Those Dale Girls Part 22

"I couldn't, Bridget, not even to please you," and checked her inclination to smile at the vicious manner in which Bridget got out a s.h.i.+rt-waist and jabbed in the studs and cuff-b.u.t.tons.

Immensely refreshed by her nap she went down the hall with a light heart and entered the little sitting-room to be greeted by a stranger who eagerly seized both her hands and cried:

"Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, this is indeed a joy to find you!"

At the sound of his voice she trembled from head to foot and endeavored to withdraw her hands but he held them in a firm clasp and led her over to the window.

"I want the light to s.h.i.+ne on your face, Mademoiselle, as it did in sunny California. Am I too bold-have I startled you?"

Still she did not speak and he dropped her hands as moving back a little he said penitently, "Forgive me, I am rough and have frightened you. May I sit down, Mademoiselle?"

She dropped into the nearest chair and waved him to another as she said: "I did not expect you here, Monsieur Gremond."

"Not expect me! Did you not know I was in Radnor?"

"Oh! yes," laughing a little for she was beginning to recover herself, "but the two are not synonymous."

"You are jesting, Mademoiselle. Surely you know-you must know that only one thing would bring me to this country as soon as I came out of the wilderness." There was a world of meaning in his eyes, but Julie chose to ignore it.

"Your friends.h.i.+p with Mr. Renshawe has been of long standing, has it not?" she asked evasively.

"Oh! Mademoiselle Julie, it was not Renshawe-do not hold me aloof-have you forgotten the dear old California days?"

"One might have been led to suppose you had," she said quietly, "you disappeared so suddenly and-"

"But I wrote," he interrupted, "and though you never replied I meant always to return when I had accomplished something. Did you not feel that instinctively, Mademoiselle? Many things have happened to me since then and to you, also, your guardian said."

"My guardian?" she repeated. "Do you mean Dr. Ware?"

"He gave me permission to call and said you might have many things to say to me," looking at her rather perplexedly. "Will you tell me all about it, Mademoiselle?"

"Tell you," she cried springing up and confronting him, "tell you as if it were a book I were reading all the sorrow and wretchedness and misery of these past eight months! No, a thousand times no! It would not interest you!" She threw back her head defiantly. "Why," she demanded fiercely, "did you find us out? We have no part in the world to which you belong! Could you not know that to see you would bring back the past, intensify the contrast between then and now-hurt us like the thrust of a sword? Oh! how could you come?"

"I came because I-" and then breaking off suddenly he said gravely, "If you think your affairs are of no interest to me you would perhaps prefer that I ask no questions, even though I do not understand."

"Oh! I did not mean to be rude," she exclaimed, her burst of resentment over, "how could you understand and how can I explain? Dear Daddy is enduring a living death-everything is changed-we are professional caterers-working women-you will not begin to comprehend that and no doubt it shocks you. The dignity of labor is not a popular theme on the other side!"

"Mademoiselle, have you only unkind things to say to me-me, who would have given my life to have averted them or helped you through all this?

You do not seem to comprehend that I love you-love you-have journeyed out to Los Angeles and back to find you and now,"-he drew in his breath, "ah! now I never mean to let you go." He took a step toward her but she eluded him, standing well back in the room where he could not see how her lips trembled as she said:

"You must not talk to me like this; I-I cannot bear it. I am all unstrung to-day and you startle me with your calm air of taking things for granted."

"Do I, cherie?" tenderly. "But you see I love you and you are going to love me, too."

"No," she replied, drawing still further back, "no, Monsieur Gremond, I am not."

Something unflinching about the girl's quiet tone made the man say beseechingly, "Ah! Mademoiselle Julie, do not kill me!"

"Kill you? You never thought whether you would kill me or not, did you, when you almost taught me to love you in those old days and then rode away? Many a man does that, expecting a girl to take everything for granted and receive him with open arms when he returns. And many a girl waits and waits, eating her heart out meanwhile. But I am not that kind, Monsieur!"

"Oh, Mademoiselle!"

