An Ambitious Woman Part 37

She recalled Thurston's words to her at the opera on the previous night.

Surely there was some grave discrepancy between these and the acts of his sister. As for the headache, that was of course transparent sham. If this lofty lady had wanted to deceive, she might have done so more plausibly. But perhaps she did not care whether or no her excuse looked genuine. Rats leave a falling house. That was all the letter meant.

Claire could have thrown it down upon the floor and stamped on it. In reality, she tossed it with seeming unconcern into the fire, and gave a quiet order to Marie which she wished taken directly to the butler, regarding the reduced number of her coming guests.

When Marie reentered the apartment, she bore a card. It was the card of Thurston. On it were written in pencil these words: "I beg that you will see me for a few moments, if you can possibly manage."

She at once went down and received him. He looked fixedly into her face for a slight while, after they had seated themselves. He knew all that had happened, and he understood just how savage and calamitous must seem to her the blows from which she was now suffering. He read excitement and even despair in every line of her features, though he clearly perceived that both were held under a determined repression.

'She means not to let herself go one inch,' he decided. 'If she did, she would break down altogether. She has wound herself up to a certain pitch. She will keep just this way for hours yet. She will keep so--if nothing strange and unforeseen should happen.'

A deep and vital pity pierced him while he watched her. He loved her, and his love made him unreasonably lenient. A sacred sadness invested her, for his eyes, in this the hour of her misfortune and overthrow. He forgot how blameworthy she had been, and could remember only that destiny would soon hurl in the dust the crown that she had worn with so much grace and grandeur.

"Did you come to speak of my--of our trouble?" she said, her lip quivering for an instant and no more.

"No," he replied. "But since _you_ speak of it, is all chance of recovery gone? May not matters right themselves somehow?"

She shook her head in quick negative. "I think not. He has lost everything--or nearly that." She broke into a smile, which had for her companion only the brightness one might see in tears. "I suppose it seems to you like a punishment--a retribution." Her gaze dwelt on him with a mournful kind of pleasantry. It was like the spirit of Comedy slipping her gay mask a little down and showing beneath it a glimpse of pallor and fatigue.

"But do not let us talk of that. You wanted to talk of something else.

What was it? your sister's refusal, at the eleventh hour, to come to my lunch?"

"Has she refused?"

"She has a sick headache," returned Claire, with a bit of joyless laughter--the saddest he had ever heard leave her lips. "I don't doubt our disreputable downfall has given it to her. Don't make excuses for her; she is quite right to have her headache. It's a fastidious prerogative, you know. I shan't require a physician's certificate. I only hope that all the others will be cruel in just as civil a manner."

The tragic bitterness of these words, though they were quietly enough uttered, stung Thurston to the quick. When a man loves as he loved, compa.s.sion waits the ready va.s.sal of tenderness. He had a momentary feeling of hostility against an elusive, disembodied foe--against circ.u.mstance itself, so to speak, for having wrought discord in a life that was meant to hold nothing but melody.

He swiftly decided not to tell the real truth regarding his sister. "I would not concern myself with Cornelia's absence," he said. "Another matter, of much more import, must be brought to your notice. It is then settled that Cornelia remains away. I did not know that she would do so.

She made no mention of it during our interview last night."

"Her headache had not arrived. Neither had the morning papers, which said such hard things of my husband."

"As you will. Let all that pa.s.s. I wish to speak of a lady who will almost certainly be present at your entertainment to-day. I mean Sylvia Lee. Don't ask me why I warn you against her, for I can't give you any lucid reasons. She intends some mischief. I suspected it last night from something my sister let fall, and I visited Mrs. Lee this morning with a most detective purpose. I gained no clew, and yet my suspicions were by no means lulled. I have never liked Sylvia; we are related, but she has always struck me as an abhorrent kind of creature, bristling with artifice, dest.i.tute of nearly all _morale_, capable of the worst cunning, equipped with the most subtle resources of treachery. Be on your guard against her to-day. This sounds mysterious--melodramatic, if you will; but she has some snare laid for you, some petty but perhaps ugly revenge. You know why I use that last word. She has wanted to marry Goldwin for years. She isn't a bit above the grossest, most unscrupulous hatred. She told me that she didn't believe in your husband's ruin, and that a few more days would see him on his feet again. This makes me all the more convinced that she will not put her little sharpened dagger back into its sheath. She has hatched some sort of horrid plot. Thwart it if you can. I wish I could be here to help you."

