The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 21

When he spoke again, after a long silence, his voice was entirely changed. "There is something here I don't understand," he said, coldly. "One moment you seemed to yield, and the next"----He made a step towards her. "Tell me the truth," he entreated, "don't spare my feelings. It's a false kindness. You love someone else--is that it?--then tell me so, and I won't reproach you--or--trouble you again."

She turned her face towards him. It was white, quivering with emotion; but she answered firmly: "No, you are entirely wrong. There is--no one else."

"Not Halleck?" he asked, watching her intently, his face dark with the old distrust.

She made a quick, involuntary gesture of repulsion. "Not he--not he, of all people," she said, bitterly.

He still eyed her doubtfully, unsatisfied. "You are sure?" he insisted. "You are telling me the whole truth? Don't deceive me--now, Elizabeth; I could forgive anything but that."

How many chances were given to Elizabeth, only to be thrown away! She answered him steadily; "I'm not deceiving you. I tell you frankly that when I first met Paul Halleck I thought I cared for him--he was the first man I had ever known; but now he is nothing to me, and I have told him so--I think I almost dislike him." There was no mistaking the accent of sincerity in her voice. It was fortunate for Elizabeth, since she was no adept in lying, that the truth and the falsehood were in this case so nearly identical.

Gerard was satisfied.

"Then what," he urged, eagerly--"if there is no one else--what stands between us?"

She hesitated. There were voices in the hall, some visitors requesting admission, the butler parleying a little--the discreet, intelligent butler, who had so considerately refrained, for the last quarter of an hour, from coming in to light the gas.

Gerard was too absorbed to notice anything outside of the cause he was pleading. "Tell me," he repeated, his eyes fixed intently upon her face, "what stands between us?"

She put out her hand with a deprecating gesture. That threatening interruption seemed to give her courage. She was quite herself again.

"Can't a woman hesitate for no definite reason?" she asked. "You, yourself--didn't you hesitate--for reasons that I must confess seem to me rather vague and--not very complimentary."

The argument struck home. He changed color. "Don't cast that up against me, Elizabeth," he pleaded. "It's not worthy of you. I told you the plain truth, badly as it sounds, because it seemed due to you--I wanted you to know the worst. And you must remember that I had no reason to suppose that you cared, or would ever care, anything about me. It was only I who suffered when I kept away from you. But you--now that you know how--how madly I love you--don't trifle with me--be generous--give me a definite answer?"

"But I--I can't," she returned, in her old wilful way, "just on the spur of the moment, like this. I don't want to marry any one--not just now, at least. I--I like my freedom"----

The words died away on her lips. She broke off suddenly, turning very pale, as the importunate visitor, whom the butler had vainly endeavored to show into another room, drew aside the portiere and entered brusquely. It was Paul Halleck. He had a strangely excited look, which increased as he surveyed the two people on the hearth-rug, whom he had evidently interrupted at a critical moment.

To one of them, at least, his entrance was most unwelcome. Not all of Gerard's carefully cultivated self-control could avail to hide his annoyance; he uttered under his breath an angry exclamation, and going over to the piano, stood moodily turning over sheets of music.

Elizabeth, to whom Paul's appearance was for some reasons still more disconcerting, showed greater self-possession. She held out her hand coldly, but composedly, with a few mechanical words, to which he barely responded. There was an embarra.s.sing pause, broken by the butler, who made his belated, majestic entry, lighted the chandeliers and drew the curtains. The effect of the illumination was startling, as it threw into strong relief the look of agitation on each of their faces.

"It--it's storming still, isn't it?" said Elizabeth, and then remembered that she had asked the same question already. Gerard started up and reflecting gloomily that it was of no use to try to "stay that fellow out," he took his leave. Paul and Elizabeth were left alone.

His presence seemed a matter of absolute indifference to Elizabeth, who sank again into the low chair by the fire, and picking up the book she had laid down, turned over its pages with an air of icy unconcern.

He came and stood beside her, leaning against the mantel-piece, a look of brutality on his handsome face.

"So," he said. "I've driven Gerard away. A case of 'two is company,'

evidently."

Her expression did not change. "Oh, he had been here some time," she said, coldly. "No doubt he meant to leave in any case."

"Oh, no doubt." He sneered angrily. "Do you know what I heard to-day?"

he went on. "I heard that you were engaged to him."

She flushed a little. "Did you?" she said, and then, quietly: "But that means nothing, you know."

"But you are together all the time. I can't come to the house without meeting him. You encourage him, accept his flowers, lead him on.--Pray, how long is this sort of thing going to last?"

They eyed each other for a moment, he flushed with anger, she cold and hard. "You have no right," she said, icily, "to ask an account of my actions."

"No right!" he repeated, as if thunder-struck. "I should like to know who has a better."

"No right that I acknowledge, at least," she amended her first sentence.

He paced up and down the room, struggling for self-control. "Whether you acknowledge it or not, is immaterial," he said, stopping suddenly in front of her. "I claim it, and that is enough. You must give up this infernal flirtation with Gerard, or"----

"Or what?" she insisted haughtily, as he paused.

"I shall go to Gerard at once and tell him the truth," he concluded, defiantly.

Dead silence. The book she held fell from Elizabeth's nerveless hand.

The steady ticking of the clock in the stillness seemed to beat an accompaniment to these words: "Don't deceive me--now, Elizabeth; I could forgive anything but that."

"Paul?" Her voice was no longer icy, but soft, with caressing tones.

"Paul, you wouldn't be so unkind?"

"What difference does it make to you?" he said, eyeing her keenly, "whether I tell Gerard or not? You can't marry him, you know--it's impossible."

"I don't want to marry him," she said, gathering all her powers of resistance, "but--he's a friend of mine. I don't want him to be told things about me by--an outsider."

"Ah, you call me that!" he said, his anger roused again. "Well, outsider or not, I hold the cards. I shall go to Gerard at once and tell him that we were married--at Cranston, last July. If he doubts my a.s.sertion, the record is there, and it won't be very hard for him to verify it."

Silence again. Elizabeth sat musing, her brows knit, her under lip slightly thrust out, in a fas.h.i.+on that seemed to express all the obstinate resolve of her nature. "I will do as you wish, if you will keep silent."

"Will you write a note to Gerard," Paul demanded, "sending him away?"

"No," she said, sullenly. "I won't do that."

"Then there is nothing else you can do," he declared.

Elizabeth mused again. "I would give--money," she said. The last word was spoken very low.

He started and flushed. "Do you want to bribe me?" he asked, angrily.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I am quite aware that you will not do anything for nothing," she said.

Paul fell again to pacing up and down the room. His face showed traces of a mental struggle. Elizabeth watched him from the corners of her eyes; she saw that her offer tempted him more than she had dared to hope.

He stopped at last in front of her. "How much can you spare?" he asked, in a voice in which a certain bravado strove to gain the mastery over inward uneasiness and shame. "The truth is, I am most confoundedly hard up just now, what with furnis.h.i.+ng the studio and everything, and if you could help me a little, it would be very convenient. I can pay you back later with interest a hundred times."

"I have told you," she said, coldly, "what payment I want."

He shrugged his shoulders, with an attempt at nonchalance. "Oh, as to that, I never really intended to tell Gerard." Elizabeth's lip curled.

"How much money do you want?" she asked, curtly. "A hundred? Two hundred?" Her ideas on such matters were vague. Paul's face fell.

"I should need five hundred at least, if--if it is to be of any use,"

he said, gloomily.