CHAPTER VI.
A MAN’S FICKLE HEART.
Yes, a most beautiful picture of lovely girlhood Queenie Trevalyn appeared in her traveling dress of dove gray, with the crimson rose nestling in her bosom, and her two bright eyes eager with expectancy as he approached.
“Good-morning, my radiant darling!” he cried, availing himself of the opportunity of addressing her as rapturously as he liked, there being no one else on the wide, shady veranda; most every one being busy over the packing of trunks and saying good-by to friends.
“How am I to thank you for giving me the opportunity of a tête-à-tête with you, sweet, on this morning of all mornings,” he whispered, seizing the two little white hands; and, as there was no one about to witness the gallant, loverlike action, raising them to his lips and kissing them repeatedly.
Before she had time to reply, he went on:
“From the hour we parted last night, sweet, I have done nothing but think of you; I could not sleep until far into the wee, sma’ hours, for thinking of you, and wondering over my amazing fortune in winning such a treasure. And when at last sleep did weigh down my eyelids, my dreams were full of you—and, oh, such glorious dreams, my angel! I thought we had just been wedded, and I was bearing you off to some fairy isle——”
“Did you wish it were a reality, Raymond?” she questioned, interrupting him with a little tremor in her voice, which was barely audible.
“How can you ask that, my adored one?” he asked, reproachfully.
“I—I thought if you really cared so much about it, the—the wedding might be arranged to take place this morning, as you pleaded so hard last night that it might.”
Girl-like, she dropped her eyes in maidenly confusion as she made this faltering admission.
If she had but glanced up at that moment, she would have beheld a very strange expression on the face of the man bending over her.
Raymond Challoner was wondering if he had heard aright, or if his ears were playing him false. Was it a trick of mistaken hearing, or did he hear her say that she would marry him ere she left Newport that morning? He had expected a hard battle to fight when he asked the astute, wealthy New York lawyer for his lovely young daughter.
It was easy to talk to women of his expectations, etc.; but it was quite another matter to stand before a keen-eyed man of the world, and explain to his satisfaction what he had to support his daughter with. The keen lawyer would want positive proof, in the shape of affirmation from old Mr. Challoner, the wealthy uncle, direct, acknowledging that it was his intention to make his nephew his sole heir. And no one knew better than Raymond Challoner that he was as far away from that old uncle’s millions as was the man in the moon, and he well knew why.
Queenie’s voice brought back his wandering thoughts.
“I have something to confide to you, Raymond,” she whispered in a fluttering voice, “and after you have heard it all, it is for you to decide if you desire the marriage to take place within the hour, or think it best to—to wait.”
As she spoke she drew forth the letter from the pocket of her dress and opening it, laid it in his hand, remarking:
“That is the dreadful news which we received from papa last night. It explains itself. Oh, Raymond, in a few short hours we have been hurled down from affluence to—to—— Oh, how shall I say it?—to want!”
He did not even hear her last words. He was so intent upon the perusal of the old lawyer’s heartbroken letter to his family.
And as he read a low, incredulous whistle broke from his mustached lips.
“Lost his fortune! That’s an amazing piece of business!” he cried. “By George, bad luck seems to follow me like an avenging demon; just as I am about to grasp a big thing, it invariably crumbles to dust in my grasp! Still, it’s lucky to find it out in time!”
A ghastly white overspread the girl’s face.
“Raymond,” she whispered, “does the loss of my fortune make any difference to you? Surely, you were not marrying me for that?”
She spoke in a constrained voice, drawing herself away from his clasp.
“Nonsense, Queenie!” he returned, impatiently. “You know better than that, but it is best to look the present unfortunate difficulty squarely in the face. I am not a very sentimental young man, and I will tell you the plain truth: I do love you, Queenie, better by far than any other girl I have ever met, and I would marry you within the hour, despite the fact of the loss of your fortune, if I could; but the truth of the matter is, I can’t!
“You see, it’s this way with me, Queenie,” he went on. “I am the heir to my uncle’s millions, it is true, but he is the most cranky individual that ever lived. If I should marry any one short of an heiress, I have his solemn word for it that he would cut me off; make a new will, leaving me entirely cut out of it, before the next sun rose. It’s an ugly hitch, but the hitch is there. I am dependent upon my uncle, and I dare not go against the old curmudgeon’s wishes, as unreasonable as they may be.”
“You desire to break the engagement, then?” she asked in a husky voice, looking him steadily in the eye.
Her unnatural calm deceived him; he had expected hysterics at this juncture, reproaches, possibly a stormy scene.
His face flushed, and he drew a long breath of relief, telling himself that he was fortunate that she left everything to him.
“I have no wish to say farewell forever, Queenie,” he said; “but it would be selfish to keep you bound to me, and away from every one else for perhaps long years. For it might be fully that length of time ere my uncle took a notion to shuffle off this mortal coil. It’s a long wait, this waiting for dead men’s shoes.