Claire had grown very pale, but her eyes sparkled vividly. "I am your debtor for these tidings," she said. She drew a deep breath, and he surmised that under the soft curve of her joined lips she had for a brief moment set her teeth closely together. "I thought the lunch would be a hard ordeal, even as matters stood," she went on, "and that I would need my best nerve and courage to get through it all right, with proper coolness and dignity. But now the task looks far less easy. Still, I shan't flinch. I wish you _were_ to be here; but that is not possible."

Just then a clock on the opposite mantel gave one little silver note that told it was half-past twelve. Claire rose as she heard the sound.

"I must leave you now," she pursued. "I have only an hour left for my toilette, and I shall need it all." She threw back her head, and a dreary smile gleamed and fled along her lips. "I mean to meet all these grand ladies without one sign of defeat. I shan't wear my heart on my sleeve. This lunch was to have been my crowning triumph. It proves a funeral-feast, in its way, but they shan't find me playing chief-mourner. I intend to die game, as the phrase is." She gave a slight shudder, drooping her eyes. "It will be as though I stood in a house whose walls might crumble all about me at any moment--as if I could hear the crack of plaster and the creak of beams. But I shan't run away; I shall stand my ground very firmly, depend on it, until the bitter end. When the crash comes n.o.body will be buried in the ruins but myself--that is certain, is it not?"

Here her joyless laugh again sounded, and Thurston, swayed by an irresistible mood, caught one of her hands, pressing it hard within his own.

"You shall not be buried in the ruins!" he exclaimed. "Take my word for it, you shall not! It will all only be the beginning of a new and better life. You shall have learned a hard yet salutary lesson--that, and nothing more."

She shook her head, meeting his earnest eyes. "You are my good genius,"

she said. "It is too bad you have not had more power over me."

"Who is your evil genius?" he asked, with slower tones, while she drew her hand from his.

"Myself," she answered. "I am quite willing to concede it." ... She appeared to muse for a little while. "I shall have one true friend here to-day," she soon continued. "I mean Mrs. Diggs. She is very loyal to me; she would do almost anything I should ask. You don't like her, or so she tells me, but I hope you will like her better than your other cousin, Mrs. Lee."

"I respect her far more. I have never doubted her goodness. But she gives me nerves, as the French say. She is at such a perpetual gallop; if she would only break into a trot, sometimes, it would be like anybody else's walk.... You think you can trust her as an ally to-day?"

"Implicitly. She has promised to come early, too--before the others, you know." ... Claire locked the fingers of both hands together, and held them so that the palms were bent downward. The weary smile again touched her lips and vanished. "What a day it is to be! And what a day it _might_ have been!" She held out her hand to him, after that. "Good-by.

With all my heart I thank you! You have done all that you could do."

He did not promptly reply. He was thinking whether he had really done all that he could do.... And this thought followed him hauntingly as he left Claire to meet whatever catastrophe fate had in store for her.

Mrs. Diggs kept her promise, and was shown into Claire's dressing room a good quarter of an hour before the other guests were due. The lady started on seeing her friend, whose toilette was now completed, and whose robe, worn for the first time, was of a regal and unique beauty.

It was chiefly of white velvet, whose trailing heaviness blent with purple lengths of the same l.u.s.treless and sculpturesque fabric. The white prevailed, but the purple was richly manifest. In her hair she wore aigrettes of sapphires and amethysts shaped to resemble pansies, and while the sleeves were cut short enough to show either arm from wrist almost to elbow, and permit of bracelets that were two circles of jewels wrought in semblance of the same flower and with the same blue and lilac gems, her bust and throat were clad in one cloud of rare, filmy laces, from which her delicate head rose with a stately yet aerial grace. Excitement had put rosy tints in either cheek; the jewels that she wore had no sweeter splendor than her eyes, and yet both by color and glow in a certain way aptly matched them. A gear of velvet is dangerous to women in whom exuberance of figure has the least a.s.sertive rule. Velvet is the sworn enemy of _embonpoint_. But Claire's figure was of such supple and flexile slenderness that the weight and volume of this apparel made her light step and airy contour win a new charm and a new vivacity.

"It is all perfect--quite perfect," said Mrs. Diggs, after taking a rapid survey of Claire's attire. "But, my dear, are you perfectly sure that" ...

"Sure of what?" Claire asked, as her friend hesitated.

