A Perilous Secret Part 41

"And my house is yours," said Colonel Clifford to Julia. "I did not believe appearances against a Clifford." With these words he took two steps toward his niece and held out his arm. She moved toward him. Percy came forward radiant to congratulate her. She drew up with a look of furious scorn that made him recoil, and she marched proudly away with her uncle. He bestowed one parting glance of contempt upon the discomfited Bartley, and marched his niece proudly off, more determined than ever that she should be his daughter. But for once he was wise enough not to press that topic: he let her indignation work alone.

Moreover, though he was a little wrong-headed and not a little pig-headed, he was a n.o.ble-minded man, and nothing n.o.ble pa.s.sed him un.o.bserved or unappreciated.

"_That_ Bartley's daughter!" said he to Julia. "Ay, when roses spring from dunghills, and eagles are born of sparrow-hawks. Brave girl!--brave girl!"

"Oh, uncle," said Julia, "I am so glad you appreciate her!"

"Appreciate her!" said the Colonel; "what should I be worth if I did not?

Why, these are the women that win Waterloo in the persons of their sons.

That girl could never breed a coward nor a cheat." Then his incisive voice mellowed suddenly. "Poor young thing," said he, with manly emotion, "I saw her come out of that room pale as death to do another woman justice. She's no fool, though that ruffian called her one. She knew what she was doing, yet for all her woman's heart she faced disgrace as unflinchingly as if it was, only death. It was a great action, a n.o.ble action, a just action, and a manly action, but done like a very woman.

Where the two s.e.xes meet like that in one brave deed it's grand. I declare it warms an old soldier's heart, and makes him thank G.o.d there are a few creatures in the world that do humanity honor."

As the Colonel was a man that stuck to a topic when he got upon it, this was the main of his talk all the way to Clifford Hall. He even remarked to his niece that, so far as his observations of the s.e.x extended, great love of justice was not the leading feature of the female mind; other virtues he ventured to think were more prominent.

"So everybody says," was Julia's admission.

"Everybody is right for once," said the Colonel.

They entered the house together, and Miss Clifford went up to her room; there she put on a new bonnet and a lovely shawl, recently imported from Paris. Who could this be for? She sauntered upon the lawn till she found herself somehow near the outward boundary, where there was a gate leading into the Park. As she walked to and fro by this gate she observed, out of the tail of her eye of course, the figure of a devoted lover creeping toward her. Whether this took her by surprise, or whether the lovely creature was playing the part of a beautiful striped spider waiting for her fly, the reader must judge for himself.

Percy came to the gate; she walked past him twice, coming and going with her eyes fixed upon vacancy. She pa.s.sed him a third time. He murmured in a pleading voice,

"Julia!"

She neither saw nor heard, so attractive had the distant horizon become.

Percy opened the gate and came inside, and stood before her the next time she pa.s.sed. She started with _surprise_.

"What do you want here?" said she.

"To speak to you."

"How dare you speak to me after your vile suspicions?"

"Well, but, Julia--"

"How dare you call me Julia?"

"Well, Miss Clifford, won't you even hear me?"

"Not a word. It's through you poor dear Mary and I have both been insulted by that wretch of a father of hers."

"Which father?"

"I said wretch. To whom does that term apply except to Mr. Bartley, and"

(with sudden vigor) "to you."

"Then you think I am as bad as old Bartley," said Percy, firing up.

"No, I don't."

"Ah," said Percy, glad to find there was a limit.

But Julia explained: "I think you are a great deal worse. You pretend to love me, and yet without the slightest reason you doubt me."

"What did I doubt? I thought you had parted with my bracelet to another person, and so you had. I never doubted your honor."

"Oh yes, you did; I saw your face."

"I am not r--r--responsible for my face."

"Yes, you are; you had no business to look broken-hearted, and miserable, and distrustful, and abominable. It was your business, face and all, to distrust appearances, and not me."

"Ap--pear--ances were so strong that not to look m--miserable would have been to seem indifferent; there is no love where there is no jealousy."

"Oh," said Julia, "he has let that out at last, after denying it a hundred times. Now I say there is no true love without respect and confidence, and this doesn't exist where there is jealousy, and all about a trumpery bracelet."

"Anything but tr--ump--ump--umpery; it came down from my ancestors."

"You never had any; your behavior shows that."

"I tell you it is an heirloom. It was given to my mother by--"

"Oh, we know all about that," said Julia. "'This bracelet did an Egyptian to my mother give.' But you are not going to play Oth.e.l.lo with me."

"I shouldn't have a very gentle Desdemona."

"No, you wouldn't, candidly. No man shall ever bully and insult me, and then wake me out of my first sleep to smother me because my maid has lost one of his handkerchiefs at the wash."

He burst out laughing at this, and tried to inveigle her into good-humor.

"Say no more about it," said he, "and I'll forgive you."

"Forgive me, you little wretch!" cried Julia. "Why, haven't you the sense to see that it is serious this time, and my patience is exhausted, and that our engagement is broken off, and I never mean to see you again--except when you come to my wedding?"

"Your wedding!" cried Percy, turning pale. "With whom?"

"That's my business; you leave that to me, sir. Hold out your hand--both hands; here is the ancestral bracelet--it shall pinch me no longer, neither my wrist nor my heart; here's the brooch you gave me--I won't be pinned to it any longer, nor to you neither; and there is your bunch of charms; and there is your bundle of love-letters--stupid ones they are;"

and she crammed all the aforesaid treasures into his hands one after the other. So this was what she went to her room for.

Percy looked down on his handful ruefully. "My very letters! There was no jealousy in them; they were full of earnest love."

"Fuller of bad spelling," said the relentless girl. Then she went into details: "You spell abominable with two m's--and that's abominable; you spell ridiculous with a k--and that's rid.i.c.klous. So after this don't you presume to speak to me, for I shall never speak to you again."

"Very well, then," said Percy. "I, too, will be silent forever."

"Oh, I dare say," said Julia; "a chatter-box like you."

"Even chatter-boxes are silent in the grave," suggested Percy; "and if we are to part like this forever to-day, to-morrow I shall be no more."