CHAPTER LII.
ANOTHER ENEMY.
The person who entered the presence of Iris and Charles Broughton at the latter’s invitation, was Mr. Gerald Dare, the young man who had recognized Iris while walking with Broughton on the night of Mrs. Mason’s death.
At sight of Iris now, seated in close proximity to his friend Broughton, Dare was literally spellbound, and found it impossible to conceal his astonishment.
“Iris Hilton!” he exclaimed, involuntarily uttering the name by which he had known her; and then catching the angry, indignant look in Broughton’s eyes, he sought to offer some apology for his rudeness. As for Iris herself, she uttered no word or sound.
“You told me to call at this hour, Broughton,” began Dare in a confused and hesitating manner; to which Broughton replied with a laugh:
“Of course I did, my dear boy, and we’ll settle our little business at once. Come downstairs with me, if you please; Iris will excuse me and remain here until I return to her, will you not, my dear?”
At this pointed question Iris lifted her face quickly with an angry, rebellious flash in her deep blue eyes, but the words she would have spoken died on her lips as she encountered his glance, and she could only bow her head in silence.
Finding herself alone a moment later, she tried to collect her thoughts, and to arrange some plan for her future, but the weight of her mother’s sin was too heavy upon her, and she seemed alike incapable of thought or action.
“My duty is to obey him, and to so repair the wrong my mother has done him as to win him from his scheme of vengeance,” was the noble thought that came to Iris, even in this hour of her bitter humiliation and pain; and when Broughton—as we will still call the man who had declared his real name to be Carleton Tresilian—returned to the room after dismissing his visitor, Iris, white as the dead, but calm and tearless, met him with words that filled his heart with a thousand varying emotions.
“What can I do to repair the cruel wrong you have suffered at my mother’s hands? I am only a girl, weak and painfully ignorant of the world and its ways; but you say you are my father, and I am ready to obey you—what would you have me do?”
She was standing before him now, with her beautiful white face upturned to him, and her hands clasped tightly before her, showing the strong effort she was making to control her agitation.
If Iris had borne less resemblance to the woman who had wronged him, his heart might have softened to the innocent offspring, but now the girl’s beauty only recalled to mind the tortures her mother had forced him to endure, and he laughed mockingly at her efforts to conciliate him.
“My dear, I know you will obey me, simply for the reason that I shall compel you to do so. I do not intend to ask any great sacrifice at your hands; but before I state what I shall require of you, I want you to tell me why you left the home of your mother’s husband so suddenly, and why you fled from the man who was willing to marry you—the wealthy Chester St. John. I have followed up your history pretty closely since I first looked upon your face in the room occupied by the sewing girl, Jenny Mason, but the cause of your leaving Mr. Hilton’s protection I have not as yet been able to discover. Please tell me the truth of the matter at once.”
“I left Mr. Hilton’s roof immediately upon learning that I had no legal right to the benefits he conferred on me; and as for Mr. St. John—you know that I would not marry him, believing myself the child of a felon!”
“Your home shall be with me for the future—at least until I can find a good husband for you. This is my residence, and as you may observe, it is pretty comfortable. I have no women in the house save one old negress, who attends to the chamber work. All the rest of my servants are males, and colored. I shall teach them to look upon you as their mistress, and I do not think you will find it any trouble to manage them. I receive a great many friends here almost every evening, and I shall expect you to help me entertain them. My friends are gentlemen always, and we employ our time in the enjoyment of a social game of cards. All I shall require of you, Iris, will be to dress handsomely, look your prettiest, and make yourself agreeable to my comrades and friends. Do you understand?”
Iris had listened to his words with a look of intense horror gradually creeping into the blue depths of her wide, dilated eyes.
She did understand his plan, probably more thoroughly than he had intended her to do. She had read repeatedly of the fashionable gambling dens to which men were lured by the beauty of some fair woman who was employed for no other purpose than to tempt them hither.
She faced Charles Broughton suddenly, with a flash of defiance in her great, lustrous eyes.
“I shall not remain in this house; I shall not do what you ask of me. If you were poor—though you were guilty of any sin—I would work for you; yes, beg for you, I think, willingly, but to live in luxury, as a decoy for gamblers, this I cannot and shall not do, nor can you compel me to do so. Let me go away; I ask nothing from you; I never wish to see your face again.”
She made a step toward the door as she ceased speaking, but Broughton placed himself before it, laughing mockingly.
“Not so fast, my dear,” he said, with a sneer. “I have a few words more to say to you, before you take your departure. I shall not try to detain you here by force, but there is one thing I would like you to remember. The day is not far distant when you shall come to me and beg for a shelter under the roof you now despise. Go, now, if you will, but I advise you to think twice before you do so. I am not one to threaten idly, nor to forget a threat once uttered. The offer I first made you is still open to you, and——”
“And I still refuse to accept it as resolutely as before. Let me go from this house, and I can trust my after fate with God. I am not afraid that He will desert me; please stand aside and let me pass.”
“Very well, Miss Iris, have your own way in this matter; but remember my warning,” he said quietly, and then opened the door for her, and even preceded her to the lower hallway, and stood on the steps until she had left the house.
Once in the open air, Iris felt that she could breathe more freely, and a weight seemed lifted off her heart as she turned her steps in the direction of the humble abode in which she occupied a room with Jenny Mason.
At the very moment when Iris was descending the broad stone steps of the house in Lexington Avenue, a limousine was passing the door, and from the window of the vehicle a lady’s face looked out—the face of the rich widow who was Charles Broughton’s affianced wife.
Clara Neville had glanced toward the house occupied by the man she loved with some vague hope of seeing his face near one of the windows, or perhaps fancying that he might recognize her car and come down to speak with her.
There had been a smile on her lips, and a happy expression on her face when she turned toward the window that commanded the best view of Broughton’s residence, but this look had changed with the swiftness of a lightning’s flash to one of the wildest jealousy and intense hatred when her eyes fell upon the figure of Iris descending the steps from his door, and of Broughton himself standing in the doorway, and so intent on watching the girl’s retreating form that he did not once glance toward her car as it passed.
Almost choking with rage the widow pulled the check string and instructed her chauffeur to turn at the corner and keep Iris in sight until she reached her destination, no matter to what part of the city she might lead him.
“All right, ma’am,” the man answered respectfully, and while Iris walked slowly toward the place she called home, there was no voice in her heart to tell her of the woman who followed on her track and was destined to be the most cruel and bitter enemy against whom she would be forced to contend in the new and strange life now opening before her.