other men, and thought his daughter's happiness would be secured by the union he had planned.

Linmere had been abroad several years, and had led a very reckless, dissipated life. Luxurious by nature, lacking in moral rect.i.tude, and having wealth at his command, he indulged himself unrestrained; and when at last he left the gay French capital and returned to America, his whole fortune, with exception of a few thousands, was dissipated. So he needed a rich wife sorely, and was not disposed to defer his happiness.

He met Margie with _empress.e.m.e.nt_, and bowed his tall head to kiss the white hand she extended to him. She drew it away coldly--something about the man made her shrink from him.

"I am so happy to meet you again. Margie, and after ten years of separation! I have thought so much and so often of you."

"Thank you, Mr. Linmere."

"Will you not call me Paul?" he asked, in a subdued voice, letting his dangerous eyes, full of light and softness, rest on her.

An expression of haughty surprise swept her face. She drew back a pace.

"I am not accustomed to address gentlemen--mere acquaintances--by their Christian names, sir."

"But in this case, Margie? Surely the relations existing between us will admit of such a familiarity," he said, seating himself, while she remained standing coldly near.

"There are no relations existing between us at present, Mr. Linmere," she answered, haughtily; "and if, in obedience to the wishes of the dead, we should ever become connected in name, I beg leave to a.s.sure you in the beginning that you will always be Mr. Linmere to me."

A flush of anger mounted to his cheek; he set his teeth, but outwardly he was calm and subdued. Anger, just at present, was impolitic.

"I hope to win your love, Margie; I trust I shall," he answered, sadly enough to have aroused almost any woman's pity; but some subtle instinct told Margie he was false to the core.

But all through the evening he was affable and complaisant and forbearing. She made no attempt to conceal her dislike of him.

Concealments were not familiar to Margie's nature. She was frank and open as the day.

Mr. Linmere's fascinations were many and varied. He had a great deal of adaptation, and made himself agreeable to every one. He had traveled extensively, was a close observer, and had a retentive memory. Mr.

Trevlyn was charmed with him. So was Alexandrine Lee, a friend of Margie's, a rival belle, who accidentally (?) dropped in to spend the evening.

Mr. Linmere played and sang with exquisite taste and skill--he was a complete master of the art, and, in spite of herself, Margie listened to him with a delight that was almost fascination, but which subsided the moment the melody ceased.

He judged her by the majority of women he had met, and finding her indifferent, he sought to rouse her jealousy by flirting with Miss Lee, who was by no means adverse to his attentions. But Margie hailed the transfer with a relief which was so evident, that Mr. Linmere, piqued and irritated, took up his hat to leave, in the midst of one of Miss Lee's most brilliant descriptions of what she had seen in Italy, from whence she had just returned. He went over to the sofa where Margie was sitting.

"I hope to please you better next time," he said, lifting her hand.

"Good-night, Margie dear." And before she was aware, he touched his lips to her forehead. She tore her hand away from him, and a flush of anger sprang to her cheek. He surveyed her with admiration. He liked a little spirit in a woman, especially as he intended to be able to subdue it when it pleased him. Her anger made her a thousand times more beautiful. He stood looking at her a moment, then turned and withdrew.

Margie struck her forehead with her hand, as if she would wipe out the touch he had left there.

Alexandrine came and put her arm around Margie's waist.

"I almost envy you, Margie," she said, in that singularly purring voice of hers. "Ah, Linmere is magnificent! Such eyes, and hair, and such a voice! Well, Margie, you are a fortunate girl."

And Miss Lee sighed, and shook out the heavy folds of her violet silk, with the air of one who has been injured, but is determined to show a proper spirit of resignation.

Mr. Paul Linmere hurried along through an unfrequented street to his suite of rooms at the St. Nicholas. He was very angry with everybody; he felt like an ill-treated individual. He had expected Margie to fall at his feet at once. A man of his attractions to be snubbed as he had been, by a mere chit of a girl, too!

"I will find means to tame her, when once she is mine," he muttered. "By heaven! but it will be rare sport to break that fiery spirit! It will make me young again!"

Something white and shadowy bound his path. A spectral hand was laid on his arm, chilling like ice, even through his clothing. The ghastly face of a woman--a face framed in jet black hair, and lit up by great black eyes bright as stars, gleamed through the mirk of the night.

The man gazed into the weird face, and shook like a leaf in the blast.

His arm sank nerveless to his side, palsied by that frozen touch; his voice was so unnatural that he started at the sound.

"My G.o.d! Arabel Vere! Do the dead come back?"