Mariposilla Part 17

Mariposilla lifted her great sorrowful eyes in mute entreaty; then two heavy tears rolled to her cheeks, imploring me to fulfill my promise. I knew that it was best to take her home while she wished it.

In her weakness she had not the strength to realize her sorrow. She seemed almost to have forgotten the occasion of her shock, for she closed her eyes at once, and submitted almost unconsciously to her transportation to the carriage. Tenderly we placed her on the very cus.h.i.+ons from which she had sprung, but a few hours before, radiant and expectant.

Would she not see Sidney! The cruel night, and the long, uneventful forenoon were at last over. Now she could dance again for her lover.

When it was all over, she would ride away with him in the gay trap. He would tell her once more how fondly he loved her. Tell her how beautiful she was--how much more beautiful than the cold, wise Gladys. Then she would go again to the dear, bright hotel for dinner. She would sit by Sidney. He would watch her every desire, and when dinner was ended they would go to the pretty sitting-room, where she would look fearlessly into the silver shrine; for never again would she be jealous and weep.

No, no! not when her lover had sworn that he loved not the cold, beautiful Gladys; that he cared not for her riches or accomplishments.

Then, after a while, all would go to the ball-room; Sidney would lead her to dance, and Mrs. Wilbur would be unhappy. But she--she, Mariposilla, would be joyful!

Poor, foolish little b.u.t.terfly, flitting eagerly from flower to flower, drinking, unconsciously, deadly poison with honey, how cruelly different from the sweet dreams of the morning would be the realities of the evening!

While she ran gaily from the carriage at noon, full of sweet, innocent visions, the ironic interpretation of her pitiful fate was even then decided. For, flying from rash promises, flying from the distractions of her beauty, flying from the tardy entreaties of conscience--Sidney Sanderson and his mother had gone.

With every intervening mile they were outstripping her ruined love, were nearing the selfish goal of the mother's ambitions; nearing the desolate Gladys, who, bowed with grief, and ignorant of all, would take, at the entreaty of her dead mother's friend, the reluctant lover who could never make her happy.

Poor Gladys! Poor Mariposilla!

Even before I allowed myself to acknowledge the perfidy of the woman with whom I had been so intimately a.s.sociated, I began to understand her, when, early in the morning, a groom from the hotel brought me a note, asking me to drive over at once, as they were to leave that day at noon for the East.

"Duty compels us to go," Mrs. Sanderson wrote, shamelessly.

The word "duty" aroused at once my suspicions. I felt with a creeping certainty that Gladys Carpenter was the woman's prey. I believed that some unexpected turn of fortune had revived Mrs. Sanderson's ambitions.

I was sure that she had at one time relinquished all hope of obtaining the heiress for her son; but I felt on my way to the hotel a sudden presentiment that, on account of some unlooked-for occurrence, she was going to New York to revive her abandoned schemes.

I felt an uncomfortable stiffness as I entered the once familiar sitting-room, now in a state of wild disorder.

Mrs. Sanderson was on her knees, packing the last trunk. Upon the floor were piles of clothing and innumerable trifles, which she had torn from the wall.

"Dear child! How good of you to come!" she said, extending her hand with brazen determination. "It would have broken our hearts to have left without seeing you. And dear Mariposilla! and Pet Marjorie, and the good Dona Maria--how can we ever be reconciled to leave them?"

"Why is your departure compulsory?" I asked, coldly.

The woman perceived instantly that I understood her, but her control was perfect. Her will was diabolical, yet for a moment a gleam of anger darkened her eyes. Then she answered naturally:

"Dear Gladys has lost her father. She is perfectly crushed, and has wired us to come at once."

I stood like a stone, while she told again of the intimate relations that had always existed between the families.

"Gladys is just like my own child," she continued, turning away her face with the pretense of forcing a protruding Indian basket into the trunk.

"We are so disappointed to miss the matinee," she said, with her face still in profile. "Sid begged to stay until to-morrow, just to see Mariposilla dance, but I persuaded him that it would be brutal to neglect Gladys one moment longer than the necessary time for our miserable journey."

Before I could reply she had crossed the room to her son, who was fumbling over a finished trunk.

"Don't touch the things in the tray," she cried, nervously. "I never saw such a boy. This morning he actually packed books on top of my best tea-gown."

