Olivia

For all his outward show of composure, he was feeling anything but comfortable, and as he stood with his hand upon the drawing-room door, there was a strange look upon his face, a look that expressed something more than the usual lover’s despondent timidity, something more than the ordinary nervousness; it was rather that of a man who was playing a dangerous and a desperate game, and who stands upon the brink of a precipice, which, lined as it may be with flowers, means, if he should fall, death and destruction.

“The old man was easy,” he muttered, “but it’s different with her. By Heaven, if she knew!”

The thought, whatever it was, seemed to increase his uneasiness, and he wiped the perspiration from his face, which had suddenly grown white under the reflection.

Then he opened the door. Olivia was alone, and seated at the piano, but not playing. Her hands were lying clasped loosely in her lap, her face and her whole attitude expressive of complete abstraction—so complete that she did not hear him open the door, and it was not until he was close beside her and had spoken her name, that she knew he had entered.

“Mr. Bradstone!” she said, with a slight start. “I thought you had gone,” she added, coldly.

The sullen look came into his eyes for a moment.

“No, I ought to have gone; but I have been talking with the squire,” he said.

“Yes?” she said. “Is my father in the library?” and she half arose, a plain intimation that she should, if Mr. Bradstone would leave her free to, join him.

“Yes, he is in the library; but will you wait a minute, Miss Olivia——”

She sank back, and began putting the music together.

“You can’t guess what we have been talking about, I’ll be bound,” he said, with a feeble attempt at a laugh.

Olivia just frowned at him.

“I haven’t any intention of trying,” she said, not insolently, but with an indifference which was sublime. It made Bartley Bradstone wince—simply wince.

“You’d be surprised if I told you it was—you,” he said.

She looked at him now, a look of calm displeasure and incredulity.

“I should, indeed!” she said.

“But we were,” he continued, trying to smile, and leaning on the piano; “we were talking about you, and have been for some time. I—in fact—don’t be startled, don’t be angry—I went to ask him to—to let me—in fact—I’ve told the squire that I love you, Olivia.”

Her face did not change, not a muscle moved. She simply regarded him with cold incredulity, and the amazement which one expresses at the impertinence of an inferior.

“You don’t believe me; but I did. You must know—you must have seen,” he went on, huskily, his hands clasping and unclasping each other, “that—that I loved you. I do love you; I’ve loved you ever since—Olivia, won’t you say a word? Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, don’t stare at me like that! Your father did not treat me like this——”

“My father?” she said, after a pause. “You told my father what you have told me?”

“Yes, I did. I know what’s proper, and I went and told him before I spoke to you. And now, Olivia, now you know, what do you say? Wait a moment. I—I’m afraid I haven’t done the best for myself. I’m—I’m not a lady’s man, and I’ve sprung it upon you too sharply. But it was dangerous, this hanging about and waiting, and—and I got anxious. But you know it now. I’m not a bad sort of fellow, I fancy, and I can offer you——”

She rose from the seat and moved toward the door. He stood in front of her, desperate—imploring.

“Let me pass, please,” she said, quietly.

“Wait, wait!” he exclaimed, huskily. “You’re treating me badly, like the dirt under your feet, by Heaven! This isn’t the way I was treated by your father.”

Olivia stopped and looked at him.

“You are right and I am wrong,” she said. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Bradstone! This is not the way my father would treat you. Whatever he may have felt, he would have behaved with courtesy. Yes, I beg your pardon! You tell me that”—she paused, as if the words cost her an effort—“that you love me, and ask me to be your wife?”

“I do, I do!” he broke in. “I love you to distraction! I haven’t a thought in the world but you! You are just life to me; I swear it! I’ve told the squire what I will do—I’d spend my last penny in making you happy! I’d lay down my life——”

She stopped him with a cold, but queenly gesture.

“Please,” she said, in a low voice, “I am sorry, very sorry, Mr. Bradstone, but it cannot be; I mean that I cannot be your wife.”

“You can’t? You refuse?” he stammered, his small eyes growing red, and an ugly stiffness coming over his mouth.

“I do refuse, as gently, as—as considerately as I can,” said Olivia. “I am grateful to you for the honor——” She stopped. “Oh, let me pass, please, and never, never”—and her dark brows came down straight and majestic as Diana’s—“never speak like this to me again!”

He did not move; but stood regarding her with feverish and sullen resentment.

“That’s not what your father says,” he said.

Olivia looked at him with imperious questioning.

“What do you say?” she said.

“I say that it wasn’t in this way your father heard me,” he answered, sullenly. “He didn’t treat me like this—he consented.”

Her eyes flashed back the retort, and as eloquently as eyes could speak, said: “You lie!”

His face grew red; it had been white a moment ago.

“You don’t believe me?” he said.

“I do not! Let me pass, if you please, Mr. Bradstone.”

“But I say it’s true!” he exclaimed; “I say he consented! He’s ready to accept me for a son-in-law if you’ll say ‘Yes,’ and——” He paused. “I think you will say ‘Yes,’ with all your cursed pride!”

The word slipped from him, and he would have recalled it the moment after he had uttered it.

But its effect upon Olivia was not what he expected.

“You are right, Mr. Bradstone,” she said, quietly; “I am proud, and apt to forget that others have as much pride as I have. I beg your pardon again. You have misunderstood my father; I am sure of that——”

“No, I haven’t,” he put in.

