Out of the Primitive Part 53

"Need I tell you, Mr. Blake, how a girl of her high ideals, her high conception of n.o.blesse oblige, of duty (you saved her life as heroically as--er--as a fireman)--need I point out how grateful she must always feel toward you, and how easily she might mistake her grat.i.tude for something else?"

"You mean that she--that she--" He could not complete the sentence.

Mrs. Gantry went on almost blandly. "A girl of her fine and generous nature is apt to mistake so strong a feeling of grat.i.tude for what you no doubt thought it was."

"Yet that morning--on the cliffs--when the steamer came--"

"Even then. Can you believe that if she really loved you then, she could doubt it now?"

"You say she--does--doubt it? I thought that--maybe--" The heavy words dragged until they failed to pa.s.s Blake's tense lips.

"Doubt it!" repeated Mrs. Gantry. "Has she accepted you?"

"No. I--"

"Has she promised you anything?"

"No. She said that, unless she was sure--"

"What more do you need to realize that she is _not_ sure? Can you fancy for a moment that she would hesitate if she really loved you--if she did not intuitively realize that her feeling is no more than grat.i.tude?

That is why she is suffering so. She realizes the truth, yet will not admit it even to herself."

Blake forced himself to face the worst. "Then what--what do you--?"

"Ah! so you really are generous!" exclaimed Mrs. Gantry, beaming upon him, with unfeigned suavity. "Need I tell you that she is extremely fond of Lord Avondale? With him there could be no doubts, no uncertainties."

"Jimmy is all right," loyally a.s.sented Blake. "Yes, he's all right.

Just the same, unless she--" He stopped, unable to speak the word.

"In accepting him she would attain to--" The tactful dame paused, considered, and altered her remark. "With him she would be happy."

"I'm not saying 'no' to that," admitted Blake. "That is, provided--"

"Ah! And you say you love her!" broke in Mrs. Gantry. "What love is it that would stand between her and happiness--that would compel her to sacrifice her life, out of grat.i.tude to you?"

Blake bent over and asked in a dull murmur: "You are sure it's that?"

"Indeed, yes! How can it be otherwise?--a girl of her breeding; and you--what you are!"

Blake bent over still lower, and all his fort.i.tude could not repress the groan that rose to his lips. Mrs. Gantry watched him closely, her face set in its suave smile, but her eyes hard and cold. She went on, without a sign of compunction: "But I now believe you are possessed of sterling qualities, else I should not have troubled to speak the truth to you."

She paused to emphasize what was to follow. "There is only one way for you to save her. She is too generous to save herself. I believe that you really love her. You can prove it by--" again she paused--"going away."

Blake bent over on the table and buried his face in his arms. His smothered groan would have won him the compa.s.sion of a savage. It was the cry of a strong man crushed under an unbearable burden. Mrs. Gantry was not a savage. Her eyes sparkled coldly.

"You will go away. You will prove your love for her," she said.

Certain that she had accomplished what she had set out to do, she returned to the cardroom, and left her victim to his misery and despair.

CHAPTER XXVII

A PACKING CASE

Already exhausted by the stress of the fierce fight that he had so hardly won, Blake could no longer sustain such acute grief. Nature mercifully dulled his consciousness. He sank into a stupor that outwardly was not unlike heavy slumber.

Mrs. Gantry had been gone several minutes when the other door swung open. Dolores skipped in, closely followed by Lafayette Ashton. The young man's face was flushed, and there was a slight uncertainty in his step; but as he closed the door and followed the girl across the room, he spoke with rather more distinctness than usual.

"Here we are, _ma cher_. I knew we'd find a place where you could show me how kind you feel toward your fond Fayette."

"So that's the way you cross the line?" criticised Dolores. "What a get-away for a fast pacer who has gone the pace!"

"Now, Dodie, don't hang back. You know as well as I do--"

"Hus.h.!.+ Don't whisper it aloud!" cautioned the girl, pointing dramatically to Blake. "Betray no secrets. We are not alone!"

Ashton muttered a French curse, and went over to the table.

"It's that fellow, Blake," he whispered, over his shoulder.

"Mr. Blake?" exclaimed Dolores, tiptoeing to the table. "He's gone to sleep. Poor man! I know he must be awfully tired, else he would have waltzed with me again the last time I scratched your name."

"What you and Genevieve can see in him gets me!" muttered Ashton, with a shrug. "Look at him now. Needn't tell me he's asleep. He's intoxicated. That's what's the matter with him."

Dolores leaned far over the table toward Blake, sniffed, and drew back, with a judicial shake of her head. "Can't detect it. But, then, I couldn't expect to, with you in the room."

"Now, Dodie!"

She again leaned over the table. "See," she whispered. "His hand is tied up. It's hurt."

"Told you he's intoxicated," insisted Ashton.

The girl moved toward a davenport in the corner farthest from Blake.

"Come over here," she ordered. "It's a nuisance to sit it out with you, when it's one of the last waltzes. At least I won't let you disturb Mr.

Blake."

"Mr. T. Blake, our heroic cave-man!" replied Ashton, as he followed her across the room.

"How you love him!" she rallied. "What's the cause of your jealousy?"

"Who says I'm jealous?"

"Of course there's no reason for you to be. He's not interested in me, and you're not in Genevieve--just now."