Out of the Primitive Part 57

"So you left him--alone--for mamma and that despicable creature to do their worst!"

"Miss Dolores, I--I beg your pardon, but I quite fail to take you. If anything has happened to Tom--"

"Regrets! What's the good of them, when it's too late?"

"Too late? Surely you cannot mean that he--?"

"Yes, the worst, the very worst,--and that miserable, detestable creature knew it when he offered him the wine. I believe he brought it in deliberately to tempt him."

"Wine? He drank! How long ago? Where is he now? I must try to check him."

"If only you could! But it's too late. He went off with Laffie."

"Not too late! The craving has been checked once--I've seen it done."

"But this time it's not the craving."

"How's that?"

"It's because he was driven desperate. He took it deliberately--intentionally."

"Impossible! Tom would never--"

"He would! He did! I saw him. But don't you blame him. She's the one.

How could he know better, in his condition?--utterly tired out! She drove him to it, I tell you."

"She--Genevieve? I a.s.sure you--"

"No, no! mamma, of course! She told him a pack of lies--took away all his hope. She made him think that Vievie had never really loved him."

"Impossible!--unless your mother herself believes it."

"Oh, she believes it--or thinks she does. She's so anxious--so anxious!" The girl sprang up and stamped her foot. "Oh! I wish she and her meddling were in Hades!"

"My dear Miss Dolores!" protested Lord James, tugging nervously at his mustache.

She whirled upon him in hysterical fury. "Don't you call me that! Don't you dare call me that! I won't have it! I won't! I'm not your dear! I tell you--"

His look of blank astonishment checked her in the midst.

"I--I--I didn't mean--" she gasped. "Oh! what must you think of me!"

She turned from him, her face scarlet with shame. But in the same instant she remembered Blake, and forgot herself in the disaster to him.

"How selfish of me, when he--Poor Mr. Blake! What can be done? We must do something--at once!"

"If anything can be done!" said Lord James in a hopeless tone. "You say he took it deliberately?"

"Yes. Can't you see? Mamma had stuffed him with a lot of rot about grat.i.tude--about Vievie sacrificing herself to him on account of grat.i.tude. It's easy enough to guess mamma's little game. Oh! it's simply terrible! Of course he believed it, and of course he planned at once to go away--that's the kind of man he is! He planned to go away--run off--so that Vievie couldn't sacrifice herself."

"My word!"

"And just then Laffie Ashton came back with the wine. I believe he did it a-purpose--that he _wanted_ to get Mr. Blake intoxicated!"

"The unmitigated cad! Yet why should he? It seems impossible that any man--"

"How should I know? He's vicious enough to do _anything_. But what does that matter? It's Mr. Blake. Can't you see why he took it? He was getting himself out of the way. I didn't understand then what he said--about the bad place being nearer than Alaska--but now I do. What he was determined to do was to get himself out of Vievie's way for good. The quickest that he could do it was to start drinking--go on a spree."

"Gad!"

"And now you stand here like a dummy, when there's a way to save him."

"Yes, yes! I'll go after him!" He started alertly toward the door.

She sprang before him, "No! What good would that do? You know he's set on saving Vievie. He'll not listen to you."

"Gad! That's true. He's hard enough to handle, at best. With this added--Yet I cannot but make the effort. I'll phone Mr. Griffith."

"Griffith? What's the use of wasting time? There's just one person who can save him, and you know it."

"No, unless Griffith--"

"Are you absolutely stupid? Can't you see? It's Vievie alone who--"

"Genevieve!"

"Now's the time for her to do something. She must prove her love. That alone can stop him."

"If she does love him."

"Can you doubt it?"

"She has doubted it."

"She may think she does. But it's all due to mamma's knocking and suggesting. Vievie loves him as much as he loves her. Needn't tell me!

I know all about it. She made him fail--the time you took him up to Michamac. This time it's all mamma's fault. Vievie has got to save him!"

"Most a.s.suredly it is hopeless unless she--"

"That's no reason for you to stand here gawking! You've got to go and tell her. She wouldn't listen to me; but you're a man and his friend.

You can make her see the injustice of it all. She's to blame as much as mamma. This never would have happened if it hadn't been for her s.h.i.+llyshallying."

Lord James paused before replying, his clear gray eyes dark with doubt and indecision.

"My word!" he murmured. "Could I but feel certain--This second failure, in so short a time! There is _her_ future to be considered, as well."

"Her future as Countess of Avondale!" scoffed the girl.

"No, I a.s.sure you, no!" he insisted. "Can you believe I could be so low?--and at such a time as this! It was of the consequences to her as well as to him--He has failed again. Can he ever win out, even should he have her aid?"