"Well ... that it is just in good taste, don't you know? I mean, under the circ.u.mstances."

"What circ.u.mstances?" she exclaimed, putting the question as though she did not wish it answered, and moving a few paces away with an air of great pride. "I intend to fall gloriously. The end has come, the fight is lost; but I shan't make a tame surrender--not I! They shall see me at my best to-day, in looks, in speech, in manner. I'm glad you like my dress; I want it to be something memorable."

"You say that with a kind of bravado, Claire. There's a bitter ring to your mirth. Oh, I'm so sorry for you! That lovely dress hides an aching heart. You will suffer, poor child. This lunch will be a positive torture to you."

A moment after these words were spoken, Claire was close at Mrs. Diggs's side, holding one of her hands with firm pressure.

"You don't know how much of a torture it must be," she said, "and for what reason." She immediately repeated all that Thurston had told her.

When she had finished, Mrs. Diggs was in a high state of perturbation.

"I haven't a doubt that Beverley is right!" she exclaimed. "If there _was_ any plot, Cornelia Van Horn was in it, too, and her brother has made her throw away her weapons. But Sylvia Lee intends to deal the blow alone.... What can it be? I'm at my wit's end to guess. There's but one thing to do--keep a continual watch upon her. Claire, can you be, by any chance, in that woman's power?"

"Her power?" faltered Claire.... "I hope not," she added.... "I _know_ not," she then said, as the full sense of Mrs. Diggs's question struck her, and using a tone that was one of surprised affront.

"Now, don't be offended, my dear. I merely meant that Sylvia isn't a bit too good to magnify some slight imprudence, or twist and turn it until she has got it dangerously like an actual crime.... But _nous verrons_.

After all, Beverley's fears may be groundless. With all my heart I hope they are!"

Not long afterward Claire was receiving her guests. All the great ladies came, except, of course, Mrs. Van Horn. The last arrival was that of Mrs. Lee. She contrived to make her entrance a very conspicuous one. She was dressed with even more fantastic oddity than usual, and she spoke in so shrill and peculiar a voice that she had not been in the drawing-room more than five minutes before marked and universal attention was directed upon her.

"Sylvia is in a very singular state of excitement," Mrs. Diggs murmured to Claire. "I know her well. That slow drawl of hers has entirely gone.

She acts to me as if she were on the verge of hysteria. I don't know whether you felt her hand tremble as it shook yours, but I thought that I plainly _saw_ it tremble. Just watch her, now, while she talks with Mrs. Vanvelsor. She has a little crimson dot in each of her cheeks, and she is usually quite pale, you know. There's something in the wind--Beverley was right."

"Her place at the table is rather distant from mine," said Claire, with a scornful, transitory curl of the lip. "So there is no danger of her putting a pinch of a.r.s.enic into my wine-gla.s.s."

"You're not nervous, then? I am. I don't know just why, but I am."

"Nervous?" Claire softly echoed. "No, not at all, now. I've other more important things to think of. What _could_ she do, after all? Let her attempt any folly; it would only recoil on herself.... Ah, my friend, I am afraid I'm past being injured. This is my _finale_. I want it to prove a grand one."

"It will, Claire. They have all come, as you see. They have met you with perfect cordiality, and you have received them with every bit of your accustomed grace. I dare say that some of them are stunned with amazement; they no doubt expected to find you s.h.i.+vering and colorless."

The repast was magnificent. There were more than thirty ladies present, and these, all brilliantly attired and some of striking personal beauty, made the prodigal array of flowers, the admirable service of many delicious viands, and the soft music pealing from the near hall just loudly enough not to drown conversation while it filled pauses, produce an effect where the most unrestrained hospitality was mingled with a faultless refinement.

Claire's spirits seemed to rise as the decorous yet lavish banquet proceeded. Her laugh now and then rang out clear and sweet, while she addressed this or that lady, at various distances from where she herself sat. Mrs. Diggs, whose place was next her own, observed it all with secret wonder. She alone knew the bleeding pride, the balked aspiration, the thwarted yearning, which this pathetic and fict.i.tious buoyancy hid.

It was a defiance, and yet how skilled and radiant a one! Could you blame the woman who knew how to bloom and sparkle like this, for loving the world where such dainty eminence was envied and prized? Was there not a touch of genius in her pitiable yet dauntless masquerade? Who else could have played the same part with the same deft security, and in the very teeth of failure and dethronement?