CHAPTER XLII.
IRIS AND ISABEL.
“What do you mean by disobeying my orders? Didn’t I tell you I would see no one to-night? How dare you take it upon yourself to act contrary to my wishes?”
Peter, the servant, to whom these angry, impatient words were addressed, stood meekly in the doorway of his master’s library, half in and half out of the room, waiting for Mr. Oscar Hilton’s loud voice to cease before venturing to explain his reason for thus intruding on the latter’s privacy.
“Please, sir, I didn’t forget your orders, but if you’ll remember, sir, you told me only yesterday never to deny you to Mr. St. John——”
As Peter uttered this name Oscar Hilton’s face, which had been haggard and pale as if some deep sorrow weighed upon him, brightened wonderfully, and his voice lost its angry tone.
“You are right, Peter; say to Mr. St. John that I will see him here, and——”
At this moment Peter drew himself back from the doorway, and a young girl entered the room—a petite and fairylike creature, looking even younger than her eighteen years, with eyes of that peculiar blue that darkens into purple, a complexion clear and fair as the lotus leaf, and hair of a deep reddish brown that shone like dull gold in the soft shaded light.
She was dressed richly, as became the daughter of Oscar Hilton—who was supposed to be one of the richest men in New York. But that gentleman’s face betrayed neither admiration nor love as she advanced into the room and stood before him.
“We are ready for Mrs. Laurier’s reception, papa, and I wanted you to see my costume for the occasion before Isabel came to you, because I knew how my poor little self will fade into insignificance and be totally eclipsed by the superior beauty of my queenly sister—but what is the matter? Papa, you look pale and tired. Shall I stay at home and read for you? Indeed, I do not care about the party—do let me stay with you, papa.”
The girl’s sweet voice—at first full of playfulness and merriment—had grown tender and earnest with the utterance of the last words, and she came toward her father with hands extended as if to embrace him; but Oscar Hilton repulsed her almost rudely.
“Go to the reception by all means, Iris, and don’t be so silly and childish. I am expecting a visitor just now, and cannot be bothered. Say to Isabel that I will see her when she comes back from Mrs. Laurier’s. I have writing to do to-night, and shall not have retired.”
Iris Hilton bowed, and turned from her father without a word, but the sweet, girlish face had lost all its look of brightness, and the pretty lips quivered piteously while she went to do his bidding.
Mr. Hilton seemed to breathe more freely when she was gone, and it would have been hard to fathom the expression of his eyes as he followed the graceful little figure in its retreat from the room, muttering below his breath:
“Her ‘queenly sister,’ she called my dark-eyed Isabel. Ah, God! how easily I could bear the ruin that threatens me, and the disgrace that must inevitably follow, if my Isabel were provided for, my proud, imperious darling.”
Mr. Hilton’s meditations were here interrupted by the entrance of his visitor, Mr. Chester St. John, a handsome, distinguished-looking man of thirty years, whose easy, graceful bearing and cultured manner proclaimed him at once a gentleman in the truest sense of the word.
Mr. Hilton received him with every token of welcome, and St. John entered at once into the object of his visit.
“I think you must have guessed long ago, Mr. Hilton,” he said, when cozily seated with that gentleman before a bright grate fire in the luxuriously furnished library, “that I love your beautiful daughter with all my heart. I have not spoken to her of this love, as yet, but I think—I have dared to hope, that she reciprocates my feeling, and I only await your permission to ask her to make me the happiest of men.”
St. John paused here, waiting for Mr. Hilton’s answer.
It was so long before the latter made any reply to Chester’s proposal that the young man began to fear he had received it unfavorably.
“Is it possible that you have other views for your daughter, Mr. Hilton?” he asked, somewhat proudly, but with a tremor of real anxiety in his deep-toned voice.
“No, no, my dear boy, you are the one man of all others to whom I could think for a moment of giving my precious child. I feel—nay! I know that you are worthy of her, and I will not stand between her and her love.”
“Thanks, my dear sir, and I assure you you shall never have cause to regret the confidence you have placed in me. It shall be the labor of my life to make Iris happy——”
“Iris!”
At Chester St. John’s mention of this name Oscar Hilton sprang to his feet, with every trace of color dying out of his face, and his hands pressed tightly to his heart.
“Iris!” he again ejaculated hoarsely; but when Chester sprang to his side in alarm he waved him back authoritatively. “It is nothing,” he cried, with quick, gasping breaths, “I am subject to these sudden spasms of pain—around my heart—and it is so natural for me to call on—Iris—there! it is over now, but I would like to be alone. Come to-morrow, St. John, and Iris will give you her answer.”
Chester was not in the least offended by this abrupt dismissal, having no suspicion that the pain of which Mr. Hilton had complained was purely imaginary, and that there was a deeper cause for that ashen, pale face and those trembling hands.
He bade Iris’ father good night with many expressions of regret, promising to call for Iris’ answer on the morrow, and taking his departure at last with such a look of hope upon his face that one might have guessed what he expected the girl’s answer to be.