"I was very fond of you-so fond that when I knew you were in town I wondered whether I cared to see you-wondered whether I would have loved you had you loved me and last night I thought perhaps I should see you at the Wares'; but we did not go, and now you come to me and at the first sight of you I know it is not love-could never have been love under any circ.u.mstances!"

"Are you sure you know what love is, Mademoiselle?" and seeing the color spread in a crimson wave over her face he cried, "Some one has stolen you away from me! Tell me, is it not true?"

"What right have you to ask questions?" she demanded, angered by his a.s.sumption of authority. And then more quietly, "We must not quarrel, Monsieur, we have been altogether too good friends for that. I want to tell you that we are interested in your explorations and how proud we are to know that so many of your plans have been accomplished."

"It is nothing to me now."

"Fie, Monsieur! Are you going to cry baby because you can't have the world all your way?"

"You are all my world."

Julie had heard this from other men under similar conditions, and though she believed his disappointment to be genuinely bitter she knew that life could still hold out some hope even in the face of unrequited love.

But how make him see it her way? In a moment she said:

"I am only a girl, Monsieur Gremond, but I think you want me to respect you, don't you, and I certainly shall not be apt to if you are going to be vanquished right before my very eyes."

"What a strange girl you are, Mademoiselle," he said, roused to a critical survey of her. "Most girls like their lovers to be inconsolable, but you threaten me with everlasting disgrace for refusing to be consoled. I don't understand it."

"No, you would not understand me, ever," said Julie cheerfully, glad to have roused him at last. "You must go back to France and marry some nice sweet little thing who will perfectly adore you and you'll be 'happy ever after,' as the story books say."

"I wish you would not dispose of me in such an off-hand fas.h.i.+on,"

aggrievedly. "I am tempted to kidnap you and carry you off this moment to the steamer. She sails in the morning. Oh! couldn't you do it, _ma pet.i.te_?"

The vehemence of his tone really startled Julie who laughed to herself afterward as she remembered how she had shrank back in her corner as if she expected him to s.n.a.t.c.h her up bodily.

"Leave Hester," she cried aghast, "and Daddy and Bridget-and Peter Snooks and-and every-body to go away with you? Monsieur Gremond, you must be mad."

"Then you do not know what love is." He rose and came over to her. "Will you put your hands in mine, Mademoiselle? I am going-good-by. I suppose I have been a selfish brute to dwell altogether on my own troubles and not sympathize with yours, but the truth is I am knocked out. I undoubtedly, as you say, took too much for granted."

"Do not put us out of your life altogether," said Julie gently. "Some day perhaps you will really care for my interest and respect and all the things I would gladly give you if you would have them."

"If you put it that way, perhaps-but it seems to me there is only one thing," he said disconsolately.

"Then you are not half the man I take you to be!"

"I will be," a.s.serted Gremond, his better nature responding to this rebuke. "It is good at least to have been with you. Good-by, Mademoiselle, good-by."

For some time after he had gone Julie sat with closed lids trying to forget the last look of his eyes into hers, so persistently did it haunt her; but within her heart surged a feeling of grat.i.tude that there is an all-wise Providence who shapes our ends.

CHAPTER XVII

Madame Grundy was saying that winter that at last Kenneth Landor had settled down, though why he should take the trouble to burden himself with business cares when he had a rich, indulgent father was, from her point of view, wholly incomprehensible. Other people who knew Kenneth better saw that his life had become full of purpose and regarded it as the natural outcome of a nature like his-rich in possibilities. To the father who was just learning to know the son, there was much that was surprising in the intelligent way in which he grasped the great commission business and little by little made himself familiar with every detail, showing that in his composition was much practical ability-talents unquestionably inherited. Of any ulterior motive which had led him on to these things Mr. Landor had no suspicion nor indeed had any one save Dr. Ware, who kept his own counsel, and possibly Jack, whose fanciful imagination wove endless romances, the thread of which became wretchedly entangled, for what could a poor boy do with two heroines to one hero?