“Your pretty locks as well as my own might turn gray ere we could see our way clear to marry. On the whole, I think it would be cruel to keep you bound by an engagement which might last half a lifetime. I love you, Queenie, but I will not be selfish. I release you from the betrothal we entered into last night, though Heaven knows how bitter it is to say those words—I set you free! You will meet some other man whom you will learn to love, I dare say, and will rejoice then that we were both so sensible as to part when we realized that the stern decree of fate was against us.”
The young girl stood looking at him with a fixed, steady gaze; she saw him now as he was, in all his falseness and baseness.
“Good-by,” she said, mechanically, turning away from him.
“Let us part as friends, Queenie,” he entreated; but she turned on him such a look of utter contempt, that whatever else he was intending to say to her died upon his lips unuttered.
“Friends,” she retorted; “I scorn you too much to hold you as a friend! From this hour we are enemies, Mr. Challoner—enemies to the death! You have insulted my pride, and mark me, the day will come when you will bitterly rue it!”
“I could never be an enemy to a fair young girl, let her do what she might, think of me as she may,” he returned, with mock gallantry; “and as for your revenge upon me, surely the withdrawing of your sunny face and smile from my dull existence will be a revenge cruel enough to satisfy the one most thirsty after vengeance!”
With one last look, the strangeness of which he never forgot, she turned, and with head proudly erect, walked with haughty step down the length of the cool, shady veranda, and disappeared through the arched doorway.
Raymond Challoner gazed after her with a strange expression on his usually placid countenance, as he remarked to himself:
“It’s a very disagreeable procedure. I hope she won’t do anything desperate. Those high-spirited girls are apt to kill themselves, or something else equally as terrible. She’s tremendously in love with me, poor little girl; and it’s flattering, but not at all pleasant under the circumstances.”
Queenie Trevalyn walked straight up to her own room with the same proud, measured step.
Her mother, with a newspaper in her hand, was awaiting her in some trepidation. Her keen instinct told her as soon as she beheld her daughter’s marble-white face that in this instance surely the course of true love had not run smooth. Had it been as she feared, had the young man not received the story of her father’s failure kindly?
Without waiting for her mother to speak, Queenie announced, briefly:
“It’s all over between us, mamma; you are right, and I was wrong. It was my fortune that Raymond Challoner wanted, not me! So we parted!”
A shriek from her mother interrupted the recital of what took place.
“And it was for him that you threw over Mr. John Dinsmore!” groaned Mrs. Trevalyn, adding: “Just read that, Queenie! Oh, oh, oh!”
Mechanically the girl took the paper from her; the startling headlines on the first column on which her eyes fell told her of the wonderful news:
A fortune estimated at over three millions of dollars had come to John Dinsmore, the author, through the death of a relative, a London banker of note.
Without waiting for her daughter to read the column through, Mrs. Trevalyn cried, excitedly:
“You must recall him, Queenie; indeed you must, my love!”
“It is too late now, mother,” answered Miss Trevalyn, bitterly. “He has gone, left the hotel and Newport last night, so I heard some one remark at the breakfast table this morning.”
Mrs. Trevalyn went promptly into hysterics, and then fainted outright.
Queenie uttered no moan, not even a cry.
“Poor mamma,” she groaned, “it would be almost better if life ended for her here and now, rather than live to face the future before us!”
In that moment Queenie Trevalyn knew the truth, whatever of love her shallow heart had been capable of feeling, had gone out to the man whose heart the cold hand of her ambition had thrust from her forever. And she had turned from him in such scorn and anger—that was the crudest remembrance of all! But for that she might have recalled him; for the heir of such a fortune could not long hide himself in obscurity. But would he ever forgive her for casting him aside so lightly?
“He loved me—and with such a man, to love once is to love forever!” she told herself, and this thought buoyed up her flagging spirits.
“Yes, I will reclaim him,” she ruminated, pressing her hands closely together over her throbbing heart. “He will never know about Ray Challoner, or his proposal. I will tell him a young girl’s ‘no’ always yields to ‘yes,’ if the wooer is persistent. Yes, I will win him back, and thus avert the poverty that stares us in the face. Of course he has gone directly back to New York, to the address mentioned in this newspaper article.”
And to this address Queenie Trevalyn sent the following telegram:
“Love has conquered pride and anger, and I would call you back again.”
“That will bring him back to Newport by the next train,” she told herself, sitting down by the window to peruse the wonderful newspaper account for the twentieth time.
Strangely enough, no mention was made in the article of the condition attached to the will, that he must wed the girl of his uncle’s choosing.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Trevalyn seemed to grow alarmingly worse, much to the annoyance of the hotel management.
By some means they learned of the failure of the lady’s husband in New York, and their suave courtesy to the late magnate’s wife and daughter changed into positive brusqueness, as they declared to Miss Trevalyn that she would have to remove her mother at once from the Ocean House to some private boarding house, as it was imperative that they should close the hotel by noon.
They condescended, however, to give Queenie a note to a trained nurse, a Mrs. Brent, suggesting that she would in all probability receive her mother and self for a few days, until Mrs. Trevalyn was able to return to New York.
And thither, letter in hand, Queenie turned her steps, murmuring to herself:
“Ah, me! How strange are the tricks fate plays upon us!” little dreaming as she uttered the words of the thrilling event about to transpire.