I knew that the insolence of the woman had cowed me. She was sublime in her villainy.

I stood helplessly rooted to the spot which I had first selected upon entering the room. Too weak to stand unsupported, I leaned against the table. My perverse silence must have astonished the woman, but she talked on loquaciously, appearing not to notice my lack of interest.

How I despised her! How hard she looked to-day, when only the night before I had thought her charming and humane.

Doubtless she had slept but little since she left the box in the Pasadena opera house. In the strong morning light she looked old and strangely haggard. Dark circles defined more clearly the faint network of wrinkles beneath her eyes. Her whole countenance was drawn with the tension of her anxious night.

Her aristocratic nose seemed elongated with the avaricious thinness noticeable in grayhounds when the chase is at its height. Even the delicate, shapely hands appeared parched and old.

Never again would I think of the woman as beautiful.

I saw her now for the first time in her true, deplorable character.

With but one object to accomplish, her masterful selfishness had taken possession of her soul. Closing tightly its chamber, she refused to hear the entreaties of the outraged voice that plead in vain. For Mrs.

Sanderson, retribution was the ghost of the cowardly; repentance, a science to be skillfully ignored.

I could endure my thoughts no longer.

"Good bye," I said, coldly, as I walked mechanically to the door.

As I spoke, the woman raised herself with decision from the floor. With outstretched hands she attempted a fraudulent embrace; but I antic.i.p.ated the movement in time to escape.

"No, no!" I cried, in childish tremolo; "you must not touch me. I will not pretend that I am sorry that I will never see you again. I will never forget what you have done. Now I will go away, despising you, to the unhappy child whose life you have ruined for selfish amus.e.m.e.nt and the idle entertainment of your son!"

At last I had spoken, and at last she recoiled before me.

Without waiting to hear what she would attempt to say, I fled like Lot from the City of Destruction. But fatal curiosity I had not, and I cared not how the Sandersons writhed in the fire of my indignation.

My only desire was to get out of the house and never see them again.

As I left the hotel the groom in waiting advanced to drive me home.

"I will walk," I said curtly, spurning even this last attention from the woman I had left.

Later in Pasadena, when I heard the departing shriek of the Overland, with its echo flung fatefully back from the mountains as the train rounded a curve, I knew that the Sandersons had cut loose forever from the complications of their San Gabriel episode.

In justice to Sidney, I believe him to have been the better of two bad people. I believe that in his sensual selfishness he would willingly have resigned his mother's ambitions in regard to a marriage with Gladys Carpenter, glad to enjoy, for a time at least, the simple fascinations and marvelous beauty of Mariposilla.

The man was so perfectly carnal, so easily bored by the least intellectual superiority in a woman, that I believe he would have remained true to his own choice, had it not been for his mother's threats and positive command to marry, if possible, the three millions at hand.

I know that the thought of the cla.s.sic, high-bred, sorrow-bowed Gladys must have been a cold shock, after his recent a.s.sociations with Mariposilla. He must have remembered long how the Spanish girl adored him openly with all her young heart. Perhaps even as he went away the man held in cowardly reserve the possibilities of a refusal from the heiress.

I knew without being told that the conflict between the mother and son had been bitter. The mother had conquered, but Sidney had managed to write a parting note to his abandoned sweetheart, which the poor child unfortunately received. His slender promises only delayed her final despair, making it hopeless for those about her to arouse her pride or to graft in her trusting heart a proper disdain for the false lover.

I afterwards read his cowardly note, and saw clearly its import.

Now that Mrs. Sanderson had at last wearied of her infatuation, the proud, high-born Gladys, with her millions, would eclipse a dozen Spanish beauties. Soon she would laugh and jest over the affair with her New York friends, describing Mariposilla delightfully, while she enlarged upon the poor child's pa.s.sion for her son.

I have since wondered if the Spanish girl would have been happy had Fate consented to her choice. I sometimes believe that eventually the restraints and requirements of the untried life would have wearied her.

I also believe that with a nature so true, so simple and affectionate, she would have done her best to excel in the eyes of those she loved. In a responsive atmosphere her proud ambition would have fulfilled her will. With the cold and critical she would have lost her subtile charm.

Away from her mountains and unconventional life she might have learned sad lessons. She could never have conned them alone without an aching heart; for, like her rose, she would have grown pale and dejected away from the sunlight of love.