“I know my father,” she said, as quietly as before, “and it is impossible that he should have—have spoken as you say he did. Let there be an end of this. I thank you for the honor—it is an honor for any woman to receive an offer from a man—I thank you, and beg you to believe that it is impossible that I should accept it.”

“Why?” he persisted.

Her lovely eyes rested on him for a moment, then looked aside.

His face went white.

“I understand,” he said, hoarsely, “you—you think I am no more than the dirt under your feet. You think, because I made my own way in the world, and haven’t got an old name or a title, that it’s an insult for me to ask you to be my wife! You wouldn’t treat Lord Bertie or—or that fellow Faradeane like this——”

At Bertie’s name a smile flickered about her lips, but at Faradeane’s a wave of color swept over her face and neck.

“Ah!” he said, with passionate anger. “That’s true, I can see. But let me tell you that I think myself as good as either of them. Stop”—for she had made another attempt to pass him—“as good, and better. Could either of them offer what I do? I’ve just told your father that I’d settle fifty thousand pounds upon you. I tell you now that that’s nothing to me; I didn’t make it more for fear of hurting his feelings; but I tell you I’ll settle a hundred, two hundred thousand——”

She put out her hand.

“Oh, hush!” she said, as if his words covered her with shame. “If it were a million——”

“Oh, I know,” he broke in, huskily; “it’s as he said. You don’t care for money. It’s all the same to you whether a man’s poor or rich; but money’s something. Olivia——”

“I am usually addressed as Miss Olivia Vanley,” said Olivia, flashing down upon him.

He bit his lip.

“I say it’s all the same to you; but it isn’t to him. No! And I’ll bet that before we part to-night you’ll consent, as he did.”

She looked at him, calmly—questioningly. For a moment there arose in her mind the suspicion that he had been drinking, and he read it in her eyes.

“No, I’m not drunk!” he said, bitterly; “I’m only half mad, driven so by your words and looks! And I mean what I say—you will consent, as he did!”

“Consent to marry you!” said Olivia, stung into retort.

“Yes,” he said, sullenly; “for his sake, if not for mine or yours.”

“For his sake—for my father’s?” she said.

He nodded.

“Yes. Look here, Olivia, we’ve been beating about the bush long enough. You’ve treated me like a dog—yes, you have; or like the dirt under your feet. And I don’t deserve it. No, by God! for I spared the old man——”

“You spared——”

“Yes, I did. I could have told him what a cleft stick I’d got him in, but I didn’t; I knew you wouldn’t like it. I knew you’d rather he remained in ignorance till the affair was over.”

“I’m afraid you are wasting your breath, Mr. Bradstone,” said Olivia. “I do not in the least comprehend you——”

“But you will presently,” he said, with a half-cunning, half-furious smile. “Look here; your father, the squire, is, as he put it, a fraud——”

She drew herself up, and sent a lightning shot from her eyes that made him quail.

“Leave the room!” she exclaimed, pointing to the door.

“Stop!” he said. “Wait!” for she had swept, with the dignity of an insulted goddess toward the bell. “So help me Heaven, it is true! He will tell you so himself, if you are foolish enough to ask him. He is a fraud—well, well, he’s a ruined man, then. Up to his neck in debts, the Grange is sunk, the very furniture under a bill of sale; nothing can save him—nothing. He will have to turn out, neck and crop. Turn out! You don’t know what that means. But he does! The day he leaves here a ruined, broken man, dates his death-warrant! It does, by Heaven! and out he goes, unless you accept me, Olivia!”

“Unless—unless——Oh, you are mad!” she panted.

“Am I? No, I’m not. It’s you who are mad—with pride. Do you think I’m an idiot and don’t know what I’m talking about? What I tell you is true; and what is more, I hold your father’s bonds——”

“You——”

“Yes,” and he nodded, with a smile. “I’ve got ’em, one and all. At a word from me, he can be sold up and turned out. A word, a sign, and”—with a sudden, sullen light in his suspicious, restless eyes—“and, by God! I’ll do it if——Look here, it will rest with you! Say you’ll be my wife—by Heaven! I’ll do my best to make you happy—and the day we’re married I’ll put the whole of these bonds and mortgages into your hands—you can light a fire with them. And I’ll do more; I’ll give you twenty thousand pounds—fifty—what do I care! I tell you I’m a millionaire! Money is dirt, stones, dross—you can fling it broadcast, roll in it——”

She stopped him with a gesture, entreating, piteous, desperate.

“Does—does he—my father—know this?” she panted.

He smiled cunningly.

“No,” he said. “No; I knew better than to tell him. I leave it to you to decide whether he goes out of the Grange to die of a broken heart. He doesn’t know it.”

“Thank God!” she cried. “Oh, father, father!” and she sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands.

He stole up to her and ventured—actually dared—to lay his hot hand upon her white arm.

“Hush! hush!” he stammered, “I can hear him coming. Don’t—don’t cry. You can’t help yourself. I’ll—I’ll leave you to think of it. Remember, it’s life or death for him, just that—life or death,” and with a thirsty, wistful look, as if he would have liked to catch her up in his arms, he stole from the room.

As he paused outside the door to gain his breath, a smile of triumph shone on his face, wet with perspiration; then suddenly it changed, and his features were momentarily distorted by an expression of abject fear.

Then he seemed to shake off the emotion, and with a husky laugh, he muttered:

“I’ve got her, and by Heaven, I’ll do it! She’s worth it!”