CHAPTER V.
PRETTY GOOD ARMS.
Dead! Gone forever “out from the golden day.” Just the release he had dreamed of, perhaps wished for, yet hardly prayed for. Men seldom do that; only women drop down on their knees and pour out their hearts that way, rising sometimes to say it is all for the best.
Emory at last rose from his chair and left his room. It was almost midnight, and the streets were deserted when he reached the City Park. A few steps brought him to a seat under a tree, near which a fountain splashed, a place where he had often sat alone.
“I’ll do as the fellow does in the novels—cool my fevered brow,” he thought, and laughed a little, as he took off his hat, caught some water in the hollow of his hand and wet his forehead. The laugh was hard and hollow, and the sigh that followed it heavy and dull. Of course, he was not sorry for what the world would call his “loss,” but he was a sick-hearted man, disgusted with the way his life began, horrified at the ruggedness of the path he trod.
“I must go home and sleep, if I can; and I must see Cliquot exercised in the morning.”
Thus he thought; and all night he dreamed of the race and the woman he loved.
When he reached the track in the early morning, he saw a boy run out of one of the stables, jump into a buggy with a man and drive away.
“Where’s the jockey?” he asked.
“Just left, sir,” said the groom.
“Has he been here both days?” he inquired.
“No sir.”
“Why?” and Emory grew pale with anger.
“Peleg reported him sick, sir.”
“Stuff!” muttered the owner; “but I trust he’s all right now.”
“I think so, sir,” said the man, “for he rode like a major to-day.”
Sunday! How would he ever get through the hours? Go to church? No! Never at the best of times did he love the inside of a chapel, and now that it suggested a vision of a dead woman and flowers could he go?
Should he tell Mrs. Gwinn of his wife’s death?
What mattered it to her? She was now planning to marry her daughter to a millionaire. Let Gwendoline know? Not yet! Oh! not yet! But let him win this race—then, then the whole world might know, and Cassandra do her worst! What was it that at times blanched his cheek as he thought of her—“she who inflames with love?” Did he deem her a dangerous woman? Perhaps. But what about that other—“Kitty who laughs?”
Gwendoline sat before her glass, that morning, in a blue wrapper, with her hair down. Alice Legare, her maid, stood behind her and softly brushed out its silken waves. It was beautiful hair, but not long—falling only a little below her shoulders, a few tapering coils going nearly to the waist. It grew so lovely upon that shapely head! It is not always the wealth of hair that is attractive. A great many women have that; but all along the brow, around the ear and back of the neck it went wandering away as if it were a wave of light. And then the color—rich red brown, the bronze you read about, the “sunset glow,” and all that you see in the “Cenci” pictures.
Alice kept brushing and toying with it; and, as she did so, she began to think, and at last forgot to brush. Her mistress glanced up.
“Crying again, Alice?”
“Yes,” murmured the girl. “How can I ever thank you?”
“You have thanked me, Alice, more than once, more than you know.”
“So little, so very little, Miss,” she said. “I would it were more.”
“Never mind,” replied Gwendoline; “all may yet be well. Why, you have grown almost pretty again; and your hair is now quite as bright as ever. See! it is just the color of mine, but it does not curl or wave.”
“Only when I crimp it,” laughed the maid.
“Ah! there, that’s right! I love to see you merry. Now, go. I can finish. I am sure mamma wants you,” and Miss Gwinn gathered up her tresses as the girl quitted the room.
“She is almost as tall as I am, and might be my sister. How funny,” she added, “to have a maid like that—only she isn’t half as lazy as I! Dear, dear, how weary I am!”
With a rippling laugh, she threw herself on a sofa and put her white arms up over her head. She took them down directly, and, pushing up her sleeves, patted first one, then the other.
“Pretty good arms, pretty good arms, mon ami!”
Then, throwing them out before her, she exclaimed:
“Bon jour, Monsieur Emory—ha! ha! Now I will dress.”